The past year or so has been monumental for Nīkau Foundation. In October, we were delighted to formally mark the milestone of distributing over $10 million (now $11 million) in transformative funding to our communities. Achieving this milestone is a testament to the strong local collective we have built – our office team, supporters, volunteers, donors and partners as well as Nīkau’s founding trustees – passionate Wellingtonians who got around a boardroom table in 1991 to discuss creating a Foundation that would support our region, forever. Some 35 years later, we are so proud to be the kaitiaki of over 100 endowment funds that have been established and committed to deliver intergenerational impact.

Since Nīkau was founded in 1991, giving has evolved quite significantly across Aotearoa New Zealand. in our 2025/26 Generosity Wrap Up, we explore how organisations are pivoting to ensure continuity of their services, how women quickly becoming a powerful force to shape the future of giving, how charitable trustees are securing powerful, practical succession plans and how locals are delivering long-term support to the causes they love.

The past few years have presented many challenges for Aotearoa New Zealand’s for-purpose sector. With a tough economy, high need and funding sources generally diminishing, providing a growing, reliable source of support is of great importance. While our change in financial year also meant moving our contestable grants round from February to mid-year, we were pleased to maintain our community support through targeted grant-making. Over these 6 months, we gave out over $600,000, bringing our total grants distributed from October 2024 to March 2026 to over $2,000,000.