Love Wanaka Community Fund
We are proud to be partnered with Lake Wanaka Tourism to deliver this innovative fund which will benefit the Wanaka and the surrounding environment now and in the future.
Visitors and businesses will be asked to donate to support localised climate, sustainability and environmental projects that actually make an impact.
Each year funds will be delivered back to the Wanaka communities in the form of grants, and a smaller percentage invested into an endowment fund which will provide for our communities in perpetuity.
Love Wānaka connects our visitors and visitor industry to projects of impact in our region, raising funds to support those who are driving grassroots environmental action right here in Wānaka. We’re all about supporting a unique, localised response to the challenges and opportunities of high-volume visitation, with targeted and strategic funding to those who know best.
Love Wānaka was established so that visitors to our rohe (region), and the businesses connecting them, can play an active role in the protection and regeneration of our environment.
The purpose has an intergenerational focus: how can we be good tupuna (ancestors) and create the foundations of a thriving future long after we are gone?
Mission and vision:
The mission is to inspire tautiakitaka (guardianship); to create an ecosystem where nature thrives for the benefit of all species; and to ensure that tourism gives back more than it takes.
Love Wanaka aims to build strong connections between our visitors and our place: inviting them to understand and respect our taoka (things most treasured); to arrive as manuhiri (guests) and leave as whanui (extended family).
The Love Wanaka fund will use 80% of funds annually to drive local impact now with the balance used to build an endowment fund, to support the Wanaka region forever.
Applications are open annually in July.
Click here to head to Love Wanaka