• The Foundation at a glance

The Foundation at a glance

The organisation

Foundation membership: 11,700 approximately
Annual cost of member services: Approximately $26 million
Portfolios: Direct Client Contact Services, Marketing and Fundraising, Strategy, Improvement and Performance, Stakeholder Relations, Access Innovation and Enterprise, and People and Culture
Board members: 10
Staff: 277 full-time equivalent staff in 19 offices nationwide
Community Committees: 33
Member Support Groups: 6
Community Committees: 3
Volunteers: 13,500 volunteers support the Foundation, with 2,200 of those regularly giving their time

Associated consumer organisations

The Association of Blind Citizens of New Zealand Inc 
Blind Sport New Zealand 
Guide Dogs Society NZ Inc 
Ngāti Kāpō o Aotearoa 
NZ VIEW (New Zealand Vision Impaired Empowering Women) 
Parents of Vision Impaired New Zealand (PVI) 
Retina New Zealand Inc 
SEYFF (Support and Education for our Youth, their Families and their Friends)
Deafblind (NZ) Incorporated

Annual appeals

Red Puppy Appeal (April)
Blind Week (October)

Habilitation and Rehabilitation Services

Total service hours for 2008-2009: 55,876. These hours are across Adaptive Daily Living, Orientation and Mobility, Recreation and Service Coordination.
Total Children Services hours for 2008-2009: 28,648. These hours are across Child and Family Social Workers, Counseling, Developmental Adaptive Daily Living, Developmental Orientation and Mobility.
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Guide Dog Services
2008 – 2009
Puppies born: 105
Puppies donated/purchased: 3
Puppies placed on the New Zealand Puppy Development Programme: 85
Number of working guide dogs in New Zealand: 273
Number of guide dogs graduated since 1973: 1038

Membership Breakdown

Under 20 6.5%
20-39  9.2%
40-64  16.8% 
65-79  14.5%
80+  52.9% 

Library, Information Services and Braille

The total number of Library members who have used service in 2008/2009: 4670
The Library holds 110,347 talking book titles and 4629 braille titles.
The Library issued 136,019 books and magazines in all formats from the Parnell and Homai libraries in 2008/2009.
The Library holds 252,450 braille items.
The Telephone Information Service received 96,053 calls in the past year totalling 29,962 hours and 28 minutes listening time.

Most common eye conditions

Note: The Foundation is a provider of habilitation and rehabilitation rather than clinical eye health services. It aims to record members' eye conditions but is not always given full or current information on them. Specialists who refer people to the RNZFB have identified some 150 different eye conditions among the membership.

Most common eye conditions among members:

Age-related macular degeneration    4,935 or 43.6%
Glaucoma                                           666 or 5.8%
Retinitis Pigmentosa                          461 or 4%
Cataract                                             327 or 2.9%
Optic Atrophy                                     296 or 2.6%
Diabetic Retinopathy                          268 or 2.3%
Albinism                                             147 or 1.3%
Detachment of Retina                        109 or 0.9%
Other                                                 683 or 5.9%
Unknown/not recorded                     1,251 or 10.9%