Bucket of Funding – How to Stem the Flow

Today, I thought I’d give you all a lesson on how to over promise and under deliver and do it in a way that your clients, if you are lucky, will be slow enough not to realise for a little while.

Big business can’t work this way, they would be bankrupt. But this is how governments seem to work because ours at least, is not want the bucket of water to empty too quickly.

When I talk about funding for people with disabilities, there is always talk about State V Federal funding and it’s all about a different bucket of funding.

What they promise is a huge bucket of funding, when they start to deliver on what has been promised. Big bucket with a huge hole in the bottom.

Here’s a life lesson by example:

When the NDIS was piloted in a region in every state of Australia, it was out with everyone having an appointment (assessment) with the NDIA directly.

There was not much (if any) information about where the pilot regions would be, because they worried people would move there and flood those areas (causing a false economy etc) No one knew, what they could ask for from the NDIA, as they seemed to be making it up as they went.

Ironically, rumour was it was such a painful process, people were leaving the pilot region (in Victoria, it was down near Geelong) nobody knew how long the pilot program would run or when it would be rolled out in their district.

It way maybe three or four years before it went to phase two (1^st roll out after the pilot) still impossible to get information of what we could get, what it would cover.

We all got the message in the early days not to get reports and supporting letters early, because the NDIA wouldn’t accept anything older than six months.

I digress,

So, when my region was rolled out, the Northern District of Melbourne, there were three large areas rolled out together. It was fucking chaos and this is the important part. This is how to stem the flow, rather than follow the pilot region (why else have a pilot region, I ask?) they outsourced to other agencies and businesses (Not for Profit, NGO’s) who had tendered for the contracts, but it felt like the information was not given in a clear and concise format.

No one was on the same page and it rather seemed untrained and inexperienced staff were only to gather information for someone else to decide.

I know my mum did some training with an agency that I was not allowed to attend (because I was the client) and it was more geared towards the others, carer or family members present whose participant was much higher needs and had the background of having funding. And I found my mum returning all very excited, I could get a FREE COMPUTER.

I sigh! Oh, dear God, what do I need to set her straight on now?

“You can get a free computer from Greenpeace”

What!? Did you hear that too? (I’m asking you, reading this post)

Um, mum that is an NGO to save the whales.

Daughter, ever so ungrateful, poo-pooing on mum’s new found wealth of knowledge.

“Fine, you call Greenpeace and ask for a FREE COMPUTER” on the other hand, “Green PC” was an NGO that would be donated computers, they would upgrade them and then donate them to people who reeked then, or had to buy them for not much at all.

They ceased trading back in (I forgot now, back in 2010?) because they felt every household in Australia had a computer.

I’m wrapping this post up now!

Oh wait, at first there was a rumble about how much the NDIS was costing tax-payers. More obviously, than they had imagined.

Then, they were suggesting they would dip into the NDIS bucket to give to the drought affected farmers, some much needed financial relief.

There was outrage!

Instead, pubs were offering $10.00 Parma and chips or Parma and salad deals and sending/donating the profit to the drought relief. Which is great, farmers are still dealing with drought.

But the lesson here is the government seemed to work out from the pilot region roll out, not what was needed and how to offer a service and deliver in a timely fashion, but how to slow down their money escaping the bucket too quickly.

If our NDIA ran like a business, no one would choose to do business with them or be their customer and here in lies my point. That is the point.

Footnote! The farmers while optimistic, were not at all on board with funds being taken from the disability sector. “For the drought-stricken farmers we pray for rain”.