Establishing children's book promotion site The Sapling as a charitable trust
Establishing children's book promotion site The Sapling as a charitable trust
The Sapling
Estimated Time: 10 - 15 Hours Over 1 - 4 Weeks
The Sapling (found at www.thesapling.co.nz) is a children's book website that began in 2017, thanks to funding from Creative NZ, and the Copyright Licensing NZ Trust, and the strong support of the children's book industry in New Zealand. We publish 2-3 articles a week, with a mix of reviews, interviews, and essays, reflecting on the vibrant New Zealand children's book industry. A touchstone is coverage of both the New Zealand Children's Book Awards and Te Wiki o te reo Māori, and we publish regularly in te reo Māori, as well as focusing on books that show diverse cultures. We need: - Legal advice on how to become a charitable trust, and help lodging the required items - Business advice on how to set goals for the future of the charity - Marketing advice for how to seek new markets with our website. This will mean we are secure in the future of our website, and opens up opportunities to seek other funding. More info here: https://www.thesapling.co.nz/about
Working location
Proposed project steps with time estimates
We are currently applying for Creative NZ funding towards continuation of this project. We will be advised on 23 June whether we receive it. NB: We have had a break from September last year.
We'd like to go ahead with our plans for becoming a charitable trust regardless.
Throughout: We will identify possible trustees
6 June - Initial meeting with Business development / marketing person, 2 hours - I'm anticipating this to be a one-off
13 June - Initial meeting with legal person, 1 hour
20 June - Second meeting with legal person, 1 hour
Work by the lawyer behind the scenes, 5 hours
27 June - Outcome of funding known, final trust document signed up and lodged, 1-2 hours
We anticipate we will register with Business NZ and so on as part of this process, but would appreciate advice around this.
What We Have In Place
The website www.thesapling.co.nz, and www.thesapling.nz
We have google analytics that we can make available, as well as newsletter open rates and so on.
A paid editorial team: Linda Jane Keegan (lead), Briar Lawry (editor) and Nida Fiazi (editor), plus Hannah Marshall (loading)
A paid group of contributors.
Funding application in train, four years of operational history and strong history of success.
A founding editor, Sarah Forster, who will take lead on making this all work smoothly.
A facebook page with 3,188 followers: https://www.facebook.com/thesaplingnz
A twitter account with 1,657 followers: https://twitter.com/TheSaplingNZ
Good relationships with all New Zealand publishers, and the children's writing industry, including most children's authors and illustrators.
Children