Over the past few years, the Aunties has grown dramatically in terms of how much money flows through our books and we’ve taken great pride in making sure all the money that is earmarked for the women goes to the women.
When Jackie started the Aunties she did so on a volunteer basis, with a view to moving to full-time work with a salary when it was achievable.
A couple of years ago Jackie took up the role full time and the Aunties has grown from strength to strength, bringing in $441,681 last year in donations and support. But in all that time, Jackie’s salary hasn’t changed a jot, and we don’t think that’s fair either.
It turns out Jackie has been dipping into her retirement savings to pay for all the good work she’s doing, and that has to stop, so in order to be fairer to Jackie and to keep up the good work she’s been doing, we’re going to start paying Jackie back for some of the pastoral care she’s been giving the women.
In addition to her salary, the board intends to pay Jackie a stipend for her time providing the more intensive pastoral care for women she works with, who are in crisis. It's probably far more than the 30 hours per month we can pay her, but it's start, we think you'll agree.
People donate money into two accounts - a general account and a people costs’ account. What that means from now on is that we’ll pay Jackie her salary out of the people costs’ account and her intensive pastoral care out of the general account.
It’s not a huge percentage but we want to be transparent with you all and let you know about this change.
As a board we want to make sure Jackie can carry on doing the fantastic work she does and not have to worry about her retirement. We’ll be exploring new revenue streams to fund both the work we do with the women in our whanau but also to support our people costs.
If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to get in touch: admin@aunties.co.nz is the best address for us.
Signed
The Board