What the 2026 data shows
In September, JBWere and the University of Waikato published The Economic Value of the Sector. It is the first proper update to our sector's numbers since the Stats NZ account built on 2018 data. It puts the sector at $19.1 billion of GDP, or $25.8 billion once volunteer work is counted. That is 5.7% of GDP, about the same as financial and insurance services and more than agriculture, forestry and fishing. The report counts around 119,400 organisations, $40.5 billion of revenue and 231,000 paid staff, which is one in every thirteen New Zealanders in work.
Those figures are useful for advocacy. The finding that matters for mergers sits underneath them. Since 2013 the sector's revenue has grown by about 204%, its spending by about the same, its contribution to GDP by 208% and its paid staff by 69%. Over the same period the number of organisations grew by 4.7%.
New Zealand for-purpose sector, change 2013 to 2026
The report says more work is being carried by much the same number of organisations, with parts of the sector getting stronger while smaller providers come under pressure. My reading is blunter. Consolidation has already happened here. It happened to the money rather than to the organisations, which is why it has been easy to miss.
One warning, and readers should hold me to it. JBWere widened the definition of the sector to take in iwi and hapū entities, post-settlement governance entities, tertiary institutions, B Corporations and social enterprises. The report says that change on its own lifts the GDP figure by about half, and its own range for direct GDP runs from $13.6 billion to $24.6 billion. These growth numbers are not a clean run of like-for-like data and should not be used as one. The overall direction is sound.
A correction on the New Zealand register
Last year I looked at the Charities Register, saw deregistrations rising towards the level of new registrations, and said net growth was slowing. On the official figures that was wrong. In the 2024/25 financial year 1,288 organisations were registered and 890 were removed, a net gain of 398. My figures were calendar years and these are financial years, so it is not apples with apples. Then in April every incorporated society had to re-register under the Incorporated Societies Act 2022 by 5 April 2026 or stop existing:
The Minister refused to extend the deadline, and anything that had not re-registered, appointed a liquidator or applied to wind up was removed on the day. This was the biggest piece of structural change our sector has been through in years, and almost nobody called it consolidation. It was not a wave of mergers. It was a wave of quiet exits and rewrites, driven by a compliance deadline rather than by choice. The 640 organisations that moved to a different structure are the interesting group, and nobody is tracking where they went.
The register figures I reported all pre-date April. Net growth may well slow from here. If it does, it will be because of a law change rather than because boards decided to combine.
The United Kingdom and Australia have moved further
In the United Kingdom the twelfth Good Merger Index, published in March, counted 94 mergers involving 183 charities in the year to April 2025. That is up 49% on the year before and the highest in the index's twelve years, with the combined income of those organisations rising 111% to £2.18 billion. The part worth noting is who is merging. Eighty-eight organisations with income under £1 million took part, up from 65. Eastside People describe small charities looking for safe harbour inside bigger ones, and takeovers are still the most common form. Small organisations there are not only merging when the money runs out. More of them are choosing to combine while they still have something to bring.
Australia has gone further again. The Australian Institute of Company Directors found one in five not-for-profits expected merger talks within a year, and a Pitcher Partners survey found 71% had considered a merger or acquisition, up from 15% in 2022. From 1 January this year Australia's mandatory merger rules apply to not-for-profits, so a large charity merger can now need ACCC approval before it completes. Australia has gone from talking about consolidation to regulating it. We have neither the volume nor the rules, and we still do not count our mergers at all.
What the merger case actually rests on
Last year I put shared back offices and shared systems near the front of the case for merging. The JBWere spending figures have changed my view. On the 2018 numbers, buying goods and services made up 49.8% of what the sector spends and staff pay another 40.5%. About 90% of the money goes on delivery and on people, so admin is not where the money sits. A merger case built on audit fees and one finance system will not survive a good board or a serious due diligence process.
The case that does hold is capability. Bigger and longer contracts need the ability to show results in the form a funder will accept, to carry compliance without it eating into frontline work, and to take a bad year without cutting services. That is a stronger argument than saving money, and it is what the funding environment actually rewards.
Two other signals point the same way. Volunteer numbers are down about 24% since 2013 while volunteer hours are up about 5%, so fewer people are doing the same work. For organisations that rely on volunteers that is a governance risk rather than a workforce statistic, and it is arriving at the same time as tighter contracts and heavier reporting. Between 2013 and 2018 the parts of the sector that grew were international work, grant making, advocacy and environment, while health, social services, and development and housing all shrank. Those are the contracted delivery areas, and I expect combinations to show up there first.
A distinction that matters
The JBWere report now counts iwi and hapū entities and post-settlement governance entities inside the sector. That is right, and it makes the merger conversation more complicated than the numbers suggest. An entity holding settlement assets and exercising mana motuhake is not a merger candidate the way a charity is. What works there is different, and includes shared services, joint commissioning vehicles, alliances and relationships that build scale without asking anyone to give up identity or rangatiratanga. Bringing UK merger practice into that setting without understanding it would do real harm.
What boards should be asking
The questions I would put to a board this year are tighter than last year's, because the evidence is better.
· If money is concentrating in our part of the sector, do we know whether we are getting our share, or are we guessing?
· Can we show our results in the funder's format rather than our own?
· Have we tested every option, from staying as we are, through partnership, to a full merger?
· If we are the smaller party, are we starting the conversation early, while we still bring something to it?
The last one is the question boards avoid. The UK figures suggest it is the one that counts. The small organisations that have combined well are the ones that moved before they had to.
Where this leaves us
Since 2013 our sector's revenue has roughly tripled while the number of organisations has barely moved. The average organisation is now handling far more money, more contracts and more compliance than it was a decade ago. Paid staff have grown by 69%, nowhere near enough to match that, and volunteer numbers have fallen 24% even as volunteer hours rose. So the extra work is landing on the same people. In my experience it is also landing on boards that were never rebuilt for the size the organisation has become.
April showed us the other way the gap can close, which is organisations quietly disappearing. Merging is one answer, but what is no longer an option is doing nothing and assuming things stay as they are. We still do not count our mergers. The UK publishes its numbers every year and it has made the conversation there far better. We should do the same, and Tribe will keep pushing for it.
David Hammond is Head of Consulting & Public Sectors with Tribe Executive. For a conversation on for-purpose board or executive consulting, strategic positioning, or getting the right leadership in place for an M&A future, contact him at david@tribegroup.com or +64 27 444 6368.
Sources: JBWere & University of Waikato, The Economic Value of the Sector (September 2026); Eastside People, Good Merger Index, twelfth edition (March 2026); Charities Services, MBIE and the Companies Office; RNZ reporting on the Incorporated Societies Act deadline (March 2026); Australian Institute of Company Directors, Not-for-profit Governance and Performance Study 2025-26; Pitcher Partners (2025); Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth) merger control regime, effective 1 January 2026.