So many crises, and so many charities to deal with them. Donor confusion has been increasing, which is why eight New Zealand-based organisations have linked up to cut administration costs and get the money to where it's needed most.

The cost of living crisis hasn't hit charitable institutions as much as increasing scepticism from potential donors as to how their money is being used. A new charity umbrella group hopes to help change that.

The Royal Palace in Nuku'alofa, Tonga, damaged and blanketed in ash from the tsunami that followed the eruption of the Tonga Hunga-Tonga Ha'apai volcano on January 15, 2022.

When crisis, deprivation and sickness strike.

That's when we need charitable organisations to help bail us out.

But while it's normally the targets of the charity dollar who are struggling, the charities themselves have also faced their fair share of challenges in recent years. Firstly, there was Covid, and now questions are being raised about where the money is actually going.

In today's episode of The Detail we discuss a new group of eight New Zealand-based humanitarian charities that are changing the way they raise and spend funds to help ease the public's weariness.

Paul Brown is the brains behind Emergency Alliance, that umbrella agency. He tells Wilhelmina Shrimpton the idea is that in times of crisis they can pool resources, and reduce administration costs - meaning more of every dollar donated reaches the frontline.

" we had behaviours that probably weren't that constructive. The more noise we made, we convinced ourselves the more money we'd raise. What ensued then was it was a race to the bottom to see who could spend the most money to raise the most money."

"The public were getting quite tired of this, and saying, 'why don't you put your energies towards the emergency, rather than trying to attract eyeballs on TV or listeners or advertise online?'"

Brown says the Alliance will go a long way towards achieving that.

"We make it easy. We say that when you give to us, a couple of things: we decide where it goes best, based on the agencies who are responding in that region. Secondly, we won't pester you again. So we only ask for money around significant emergencies. We won't ring you up and say, 'thanks for the donations, can you give us some more?'"

It also means that during a disaster appeal, instead of eight campaigns and eight lots of advertising costs, there's just one. …

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details