Te Anga Rautaki

The Trust has a unique identity grown from the vision of Sir John to establish a trust that could help improve the quality of life for New Zealanders and address disadvantage, particularly for children. The unique attributes of our identity align with our values, which form the bedrock of the Trust and were our touchstones during the development of Te Anga Rautaki.

The generous and courageous actions of Sir John and Sir Roy are continued by the current generation of family members, who seek ongoing engagement with the Trust’s mission and who have outlined their own aspirations for the Trust to:

• be purposeful, bold and innovative.

• be responsive to communities and empower whānau and community self-determination.

• continue engaging with issues that achieve multi-generational impact.

• build connections and partnerships that support impact, learning and growth.

The family’s legacy and continued vision are the roots from which the Trust’s present-day impact is able to grow.

Te Anga Rautaki is designed to support the Trust to continue to strive towards our vision: Kia hua mai he whenua ka toko i te tika me to pono hei korowai mō Aotearoa / A socially just and inclusive Aotearoa New Zealand.

Te Anga Rautaki’s priority is working and investing in ways that advance equity through transformational change and systems focused solutions.

• Advancing equity means addressing underlying causes of inequity and exclusion. It means shifting the conditions that hold inequities in place, that prevent people from fulfilling their potential.

• Transformational change describes a major positive shift or change that makes a big difference to people’s quality of life.

• Systems focused solutions are designed to fundamentally change the mechanisms and structures that cause the system to operate in a particular manner. In both obvious and subtle ways, systems often work better for some groups in society than others, compounding the situation negatively for those who already face the biggest challenges.

We work with ngā kaikōkiri who are leaders of social change in their communities. We are focused on four pou/communities of interest that often intersect:

An evidence review was undertaken to inform Te Anga Rautaki. Here are some things we learned.

Through the review process it became clear that:

1. All four of JRMT’s communities of interest are interconnected and share many of the same drivers of inequity and exclusion.

2. Advancing equity requires transformational change at all levels – from ground up (local, community-led change), to top down (political and institutional change).

3. Investing in transformational change challenges funders to consider how their own ways of working constrain or enable change.

From the evidence review, three change strategies were identified as being strongly aligned to the J R McKenzie Trust’s vision.

In all change strategies, we are interested in understanding how the community has had input into the proposed programme or initiative.

Support community innovation, voice and leadership

• Support communities to try out ideas with potential to enhance wellbeing and strengthen identity, connection, and access to opportunities.

• Support initiatives that enable community voices and stories to inform solutions.
  

• Grow community leadership.

• Support programmes, systems and policies that are designed with community, especially with those less visible or that may be excluded from decision-making.
  

Strengthen collaboration and support collective action

• Strengthen and enable collaboration where ngā kaikōkiri see potential to work together on solutions.
  

• Strengthen and build the capacity of networks, coalitions and partnerships that enable systemic thinking and action.

• Support more connected and collective efforts to shift the conditions holding problems in place.

Grow capacity for system-focused solutions

• Strengthen readiness, skills and capacities of ngā kaikōkiri to think and act systemically.

• Support ngā kaikōkiri to develop new and known (Indigenous) solutions or practices that address issues of social justice and advance equity and inclusion.

• Support changemakers, disrupters and influencers to advance their skills, capacity and influence.

• Develop communities of practice to share learning and support ngā kaikōkiri to achieve impact.

The Signs of Progress we are looking for

The Impact we are Seeking

Our funding partnerships with ngā kaikōkiri are relational, flexible, strategic and mana-enhancing.

Principles of Practice

Our agreed principles of practice describe the roles that we can play as partners alongside ngā kaikōkiri to achieve impact:

• Fund Whakakotahi
  Investing in ngā kaikōkiri and forming mana-enhancing partnerships with them

• Advocate Manaaki
  Advocating for the work of ngā kaikōkiri
  

• Convene Ahurutanga
  Making time and space to bring ngā kaikōkiri and others together to collaborate

• Innovate Auaha
  Encouraging and enabling innovation to address complex challenges

• Learn Ako
  Learning to grow collective knowledge and ideas, and building capacity for transformational change

How We Fund

J R McKenzie Trust is a social justice funder. Our focus on advancing equity means targeting those experiencing the greatest inequity, exclusion and disadvantage.

Since 2024, we practice relational funding. This means our funding is allocated via partnerships and collaboration with community organisations. We may also fund organisations that have been referred to us by other funders. We are a non-contestable funder - we don't take applications.

We are willing to engage in new and challenging spaces and invest in more connected outcomes. Our desire to support transformational change means enabling those at the forefront of change and social innovation efforts in Aotearoa New Zealand. We are interested in how transformational change can play out in grassroots communities (local systems) and via regional, national, institutional and political systems.

Given that it is difficult for one group to achieve transformational change at a large scale alone, supporting creative collaboration, and uplifting and supporting leaders of social change is important.

Additionally, the Trust recognises its own power to influence change, through a range of non-funding roles such as convening, advocating, evaluating, sharing learning, and amplifying the voices of ngā kaikōkiri.

The Trust wants to demonstrate equity through its own practice, by building mana-enhancing relationships of respect, care and equity with ngā kaikōkiri.

Te Anga Rautaki builds on the J R McKenzie Trust’s legacy of showing aroha to the vulnerable; the Rotarian values of service and fairness; the Trust’s boldness; a strengths-based, community-centred approach; learning from bright spots; and supporting transformational change impacts for marginalised communities. The Trust has never shied away from trying different approaches and seeks to be open and intuitive in its mahi.

Over the past eight decades, the Trust has supported ngā kaikōkiri as they work towards achieving their aspirations. It has been an honour and a privilege to collaborate with them on their journeys and we hope that our small contribution has assisted their progress and success. We have been consistently humbled by their dedication towards making a meaningful difference, often while facing unrelenting challenges. We will continue to seek to use our position and power to amplify their voice and influence positive change. Without nurturing these strong and successful relationships, our mahi would lose some of its mana.

It’s from this standpoint, that we look forward to the achievements of the next ten years and beyond.

“Do not follow where the path may lead; go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.” ­– A favourite quote of Sir Roy McKenzie