New Zealand has one of the highest youth suicide rates in the OECD. This is a public health crisis with community consequences — and it is an area where well-designed grantmaking can genuinely save lives. Funders who work in suicide prevention, crisis support, and mental health wellbeing carry particular responsibility: the evidence base for what works matters more here than in most grantmaking contexts, and both over-promising and under-delivering have consequences.
Government funding for suicide prevention is primarily administered through Health New Zealand (Te Whatu Ora) and the Ministry of Social Development. The government's Suicide Prevention Action Plan guides investment in clinical services, safe messaging, data systems, and community-based prevention.
Te Rau Ora is the government-funded entity specifically focused on Māori wellbeing and suicide prevention, reflecting the disproportionate impact on Māori communities.
Community trusts and gaming trusts fund a wide range of community-based mental health and wellbeing programmes — befriending services, community support workers, peer support, and community events. Many trust guidelines explicitly include mental health and suicide prevention as priority areas.
Mental Health Foundation of New Zealand operates as both a funder and an advocacy/service organisation in this space.
Private philanthropy has been slow to engage with suicide prevention specifically, partly due to discomfort with the topic and partly due to the complexity of the evidence base.
The evidence on suicide prevention is clearer than in many areas of community funding. The Zero Suicide framework, the World Health Organization's guidance, and New Zealand's own evaluation evidence point to several evidence-based approaches:
Means restriction. Reducing access to means of suicide — particularly medication, firearms, and jumping sites — is one of the most effective prevention interventions. Funding for medication packaging changes, firearms storage, bridge barriers, and safe storage education has direct impact.
Safe messaging and media. Training media organisations, schools, and community leaders in safe messaging about suicide reduces contagion effects. This is a well-evidenced, cost-effective intervention.
Crisis support and access to care. Crisis line services, mental health urgent care pathways, and emergency department mental health support reduce suicidal crises. Funding for after-hours crisis support fills significant gaps in the public system.
Community connectedness. Social isolation is a significant risk factor. Community programmes that reduce isolation — befriending, peer support, men's sheds, community events — contribute to suicide prevention as a protective factor intervention.
Gatekeeper training. Training community members, teachers, GP receptionists, and others to recognise warning signs and respond effectively extends prevention capacity into communities.
Targeted programmes for high-risk groups. Young Māori, rainbow youth, farmers, and other high-risk groups benefit from targeted, culturally appropriate programmes. Generic approaches don't reach high-risk groups effectively.
Postvention. Supporting communities after a suicide (or cluster) is important for preventing further deaths. Coordinated community postvention, particularly in schools and rural communities, requires funded professional coordination.
Awareness campaigns without action pathways. General awareness of mental health issues, without clear pathways to support, can inadvertently increase distress without reducing risk. Funding awareness-only campaigns in the absence of crisis support infrastructure is low-value.
Approaches that violate safe messaging guidelines. Some community programmes, despite good intentions, describe suicide methods or present suicide as a response to bullying or social pressure in ways that increase contagion risk. Funders should check that applicants are familiar with and committed to safe messaging guidelines (available from the Mental Health Foundation and WHO).
Romanticised approaches to lived experience. Lived experience of suicide attempt or ideation is valuable in programme design and delivery. But programmes that place people with unresolved lived experience in front of young people, without appropriate support structures, can be harmful. Good programmes are careful about how lived experience is incorporated.
Projects that promise too much. Suicide prevention is complex. Programmes that claim to "eliminate" youth suicide or make unsustainably broad impact claims should be approached with caution.
Evidence base. Is the approach being funded evidence-based or evidence-informed? Does the applicant demonstrate familiarity with the evidence on what works in suicide prevention?
Safe messaging compliance. Does the programme follow safe messaging guidelines? Are staff trained in these guidelines?
Coordination with clinical services. Is the programme coordinated with clinical mental health services? Who does the programme refer to in a crisis? Is there a clear pathway to professional support?
Cultural appropriateness. For programmes serving Māori and Pacific communities, is the approach designed with and for those communities? Is there appropriate cultural leadership and oversight?
Lived experience involvement. Is lived experience incorporated appropriately — with support structures and supervision — rather than tokenistically or potentially harmfully?
Suicide safer practice. Do programme staff have appropriate training in suicide safer practice?
Outcome reporting in suicide prevention is genuinely difficult — suicide rates are low-frequency events that require population-level data and long timeframes to measure. Funders should expect:
Process and reach outcomes: Training sessions delivered, participants reached, crisis calls responded to, referrals made.
Intermediate outcomes: Changes in knowledge, attitudes, and intended behaviour — particularly for gatekeeper training programmes.
Wellbeing outcomes: Where appropriate, validated wellbeing measures (such as the Kessler-10 or the WHO Wellbeing Index) before and after programme participation.
Qualitative evidence: Stories from participants, carers, and community members about the programme's impact — within safe messaging guidelines.
Not counting lives saved. Attribution of suicide prevention to a specific grant programme is almost never defensible methodologically. Funders should not require applicants to claim they "prevented" specific numbers of suicides.
Tahua supports health funders, community trusts, and suicide prevention organisations with grant management tools designed for the complexity of this sector — including programme monitoring, referral tracking, and multi-stakeholder reporting.