Empowering Mercury Bay and Matarangi into the future
Published on 1 October, 2026
Originally published by Matarangi Beach Paper, Thursday 1 October 2026.
The Mercury Bay Future Fund at Momentum Waikato provides residents and visitors with the opportunity to donate now, or give through your Will, to a locally driven funding vehicle dedicated to the area from Matarangi down to Hot Water Beach.
It is one of six Coromandel ‘place based’ endowment funds established last year by Momentum Waikato Community Foundation, in partnership with Thames-Coromandel District Council and a network of committed community people. Five are based on the Council’s wards – Coromandel & Colville, Mercury Bay, Tairua & Pāuanui, Thames and Whangamatā, and the sixth covers the entire Peninsula.
The Mercury Bay Future Fund was launched first, with a function late last year at the CORO Café in Whitianga that featured Sir Stephen Tindall, a driving force behind community foundations in New Zealand.
Whitianga accountant Geoff Balme is a volunteer Mercury Bay Fund Champion.
“Living here, it can feel a bit isolated, but that can work both ways,” says Geoff.
“Our community, knowing it is ‘out on a limb’ geographically, responds by pulling together.
“The age and economic demographics of the Mercury Bay area suggest that collectively we currently have the ‘ways and means’ to take care of the local community and those things that are important to it.
“The Mercury Bay Future Fund makes it easy for you to leave a legacy for the community you have enjoyed and the local causes you care about,” says Geoff.
As with all endowments managed by community foundations like Momentum Waikato, the Fund is being built up through donations, bequests and its investment income.
The scale and therefore diversified risk profile of Momentum’s professionally managed investment portfolio, which is made up of dozens of such funds, provides better returns and greater distributions than a single trust or small community could achieve alone.
Once the Fund has reached sufficient size, most of its income will go out as grants to charitable community entities in the Mercury Bay-Matarangi area, either via decisions of a committee of locals and Momentum reps, or as per donors’ wishes. The rest is re-invested to keep the Fund growing.
Many of you reading this want to help and improve your favourite place, so please consider a gift in your Will to the Mercury Bay Future Fund - your generosity will go further, forever.
To start the conversation and find out more – please contact Fund Champion Geoff Balme at gbalme@xtra.co.nz and visit momentumwaikato.nz/mercurybayfuturefund.
