Coromandel Future Funds - Place-based endowments for an entire district

From the Momentum Waikato Annual Report 2025 - see full report in PDF.

Thames, Coromandel & Colville, Mercury Bay, Tairua & Pāuanui, Whangamatā, and Coromandel Peninsula Future Funds

A ‘place based’ endowment fund is defined by the geographical area it seeks to support, with its grants being offered to charitable groups and projects of any kind in that specific community.

Momentum Waikato has for some years been envisioning the creation of a set of such locality funds covering the entire Waikato region, and we took the first step towards this with the start-up of the Cambridge Community Fund in late 2024.

The big push into this space then followed as a central goal for the Momentum team in 2025, establishing six ‘Future Funds’ for the Coromandel district - five based on council wards, Thames, Coromandel & Colville, Mercury Bay, Tairua & Pāuanui, and Whangamatā, and a sixth to cover the entire Peninsula.

With the oldest population of any district in the Waikato region, the Coromandel has a demographic and lifestyle profile that make it an obvious priority for offering place-based endowments. The specific catalyst however came from finding our agenda was converging with the efforts of several locals.

Stephen Town led the Cyclone Gabrielle recovery programme for the Thames Coromandel District Council, where he could see the need for building local financial capacity as a way to improve local resilience across the board, from infrastructure to social cohesion. In early 2025 he secured seed funding from the TCDC’s recovery budget to formally create the new Future Funds at Momentum.

After retiring from that Cyclone role, Stephen became a Momentum trustee in August 2025, placing a Coromandel-based voice at the centre of our Board’s deliberations.

Meanwhile Peter Farmer, the owner-operator of Farmer Auto Village in Tauranga, had seen the opportunity for a community endowment when he bought a holiday home in Whitianga, and was seeking partners for creating one.

For a place-based fund to succeed there needs to be local ‘Fund Champions’ willing to volunteer their time to promote it and attract donations and bequest pledges. For Mercury Bay this was straightforward, with Peter stepping into the role and recruiting local accountant Geoff Balme to join him in mid-2025.

The Mercury Bay Future Fund was ready to go, and in October 2025 it was publicly launched at the Coro Club's ‘Main Hangar’ venue at Whitianga, with eighty-odd local community and business leaders gathered.

The biggest name to speak that evening was Sir Stephen Tindall, pictured below, founder of The Warehouse and now both a leading philanthropist and a patron of the community foundations movement.

His speech focused on explaining the ‘smart giving’ model of endowment funds.

“I cannot speak more highly of community foundations, they are the best idea I have ever come across, and I couldn’t be more proud of the work they have done,” said Sir Stephen.

As Peter and Geoff outlined when they spoke, the creation of the Coromandel Future Funds provides the Peninsula’s residents and visitors with the opportunity to donate and bequest to a local endowment that is, and always will be, focused on the prosperity, wellbeing, sustainability and vibrancy of its community. Once each fund tops the $50,000 threshold required to start making disbursements, it will significantly empower its community.

The awareness campaign around the Funds has been actively backed by the Coromandel Informer newspaper and CFM radio station, with both giving the initiative a generous amount of coverage.

The Informer ran several articles about the new funds before and since the launch event, including a couple that gave a platform to Mercury Bay Fund Champion Geoff Balme.

Therein Geoff said the Coromandel is an attractive place to live and play, but can feel a bit isolated, which can work both ways.

“Our community, knowing it is ‘out on a limb’ geographically, responds by pulling together. We’ve used our local knowledge, skills, energy and resources to build much of what we need and have here,” said Geoff.

“The sobering future is that there won’t be enough tax or rates revenue to pay for the community services we rely on. What we don’t already receive from local and central government, now comes from community groups, and their membership is getting older, they are not renewing themselves.

“With that economic outlook, I ask myself how are we going to pay for the services we value, that build communities, that attract people to come and live here and invest in a future for those coming after them, that make for a healthy and productive lifestyle?”

Geoff is therefore keenly working as a volunteer to engage with locals potentially interested in donating or bequeathing to the Mercury Bay Future Fund, or indeed to set up their own ‘named funds’ through their Wills.

“A gift to the Fund will help ensure our community remains resilient. It could mean additional medical services, better support for local elderly care, looking after our beaches and waterways, or developing new walking trails to enjoy our natural environment.”

The Coromandel Future Funds have been successfully introduced to the Peninsula’s business, civic, media and for-purpose networks. With Fund Champions now actively campaigning to progress them, and more such volunteers to be recruited, the Coromandel looks set to be a major element in the advance of Momentum Waikato’s endowment-building mission.

Find out more about how you can support the Thames, Coromandel & Colville, Mercury Bay, Tairua & Pāuanui, Whangamatā, and/or Coromandel Peninsula Future Funds.

Looking west from Coromandel town. Photo: Key Imagery.