Te Ariroa Evolutions Charitable Trust - Mai te Timata…

We did it! We’re now an incorporated society, registered under the Companies Office. I’m so incredibly thankful to our trustees, to the Pā Harakeke whanau doing the hard mahi, all of us collectively working together to make things happen for our rangatahi here in Ōpōtiki.

It is way cool being able to put plans into motions, support the dreams and aspirations of our tūpuna (sorry — I know we saw tīpuna here in Te Whakatōhea) and encouraging the future generations to dream bigger than ever before.

Next step — apply with the Charities Services and wait until we’ve got that new status.

What does this mean for our rangatahi though?

The short and fast: In order to get more funding — the bigger funds to make our collective dreams a reality — we needed to become a registered charitable trust. This gives our kaupapa a very specific purpose, clearly defined goals and achievable outcomes.

The longer and more in-depth korero: By doing this, we are now able to search and find the funding we need for all of our rangatahi projects. We can move with confidence now, having the backing of the Charitable Trusts Act and need to make sure we are upholding the rules within the act. This means that we had to find an awesome lawyer that understood trusts (Holland Beckett) and an awesome accountant (Ake Accounting) to help us move forward. We’re still with Open Collective as our fiscal holding sponsor and they ensure all our funds are transparent, easily identifiable and different projects available for people to donate towards.

This will mean that we can keep connecting, do more consultation with our community and truly make a difference right here in Ōpōtiki.

Grassroots Community Action — collectivise, connect and grow.