Donny Fund

Donations to the Donny Fund support charities working in palliative care, agricultural education and child protection.

The Donny Trust manages the legacy of brother and sister Francis and Germaine Donny, who passed away in their nineties in the early 1990s. In the following years the Trust’s investments grew a multi-million-dollar fund, allowing it to make generous grants to literally hundreds of charities.

Hamiltonians will associate the Donny name with Donny Park and Donny Avenue, between the eastern bank of the Waikato River and Chartwell, so named as the Donnys once farmed there and later gifted land for pensioner housing.

Support for palliative care has been a consistent theme of the Trust’s funding, with the establishment in 1992 of a two-year fellowship to train and educate doctors in the field.

From 2012 on the Donny Trust focused its grants on just three fields - palliative care, agricultural education and child protection.

Beneficiaries in agriculture have been the Waipoa Farm Cadet Training Trust, where for many years the Donny Trust supported five of its ten cadets, as well as St Paul’s Collegiate Agri Business and Growing Future Farmers. Brainwave has meanwhile benefited from child protection grants.

In 2020 the Donny Trust transferred its assets to the Donny Fund at Momentum Waikato, which is committed to continuing the Donny Trust prescription of charitable giving.

Long-time Donny Trust Chair Barry Paterson (pictured) says the move was motivated by the “continuity of the trustees”.

“I can confidently say that the relationship with Momentum has been beneficial.

“While Momentum is now the final decisionmaker on the funds, they are certainly following the path set by the Donny Trust,” says Barry.

The Donny Fund welcomes public donations, which will ultimately help grow the grants it makes each year.