Established: 2019

Location: Paraparaumu

Contact Name: Melinda Leatham

Website: www.leathamcharitabletrust.co.nz

Business mission and vision:
We hope to create a sustainable business whereby we can distribute regular funds and be in the position to support causes that make a difference in our community.
Vote

“Our business creates wealth and then distributes cash funds to individuals, charities, community groups and schools that have a real need, that we believe in. We want to help people in a meaningful way and we have a focus on helping Kapiti, youth and mental health. We have donated approximately $200k this year. This includes two substantial amounts to two separate primary schools. These donations are funding projects that provide a significant benefit for autistic children and children with anxiety. We also provide emergency housing to youth in Kapiti on an ongoing basis.”

We are passionate about what we are doing and this makes it easy for us to make decisions. We are just a husband and wife team which means that we are totally flexible and we can move fast. We want to make it easy for the people who we are trying to help. This means that they can concentrate on making a difference and not worry so much about reporting, admin etc.

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After leaving corporate jobs, we both felt like we wanted to make a bigger contribution to the community – and to make a difference. We know that some of the projects we are funding will provide facilities that will help vulnerable youth both now and for many years to come. We know that the extremely vulnerable youth that come to stay in our emergency housing don’t have anywhere else to go. When they come to us there are no other options for them. This is why we did it and why we want to continue.

Funding is a challenge. We started our charity with personal loans and we initially invested in property. Covid has had a huge impact on property developments which has changed the timing of our funding. We did not let this stop us from distributing cash when we wanted to by setting ourselves up well, using our contacts and keeping our purpose front of mind.

We found it hard to understand at first how to give in the best possible way. We knew we wanted to make an impact and to have a difference. We also knew that Kapiti, youth and mental health were close to our hearts but we didn’t know how to go about it. To overcome this we met with a number of well known people in the Kapiti charitable community and took some time to understand some of the main charitable organisations in Kapiti. This gave us the direction we needed. It just took us some time to meet the right people and organisations.

We definitely needed this! The wealth generation aspect of our charity comes from perseverance and often overcoming adversity. Our funds have come from property deals which take a lot of work, some risk and time. The covid impact only adds to complexity of it all! We needed to work hard to generate the wealth we did – and we will always need to continue to do this.

We know we have made a difference.

We have put $200k into amazing causes in our local community and teenagers in Kapiti have been able to stay in a safe and warm house when they need it the most.

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Webgenius, Friday Homes, Professionals, Land Matters, Pritchard Civil, ANZ, Medical Assurance Society.

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We have a couple of quotes on our website. We appreciate the emails and thank you letters we get.

The benefit to us is purely knowing that we are helping other people.

Our main purpose is community focused.

We do sponsor the Kapiti Food Fair – our funds are used for the charitable aspects of the fair – both Rotary and the Kapiti Kindness Trust.

We do this because we see the Fair as being an amazing opportunity for the Kapiti community to come together and we want to support the local charities.

See our answers above.

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