Funding process

Because we are a very small, voluntary family charitable trust, we don’t have funding rounds or cut-off dates, however you are welcome to contact us if you are involved in an initiative that is a strong fit to one of our key goals:

  • Te Ao Māori is strong and vibrant
  • The central place of Te Ao Māori in Aotearoa is understood and supported by all
  • We all feel confident and respected in our own cultures and heritage

Additionally, we mainly focus on initiatives located on the eastern side of Te Ika a Māui  (North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand), i.e. Te Whanganui-a-Tara (Wellington), Wairarapa, Te Matau-a-Māui (Hawkes Bay) and Tairawhiti (East Coast).  This is because we are unable to meet the demand for funding, so we are concentrating on the areas where we have strongest connections.   We also sometimes fund national initaitves, for example, anti-racism initiatives.

We are happy to chat on the phone and can generally quickly give you a steer on whether we might be able to help.

After this initial conversation we may invite you to provide more information – this could be a letter or a movie in either English or te Reo Māori, an application made to another funder, or whatever is easy, clear and simple for you and for our trustees.  Our trustees then discuss the request, and we often talk to others about your idea to get a variety of perspectives and also to check that the idea has good support from your community.

We do not ask for formal reports but we are always interested in hearing how things go, we encourage learnings to be shared, and we like to stay in touch.

Because we are a very small trust we are only able to give a small number of grants each year.  Our grant budget for 2023 – 24 is approximately $90,000 and our grants generally range from $1,000 to $15,000.