Ambassador comes on board
Published on 4 February, 2025
Originally published in the Waikato Business News, Wednesday 5 February 2025.
By David Christiansen, Momentum Waikato Executive Officer.
Happy New Year everyone, I hope you had a relaxing Christmas break and are looking forward to a great 2025. We certainly are here at Momentum Waikato, with a new face having joined us last month.
David Christiansen
Debbie Stevens is now our relationship manager, a new position that is our ‘ambassador’ to professional networks and the wider community.
Many of you will know Debbie as a real stalwart of the local education and media scenes, not least from her previous communications and marketing roles at The University of Waikato and Waikato Diocesan School for Girls.
Debbie’s mahi here is primarily about liaising and working with local professional advisors – Waikato’s lawyers, accountants and investment consultants. Pointing them to the importance of effective charitable giving, she introduces the opportunities Momentum offers for ensuring generosity delivers a positive ongoing impact and then facilitates any resulting discussions with referred clients.
Debbie Stevens
What she tells advisors is that when they are talking to their clients about writing or updating their will, they can suggest adding a charitable bequest to it, and that the community foundation model of ‘smart giving’, via a philanthropic investment fund that grants out its income, can turn such a ‘gift in will’ into a perpetual and meaningful legacy.
It is often presumed that such a discussion about what happens to your money after you die will be a bit dark and uncomfortable, like one of those cliched old cowboy movies where eerie music plays while buzzards circle the lost and injured stranded in the desert!
In fact, a conversation with a knowledgeable advisor about what you really care about, and what legacy you might want to leave behind, can be an affirming and uplifting experience.
It is important to have discussions about your will with your family and your advisors early, so both understand your thoughts and wishes. Wills are something many tend to put off writing or update too infrequently. At either point, once you have provided for your family, you can also consider what you want to bequeath to the causes important to you, or to the community where you’ve made your life and success.
I must say, you don’t have to wait to die to take advantage of our endowment model. ‘Living giving’ now via your own charitable-granting fund has the advantage of you seeing the result of your generosity while you’re still alive!
We’ve enjoyed welcoming Debbie aboard our mission to grow the region’s culture of generosity, and to build ‘A better Waikato for everyone, forever’.
