A socially just and inclusive Aotearoa New Zealand
Kia hua mai he whenua ka toko i te tika me te pono hei korowai mō Aotearoa.
What We Do
Responding To Communities
Sir John McKenzie who set up the J R McKenzie Trust in 1940 wanted to improve the quality of life of New Zealanders. This purpose, insightful for its time and set out in its Trust Deed, allows the Trust Board to make donations for any charitable or educational purposes it wishes to select.
Over time the focus and the language of the Trust has expanded and changed, but the current vision “a socially just and inclusive Aotearoa New Zealand” is still aligned with Sir John’s and later Sir Roy McKenzie’s original purpose.
Today, our overall priority is “advancing equity”. This 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.
Our key communities of interest are:
Children, young people and whānau
Māori
Pacific peoples
Communities that experience exclusion.
To learn more about how we fund our vision click here.
Newsfeed
Our Programmes
The J R McKenzie Trust recently established the Peter McKenzie Project – a project and fund dedicated to reducing child and family poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand.
Te Kāwai Toro was established in 2003 by the J R McKenzie Board as a strategic response to lead, proactively address and enable Māori Development. The catalyst was a review that identified an under representation of Māori in J R McKenzie Trust’s philanthropic activities.
The Opportunities, Partnerships and Collaboration fund (OPC) sees the J R McKenzie Trust proactively seeking opportunities to work with other funding partners to achieve its goal of being an intentional facilitator of social change.
Poutū Pasefika supports and invests in initiatives that advance equity for Pasefika peoples in Aotearoa New Zealand. It prioritises transformational system change to remove obstacles to Pasefika peoples fulfilling their potential.