Community

For many New Zealanders who have reached retirement age, the public superannuation scheme funds their retirement. But for the over-65s lucky enough not to need the extra money, Share My Super allows some or all of that payment to be redirected towards those who do. And CEO Lorraine Taylor is hoping a new partnership with Forsyth Barr will expand the scheme and eventually help more underprivileged children.

Taylor, who spent 15 years as the CEO of Variety - the Children’s Charity before joining Share My Super in early 2020, says the creation of Share My Super started when founder Liz Greive turned 65.

“Liz was eligible for super and was in a fortunate position where she was financially comfortable and knew that it would make no difference to her life. Instead she wanted to re-gift the money to a family where it would make a difference.”

She thought it was likely there were others in a similar situation to her own, so three years ago, set up Share My Super, a charity that helps older people who live a comfortable life and who don’t need all their pension, to donate it to vetted organisations helping children in poverty. She is able to fund 100% of the operational expenses of Share My Super so everything donated goes to help children. 

Share My Super partners with 11 different charities working across the child poverty spectrum. At one end are organisations like KidsCan, which provides basic essentials such as clothing and food to help remove the barriers to children fully participating in education; through to organisations like First Foundation, which offers scholarships, mentoring and work experience to talented young people whose financial situation makes it harder to attend tertiary education; and at the other end of the spectrum: Child Poverty Action Group, which produces evidence about the causes and effects of poverty and lobbies the Government in pursuit of systemic change.

A simple process

Flexibility and ease are also big drawcards of Share My Super, she says. Donors can give some or all of their donation to one charity, or split it among a few of them, so it’s a “great way to support multiple organisations”.

“It’s easy, because donors can support our partners yet have just one connection with Share My Super. We update donors every six months on the impact of their donation and provide a consolidated tax receipt at the beginning of April, so donors are not inundated with correspondence.”

Since Taylor joined around three years ago, Share My Super has raised more than $1.3 million for 11 of New Zealand’s most impactful and outstanding organisations – Ako Mātātupu: Teach First NZ, Digital Future Aoteaora, KidsCan, First Foundation, Pillars, Wellington City Mission, Te Pā, Women’s Refuge, Hillary Outdoors, Variety and Child Poverty Action Group. 

“We’re still small, but there’s growing interest from the Super community in our mission.”

An opportunity for many New Zealanders

Taylor says some of the 880,000 people receiving a pension won’t need it for themselves. They might be still working, they might have been fortunate enough to accumulate wealth so they have something to spare. 

That’s why Forsyth Barr is such a good partner, she says, because many of their clients find themselves in a fortunate position of being eligible for Superannuation, but in a secure financial position that means they don’t need the money.

The partnership is in its early days, she says, but it is helping to grow awareness of Share My Super and provide Forsyth Barr clients with an easy way to incorporate charitable giving into broader investment planning.

“A key challenge many clients face is selecting and vetting the charities they may contribute to, and managing the administration involved in contributing to multiple charities,” says Hamish Pringle, Forsyth Barr Regional Manager. “Share My Super provides a solution to both these issues. Our partnership helps to streamline the process of giving while providing confidence that the donations made will make maximum impact.”

Supporting what matters to you

Taylor has plenty of examples of over-65s giving what they can, to causes they believe in.

“Our partners deliver a variety of services and programmes which means donations can be tailored to the donor’s areas of interest. Oftentimes donors support organisations they have engaged with in the past, or seen first-hand the benefit of their work.”

She points to a retired teacher who worked in low decile schools and taught a number of children whose parents were in prison. She now donates to Pillars, a charity supporting the children and whānau of people in prison to create positive futures for themselves, and Te Pā, which works with young people who are either in the justice system, or on a path to prison to try and keep them out.

Taylor believes that Share My Super provides a platform for the most fortunate in society to do what they can to reduce the growing wealth divide so we can create a fairer society for all New Zealand children. Helping young people in poverty has never been more urgent, with the latest Government figures showing progress on reducing poverty has slowed to a standstill in the last couple of years.

“For people of my generation, we were fortunate to grow up in a time where education, including tertiary studies, was free and the dream of home ownership was within our grasp. However, for many in our society today just making ends meet is a daily challenge.”

To find our more, visit www.sharemysuper.org.nz