Start-up is a way-in for skaters with a disability

By Beth Chapman, All Good Ventures.

If you're disabled in New Zealand, a lot of everyday life can happen without you - the weekend sport, the social event, the activity everyone else turns up to without a second thought. Not because anyone planned it that way, but because nobody thought to design you in.

Rachel Whitten, a social worker based in Tauranga, set out to change that. She is one of four founders - from New Zealand, Colombia, Ethiopia and Hungary - welcomed into the All Good Ventures programme for 2026/2027, each building a business designed to help people on the margins.

The Hamilton-founded charity backs early-stage social enterprises: new businesses that earn their own income and spend it on freeing people from hardship. Its job is to help get them off the ground, with seed funding, mentoring and pro bono expertise.

Behind that work sits the All Good Ventures Fund, an endowment fund in Momentum Waikato's care, whose investment income helps pay for the year of intensive support each founder gets.

A registered social worker and University of Waikato graduate, Rachel has skated all her life - competitive skating, roller derby, the lot. It was through her community work alongside disabled people that the idea for her venture, All Skate, took shape.

"I'm a social worker and a roller skater, and I could see the gap," says Rachel. "I had people with disabilities approach me asking for classes that could be adapted to their needs. I believe everyone should have the chance to participate if they choose, feel welcome and experience joy. All Skate was born out of that.”

The scale of exclusion in the disabled community is well documented. Stats NZ's 2023 Household Disability Survey found 851,000 New Zealanders are disabled - one in six of us. More than half report having only just enough, or not enough, income to meet basic needs.

The barriers are not only financial. Mainstream sport is rarely designed for a body that moves differently, so people are shut out twice over: once by cost, and again by an activity that was never built with them in mind.

All Skate Tauranga was established to remove both barriers. Rachel started it less than a year ago, in September 2025, running adaptive and therapeutic skating classes for disabled people and people facing financial hardship, working with Special Olympics, Parafed and local mental health providers.

"Already demand has exceeded my expectations. We have grown from one class to three full ones, and a new fourth one underway," Rachel said.

"Our skaters are incredible; one of them has hydrocephalus and spina bifida, and this year she competed at a beginner competition in Auckland. Another has one leg, is autistic and communicates minimally through speech. He has found his own ways to join in and has made friends too - something he struggles to do at school. All our students show me constantly that with the right environment they can thrive and achieve their goals"

In March this year Rachel bought Skatescool Tauranga, a skating school with more than a decade of history in the city. The idea is that its classes and public roller discos turn enough profit to let All Skate offer free places to those who cannot pay. Making that hold together - two businesses, one cohesive plan - is what All Good Ventures' programme will help with.

All Good's year-long programme runs the same way for everyone. The four most recent founders started in July, each receiving seed funding and beginning fortnightly sessions with co-founder Rod Claycomb to build a one-page strategic business plan and a budget; Rachel is drafting hers now.

From September, the founders move to monthly meetings with a matched volunteer business mentor for the remaining ten months, with pro bono specialists on call throughout. For Rachel, the goal by next June is a model where Skatescool's profits reliably fund the free classes - and one that could travel beyond Tauranga.

"I have a basic plan, mostly in my head. But I know I need to do this properly," says Rachel. "I am community-focused, so what I'm hoping to get from All Good Ventures is help balancing the business side and the social side, and getting the strategy and the numbers right so All Skate can thrive in the long term."

While All Good Ventures supports founders from all over the world, New Zealand ventures are a priority when they fit the criteria.

"We're always glad when a strong Kiwi applicant comes through," says All Good Ventures founder Rod Claycomb. "Rachel's the sort of founder we look for - she has a marginalised community in mind, and she's building a trading business to support them rather than something that runs on grants."

The three other founders in this year's All Good cohort are each tackling deprivation in a different part of the world.

In Colombia, Jonathan Bertrand is building an online marketplace for domestic workers - an estimated 700,000 people, most working without contracts or social security, for whom a week off sick can mean skipped meals and debt. The platform is almost ready; his priority this year is launching it and signing up the first workers.

In Ethiopia, where 62 million people lack safe drinking water, Habteab Bantora sells water filters through sales agents recruited from the communities he serves - income for them, clean water for them and their neighbours. The business is trading but not yet breaking even, and this year is about getting it there.

In Hungary, Dr Zsófia Szlamka is building a network of psychologists whose paid work funds free mental health sessions for young people who could never afford them, in a country with one of the EU's highest suicide rates. One pilot hub is open in Budapest; the aim is one in every major city in the region.

"We're really looking forward to this year," says Rod. "Four founders, four very different problems, and the same job in front of each of them - building something that pays for itself and brings freedom to people in the process."

Since 2018, All Good Ventures has supported 29 social enterprises across 17 countries. Its October 2025 impact report put the number of lives changed at more than 375,000 - and that counts only the ventures that have finished their year.

All Good Ventures was founded by Waikato couple Heather and Rod Claycomb out of a determination to see people freed from deprivation through clever business ideas. The All Good Ventures Fund is an endowment fund held at Momentum Waikato Community Foundation, so that anyone can donate or leave a bequest to support social enterprise start-ups that change lives, for generations to come.

Donations towards the All Good Ventures Fund help build its investment income, which enables this support for new businesses making a difference - you can read all about it and donate at momentumwaikato.nz/allgoodventuresfund!