A will to give
The Acorn Foundation hands over millions every year to deserving community projects. But, what sets them apart from many other charities, is that they’ve succeeded in creating an innovative way to ensure their precious donors’ money is a gift that keeps on giving.
Words Nicky Adams / Photos supplied
Established 19 years ago, the Acorn Foundation may have started as a seed of an idea, but fast forward to now, and it’s grown into a whopping, solid oak. As with anything, it’s important to be innovative to succeed, and whilst Acorn is often known as the charity that many people donate to via their will, corporate giving is a vital part of the donation system. It is through this avenue that Farmer Autovillage, to celebrate its 30th anniversary, has chosen to support the Acorn Foundation. The Farmer Autovillage programme is a scholarship aimed at helping school leavers put funds towards tertiary education to be run at Mount Maunganui, Papamoa and Te Puke colleges, and implemented for the first time this year.
As a community organisation, Acorn Foundation is based upon the concept of place-based giving. CEO Lori Luke explains: “The way Acorn is different is the whole idea of the perpetuity model – our capital is invested – Craigs is our partner, and what we distribute is a percentage of the returns. That makes us different from a standard charity that’s raising money on an annual basis. The perpetuity model is a powerful one.” Essentially this is a way of donating to your community via a charity that invests the funds on your behalf. The dividends are then passed on to the charities of your choice, meaning that it’s not just donors that have grown over the years, but also the funds – unbelievably, there is currently almost $60 million under management.
Lori Luke continues: “We’ve grown really rapidly. Historically, we were always known as the organisation that gifts in a will – that’s still our primary business – but there’s a lot more living giving now, and all sorts of other ways to do it, such as small groups and corporate giving, which is how Farmer Autovillage came to us.”
While primarily centred on Western Bay of Plenty, Acorn does help donors nationally. Indeed, as well as other scholarships and awards, it distributes the prestigious Jann Medlicott prize for fiction. However, it’s the local stories that resonate the most, such as that of The Eva Trowbridge Scholarship, says Lori. “Eva left money locally to support adult learners – that’s been going for 15 years – Eva was a cleaner at the hospital and saved her coins and those coins have helped 15 women finish school. The one thing that a lot of people think is that you must be very wealthy to give back to a community. To be honest most of our donors are very humble people who just want to make a difference.”
With Acorn, everyone chooses what they want to support – some will leave their money unrestricted, but about 60 % of the money is tagged which means either specific charities or a field of interest like animals or the environment can be supported. “We have an anonymous donor who donates swimming lessons because he lost a child at age four to a drowning accident, so he now pays for two or three entire schools to get swimming lessons.” Another inspirational donation comes via a gift from the Roy and Mary McGowan estate, which has enabled the launch of a Vital Signs Youth Report. “They didn’t have children of their own but had a huge interest in the wellbeing of young people. We have a big initiative in the youth space at the moment. That will be a strong focus – the idea of helping young people in this region to live lives that they value and smoothing the path to adulthood.”
However, Lori points out that over the last six or seven years, the focus has moved to living giving, so that donors can give money while they’re alive “that way they can see where it’s going and who its helping – and they get a tax credit!” With 99% of the money remaining within the charity, the amount of work from volunteers and the team is incredible. Lori is herself from a business background, and grateful for the opportunity to be a part of it all. “I’m at a point in my life where giving something back is tremendously personally beneficial so it’s a fantastic job. All of us involved are very privileged because we really feel like we can make a difference. Over the years heaps of community people have put their hands up to help Acorn succeed.”
And succeed it certainly has – with Acorn seeing some important milestones over the last couple of years – it has given to more than 200 causes, passed the $50million mark in funds under management, this year distributed $2million for the first time, and given $10million in total over the life of the foundation. That’s one mighty Acorn all right.