Who are these Factors?

Founders

Geoff Neal

In the beginning, there were three founding Factors:

  1. Geoff Neal = business advisor/writer/researcher and numbers nerd. He continues to lead theFacts and is the facts machine that does most of the work week-to-week. He’s also the public-facing media contact.
  2. Grant Difford = the founder of Waking Giants; leader leaders that help others take action. He was heavily involved at the start in helping turn this idea into action.
  3. Founder C = who’s done a lot of work behind the scenes, but would prefer to remain anonymous for now, as, sadly, it’s not always easy or fun to share unpopular truths in a society, especially with a rising troll population. 

All 3 are growth advisors (‘consultant’ is a swear word now!) who have helped thousands of individuals and businesses, and hundreds of charities, over 20 years, and know that the fastest, easiest, and cheapest way to grow any organisation (and often the funniest too if you heart Excel), is to:

“Be smarter with data.”.

Volunteers

  • IT = Ross Vincent from GoServerFree.co.nz. An IT guru who has gifted us setup and security services. Thank you!
  • Fact researcher = a recent addition and fellow fact hunter with a particular passion for economic, housing, infrastructure, and health metrics.
  • Data visualization expert = also a recent addition, who is going to make Geoff’s Excel graphs a whole lot sexier!
    We’ll put photos for the newbies up once they’ve done some stuff.

BeneFactors

  • See $ page. Without this generous financial support, theFacts would never have been born, let alone still be going strong at almost 100 facts old!

Paid suppliers

  • Web = Forkan Hossain from WebCityLab, our WordPress developer who has kindly discounted his US $30/hour rate to $25 to help us out. Has been instrumental in helping us launch this new v2 website.
  • Summer intern = did a lot of (paid) work researching facts in the beginning, and got our LinkedIn page firing.

Thought leaders

  • Education stats = Alwyn Poole from InnovativeEducation.co.nz. An endless source of key education stats, but also education solutions!

Other Factors

Some of the greatest appreciation must also go to all of the market research organisations that publish much of their polling and project work to benefit New Zealand:

And, finally, the public servants across dozens of Government departments, and local councils, who have helped direct us to the best data, and helped answer our questions. This includes:

As well as other organisations that have generously shared their data publicly:

Plus every other Factor who has received our emails, forwarded our emails on, liked/commented/reposted on LinkedIn or Facebook, suggested facts, or provided other tips to help us grow.

Other WHO Qs

Q. Are you associated with any political parties?
A. No. We are not aligned with or part of any political parties. We do speak with representatives from all of the major parties, and some engage with facts more than others. We support all politicians and parties that promote our values of honesty, unity, and prosperity for New Zealand.

We are non-partisan and hate hearing that tribal line, e.g. “I vote for ______ because I/mum/dad have always voted for ______ .”

Instead, and in line with our name and values, we believe 100% of citizens should be informed swing voters, evaluating every political party, and their candidates, every election, and right up until election day, across:

  1. Policy
  2. Performance, and
  3. Proficiency (talent)

Not promises, PR, or personality, which is more akin to a US presidential style of politics (even the great John Adams didn’t preempt those issues).

Our facts also span many years, decades at times, which of course covers many different political parties in different governments.

Q. Are you associated with any media organisations?
A. No. We are also independent of any media or corporate organisations, but, like political parties, some are more supportive of sharing the truth on key issues than others. See Media page.

Q. Are you associated with any businesses or other organisations?
A. Only our generous suppliers above and only for the services they provide, but we would love more support!

Q. How can I become a who?
A for Awesome! Please see our Be a Factor page. 

See also