Connecting buyers with verified Māori and Pasifika-owned businesses is at the heart of Amotai. Their ambition to diversify supply chains is generating a groundswell of positive impact for wāhine in business.

(Amotai’s Anna Edwards with Jan Logie from Clare Foundation)

According to Stats NZ, in 2023, women made up only 35% of all business owners in New Zealand, demonstrating a clear need for greater support and encouragement.

Clare’s multi-year funding will be used as part of the Hinemoa Programme to develop new ways of supporting Māori and Pasifika wāhine-owned businesses. The Programme will shift resources to Māori and Pasifika women/whānau/hapori, helping to build their economic power and self-determination.

Jan Logie, Strategic Lead for Women at Clare, says the ripple effect when women succeed in business can have a profound impact. “From creating new jobs to inspiring other wāhine to follow their dreams, to investing back into their own communities, the work that Amotai does is vital.”

To find out more about Amotai visit: https://amotai.nz

Pay differences based on performance are justified. Pay differences based on gender or ethnicity aren’t justified, and that’s the key focus at Still Minding The Gap, funded by Clare. Their new research is showing what factors are driving gender and ethnic pay gaps and the results are startling.

STILLMindingTheGap.nz is campaigning for urgent action to reduce New Zealand’s gender and ethnic pay gaps by encouraging the Government to make pay gap reporting mandatory for businesses over a certain size as an important step to close unjustified pay gaps.

The gender pay gap for all women is now around five percent. For wāhine Māori it’s 12 percent, for Pacific women almost 16 percent, and Asian women about 10 percent.

Only 20 percent of our gender and ethnic pay gaps can be explained by factors such as a woman’s education levels, occupation or experience. Up to 80 percent are being driven by decisions made within organisations about pay and promotions including unconscious and conscious bias.

Click through here to read the full media release from Still Minding the Gap, including the results of their recent research.

CHFA was established by social enterprise Community Finance in 2024 aided by concessionary catalytic capital personally provided by Clare founder Anna Stuck. It aggregates the leading community and affordable housing providers in the country to help them secure long-term, lower-cost finance. Community Finance launched CHFA as a natural next step in response to growing demand from the community housing sector for its lending services. Moving to an affordable housing aggregation model was the logical upgrade needed for New Zealand.

The Indigenous Wellbeing Conference 2025 brought over 500 delegates together in Meanjin (Brisbane) recently, spanning community leaders, Elders, youth voices, service providers, researchers, and policy makers from across Australia, Aotearoa and the Pacific, united under the theme “Walking Together, Flourishing Together: Pathways to Indigenous Wellbeing.”

The Clare Foundation was proudly represented by Stevie-Jean Gear (Strategic Lead – Youth) and Anne-Marie Maikuku (Strategic Lead – Oral Health), alongside partners Luke Grey founder WĀHI Charitable Trust and Michael Edmonds, Manager at Te Toi Ora ki Whāingaroa (Raglan, NZ).

This inspiring gathering created a powerful space to learn, connect, and share best-practice approaches to Indigenous wellbeing, hearing directly from those on the ground who are empowering and transforming their communities every day.

Together, we continue to walk towards stronger, culturally grounded wellbeing for all First Nations peoples — guided by connection, respect, and collective action.

Key Themes and Highlights

The conference provided a rich programme of panels, keynote presentations and breakout sessions centred on culturally-grounded solutions for First Nations Australians, Māori and Pasifika communities. Some of the standout themes included:

• Connection to Country/Whenua, culture and ancestry – recognising the pivotal role of cultural identity, spirituality and land-based practice in social and emotional wellbeing.
• Indigenous-led models of care and resilience – exploring holistic, community-led approaches to mental health and wellbeing, moving beyond traditional service models.
• Youth empowerment and leadership – engaging young people in shaping their own wellbeing pathways, innovating in education, technology and cultural expression.
• Environmental and climate stewardship through Indigenous knowledge – linking ecological health, sustainable land practices and cultural wellbeing for flourishing communities.
• Cultural lore, legal frameworks and economic futures – acknowledging that wellbeing is interwoven with governance, self-determination, economic empowerment and cultural heritage.
• Innovation, technology and digital storytelling – leveraging new media and digital platforms to preserve Indigenous narratives, support wellbeing and promote intergenerational connection.

The conference reaffirmed Clare’s commitment to placing culture, connection and community at the heart of wellbeing initiatives. Key learnings for our future work included strengthening partnerships with Indigenous-led organisations to co-design programmes, prioritising youth-led initiatives, exploring digital and storytelling platforms, embedding place-based, land-connected practices into wellbeing strategies, driving economic development opportunities, and advocating for policy alignment and systems change that supports Indigenous peoples.

Systems change addresses the underlying causes of societal issues, transforming structures, policies, mindsets, and relationships to create lasting, sustainable solutions instead of just treating symptoms. It involves understanding the interconnectedness of our systems, identifying “levers” where change can have the greatest impact, and working collaboratively to shift norms, power dynamics, and resource allocation towards new, fairer outcomes.  Scaling deep and restorative approaches to systems change acknowledge that in order to create long lasting change, we need to bring healing and restoration into our systems change work.

The Clare team has been learning about the Haumanu framework which is an emerging approach to restorative systems change that draws from mātauranga Māori and Western knowledge. It incorporates insights from Theory U, Thomas Hubl’s work on healing collective trauma, and from the wisdom passed down from our collective tupuna or ancestors. Haumanu means to restore and rejuvenate, and the approach provides a conceptual framework, a process method and practices to address collective trauma as it arises, and to redesign our systems from a place of mauri ora (wellness and wholeness).

The Haumanu framework (developed by Louise Marra, Tuihana Ohia and the team at the Centre for Social Impact)  brings restoration into the work of systems change, changing the way we work, relate, design and learn together.

The Dental for All roadshow is heading all over the motu from August to October this year, holding community events from panel discussions, to market stalls, to free dental days and more.

Created in early 2022 by campaigners, dentists, and unionists who got together to talk about dental access in Aotearoa, with experience ranging from anti-poverty campaigning to clinical work in oral healthcare, this group saw how the cost of oral healthcare in the private system was a barrier to healthy, thriving communities. As a core part of this there was a recognition of Te Tiriti o Waitangi and the importance of by Māori, for Māori approaches to oral healthcare.

The Dental for All coalition, led by ActionStation are focused on amplifying the growing call for free, universal, Te Tiriti-consistent oral healthcare in the public health system, continuing to build a strong evidence base, and keeping this issue on the political agenda.

Check out the stops on the first leg of the roadshow!

A very insightful and inspiring opinion piece in The Post penned by Eleanor Cater, a philanthropy advisor working for Community Foundations of Aotearoa NZ, reflects on a demographic shift taking place which sees women playing an increasing role in philanthropy.

A really interesting demographic shift where women will eventually become the main drivers and decision makers around family wealth, transforming wealth management, including estate planning and philanthropy, is shaping the next frontier of philanthropy, with inspiring women, including Clare founder Anna Stuck, recognised as one of the women redefining this space.

Click here to take a read the full article.

The Clare Foundation has expanded with the announcement of a new role, adding further structure to the foundation as it grows and evolves.

Sarah Habib joins as Philanthropic Support Officer, having begun her journey working with the community at a young age – beginning with the Te Ahi o Ngā Rangatahi for-youth-by-youth research with the Pōneke Boys and Girls Institute and continuing through to involvement with the Multicultural Councils of NZ, 502 Rangatahi Ora, and other community kaupapa.

Of Balinese and Iraqi descent, Sarah brings a deep appreciation of cultural diversity into every space she works in. Staying grounded in grassroots initiatives while pursuing a degree in Public Policy has allowed Sarah to weave together lived experience, cultural perspective, and academic knowledge to deliver projects that create tangible outcomes for communities across Aotearoa.

Alice Montague, CEO at Clare Foundation, says the addition of Sarah is aligned with the evolution of the foundation’s needs since its creation in 2020.

“Clare continues to flourish and so does our team, especially in this vital role which underpins the way we work, giving our wider team the support and expertise needed to allow them to focus on working with our incredible partners.”

Sarah is based in the Clare Foundation office in Wellington.

A three-year project, led by youth charity WĀHI and funded through a major partnership with Clare, will explore culturally grounded approaches to mental health promotion and education for Māori youth—a population group researchers say is critically under-served, while addressing a number of long-standing gaps in national mental health research.

Leading researchers say there is a clear lack of data and understanding around the mental health experiences and needs of Māori youth in rural areas, and that this research will provide much-needed insight into how we can better support their wellbeing using Māori values and frameworks.

The Clare Foundation, which has supported WĀHI since 2024, is providing a substantial multi-year grant to ensure the sustainability of the project and the PETRA Programme, which is expected to reach over 1,000 students this year.

“We are delighted to support this hugely important kaupapa”, said Alice Montague, CEO at Clare. “It’s a groundbreaking piece of research that has the potential to create transformative change across the motu for our communities.”

Read the full announcement here.