The ‘invisible web’ of community support is unravelling amid funding cuts

Sunday, 19 October 2025

Tim is a young man who has spent the last year or so looking for a job. He’s sent out 200 applications and nabbed three interviews, but no job has emerged as yet.

Despite the soul-crushing nature of searching for a job in the current high unemployment environment, he manages to keep a smile on his face - surely more than many others could manage in his situation. He tells the Sunday Star-Times he’d ideally like to work in a pet shop.

A relatively young man who lives with his mother in Auckland, Tim may not qualify for the JobSeeker thanks to new Government rules kicking in next year. But he does qualify for some help from the system. Anyone over 18, who spends much of their day applying for jobs and is suitably cash-strapped, qualifies for a “Transition to Work” grant of up to $1500 a year to get them suited and booted for entry into the workforce.

If an Auckland-based person qualifies for the grant and identifies as male, they can pop along to the cram-packed premises of Fix Up, Look Sharp in the suburb of Onehunga to have a fitting for formal or semi-formal, smart-looking, mainly second hand clothing with which to pitch up to interviews - shirts, suits if necessary, belts, shoes and anything else that will help make a better first impression.

In all, they get a week’s worth of clothing - “a really good capsule wardrobe that sets them up for a very long time”, founder and director Jane Treseder says.

The tiny organisation also suits up men for court appearances, training programmes or anything else that requires a smart look. It has clothed over 1600 people in the last two years, with clients referred from government agencies, mental health and disability support groups, higher education and other non-profits from all over the region, with new referring agencies signing up with the charity every week.

But this very important work, connecting the unemployed men of Auckland with the chance of a better future, is run part-time and on the smell of an oily rag by Treseder, a new mother, who has just lost all local board funding for her work in the 2026 funding round - the first time local boards have declined to fund it.

Essentially, local boards were asked by Auckland Council to cut $17.6 million in funding this year; they objected and got a stay of execution for the 2025 year, but in 2026 will be asked to slash their budgets again. Non-profit and community leases and rents are no longer a priority for the grants they dispense.

Fix Up Look Sharp more than ever relies on the generosity of its landlord - “he’s been very kind to us and let us roll over our lease for the same amount,” says Treseder. Then there’s the corporate sponsors including apparel and apparel-related companies - those such as Two Dudes, Working Style, Beggs and 3 Wise Men - pitching in with stock.

But the charity, which operates on a budget of about $80,000 - $100,000 a year (a figure that includes Treseder’s pay and rent, as well as buying in shortages in apparel donations) is on its knees, unless it can find a new “major” funder before the end of the year. The director is in the throes of trying to obtain funding from other corporates to maintain the work and is anxiously awaiting news of a Lotteries funding renewal.

People who have never worn cuff links in their lives, or come in without shoes, or just simply can’t believe how well they scrub up, is all part of the rich tapestry of Treseder’s working life, and she is justifiably proud of what she has built, primarily off her own poorly-paid labour.

“I don’t want to sound cheesy, but for me it is all about giving back - and the transformations that we see, the people’s confidence levels … witnessing the experience for this very diverse group of people is a real privilege.”

“There’s nothing like this for guys”

Treseder started the charity in 2014. With a background in high fashion retail - specifically, she used to run a menswear store, World Man on High Street in Auckland - she at some point pivoted to undertaking a social work qualification.

In the course of doing family support work, she took one of her clients, a female, to Dress for Success, which dresses women needing formal wear.

“Myself and other support workers were sitting in the waiting room, and we were looking around and saying to each other, ‘there’s nothing like this for guys’. And I was thinking, ‘I could do this…it’s right up my alley’.”

That was in 2010, but the idea did not flower until Treseder returned from overseas in 2014. She ran a pilot programme, with the help of World, who allowed their former employee to use garments from its sale store, while a barber across the road gave free cuts. The feedback from the initial pilot was sent to the Tindall Foundation, which granted the non-profit set-up funding.

It’s always been a case of stitching together support in whatever form it comes. At first, the charity partnered with groups helping people coming out of prison. Then as local manufacturing slipped away the charity caught a break - the country’s one-time largest suit manufacturer, Cambridge, gave the charity free rent when its manufacturing operation closed and it instead became a major wholesaler.

Coming by clothing is not the most acute problem for Fix Up, Look Sharp - except larger sized suits and formal wear, and shoes, which “fly out the door” (it can’t pay for storage so is constrained in how much clothing it can collect); money is of more import at the moment. The non-profit has done some Givealittle fundraising for small amounts and has just launched a new initiative to local businesses - for a $500 donation, the charity delivers a branded box to a workplace for clothing donations, with recognition of support across its websites and a “low-cost way to engage your staff on an incredible worthy cause.”

In the meantime, there is an anxious wait for news from Lotteries on further funding: “If that doesn’t come through in November, I’m not sure what we will do.”

Meanwhile, the need continues to rise. Every day the charity’s slots are full and Treseder believes she could clothe four times the number of people if she had extra funding for more help.

“The funding pool is getting smaller and smaller, and apparently we have more registered charities per capita than anywhere else in the world … and more are popping up all the time, because there is more need than ever before.”

Wasted opportunities to rescue food waste

Angela Calver, CEO of food rescue service KiwiHarvest, is another running a charity that is seeing reduced funding, particularly from the Government, while food insecurity skyrockets. Statistics vary but a recent survey from the New Zealand Food Network revealed a 42% growth in demand on providers this year.

KiwiHarvest says it is on the verge of having to decline food donations because funders are pulling back as belts tighten, threatening to stymie the massive growth the non-profit has experienced since it was first established in 2012.

The organisation collects quality surplus food from supermarkets, farmers, distributors, and retailers – food that would otherwise go to waste – and delivers it to 235 charities and community groups supporting individuals and families in need. Around half of the haul is fresh fruit and vegetables. Produce is often rejected because it is the wrong size and shape for market while dry goods end up as waste when their packaging contains mistakes, for example.

In 2025 KiwiHarvest rescued over 3 million kilograms of surplus food and redirected it where it was needed. Major contributors include the likes of Woolworths, The Great Dairy Collective, My Food Bag and many others.

But there’s no way in which it can keep up with demand, at present at least. There’s been, for example, a big growth in the number of pensioners needing food: “It breaks my heart to see elderly people, who are really proud, have to admit they can not afford to eat every day,” says Calver.

There is the food to feed many more people, but the resources to get it to the people that need it are lacking. KiwiHarvest, which operates from Auckland (East Tamaki and the North Shore) as well as Dunedin, Queenstown and Invercargill, is on track to rescue 4 million tonnes this year but a funding decrease means it will take a big toll on the organisation: “It’s great news we are going to be able to help more people in this horrible cost of living crisis, but we are going to take a massive loss, and that is not sustainable as a business,” the chief executive says.

She has managed to get the cost of providing food down to 85c a kilo, so just over $2.5 million - one way that’s happened is by forgoing rented premises in Queenstown, where rent is high, and using instead securely looked and hygienic containers on an outdoor facility.

But government funding has reduced from about 40% to 5% of funding (a process that began under the previous Labour Government), while business donors are also cutting their cloth.

“Our sponsors are saying ‘we can't do this any more, everyone's feeling the pinch,” Calver tells the Sunday Star-Times.

Or are they?

But are they? Stats New Zealand reported businesses as earning a $121 billion in pre-tax profits last year, up 15%.

The exact amount of business charitable giving from that haul is hard to parse as it is not recorded in one figure.

But the last business giving figures we have - from 2018 - show that out of profits of $85.6 billion, charitable giving by business amounted to about $143m in cash and $429m in social good initiatives. In other words, if this pattern has held, far less than 1% of profits.

Or as others may have it, sweet Fanny Adams’ worth.

Not only is the percentage likely small, but most charitable giving from companies and individuals alike goes to the big charities - the likes of the Salvation Army, St John, the Cancer Society, Barnardos, and KidsCan.

Small charities doing vital, and yet largely hidden work, do not get their slice of that small pie.

“It'd be great if we could open up the door on some of that business profit to help address these social issues that we have as a country,” says Calver. “Because we manufacture enough food to feed 40 million people in New Zealand - we grow and manufacture really great food.”

KiwiHarvest is now focused on trying to establish regulations that would mandate every company in the food supply chain must deal with a food rescue partner. Calver said such a initiative would make New Zealand a world leader in dealing with excess food, and an emissions-busting pioneer, given how much emissions are released from food waste - primarily methane.

Calver says to get the entire food waste industry working together and rescuing as much food as possible would take a total input of $15 million dollars. Which, in the scheme of things, is not really a lot to ensure people who may not have access to food, particularly in a national cost of living crisis, are fed cheaply and nutritiously.

Instead, the charity is scrabbling for its current funding that is less than a third of that.

“It can be quite stressful, we have a lot of people depending on us,” the chief executive says, about her striving to grow the operation to keep up with demand.

“I fully believe in the work that we're doing, and I think with help from people, we'll get there. I have to believe that, because it's not hard to get behind what we're doing. It makes sense, and I do have hope that common sense will play out.”

Correction: The story has been amended to reflect the fact the JobSeeker benefit will be taken away from 18 and 19 year olds in November next year.