About Us

The Trust was formed in 1988 as the Trust Bank Bay of Plenty Community Trust to hold shares in the Trust Bank Group for the benefit of Bay of Plenty Communities. In 1996 this share, along with all the other shares in the Trust Bank Group, was sold to the Westpac Bank and the sale proceeds of approximately $90m invested by the Trust.

Our name changed by dropping the “Trust Bank” part in 1998 and changed again to BayTrust in March 2006 to give the Trust a shorter more easily remembered name. We are known as BayTrust, but our official name is the Bay of Plenty Community Trust Incorporated.

Our Area spans from Waihi Beach (Cutoff is Waihi Beach Road) to Tūrangi (inclusive of Mangakino) to Cape Runaway including Rotorua, Taupō, Tauranga and Whakatāne. 

Where does BayTrust get its money and how does it spend it?

The original fund resulted from the sale of the Trustbank shares to Westpac Bank in 1996.

The Trust now has a fund of approximately $260m (31 March 2025) invested in a carefully planned, diversified way, both locally and globally. Returns from these investments form the Trust’s income and are distributed to Bay of Plenty community organisations by way of grants (and sometimes loans).

The Trustees aim to re-invest enough income each year to cover inflation and some population growth in the Bay of Plenty, plus in good income years to put some funds aside to cover grants in poorer income years.

BayTrust's income is primarily spent on community groups serving the Bay of Plenty, in order to help build, strengthen and enhance present and future BOP communities. We generally aim to distribute just over three per cent of our capital base per year.

Help us to Improve 

If you feel there's something we can do better, we would like to know about it. You can let us know by emailing info@baytrust.org.nz, or alternatively by emailing our CEO Alastair Rhodes at: Alastair@baytrust.org.nz. All complaints will receive a careful hearing, a thorough and objective investigation and a response.

BayTrust is also a registered Financial Services Provider, and all complaints related to that role will be dealt with in terms of the FSCL Practical Guide for Members. You can find out more about this by visiting https://www.fscl.org.nz/, including how to lodge a complaint

Our Commitment to Te Tiriti o Waitangi

The Trust desires to work with Māori in a way that is consistent with the Principles of the Te Tiriti o Waitangi including partnership, protection and participation, particularly:

• acknowledges that New Zealand was founded based on bicultural partnerships;
•  aims to work together with Māori to ensure a true partnership exists, sharing skills and supporting one another;
• will ensure Māori, Iwi, hapu and whanau are aware of their rights to make applications to BayTrust including projects relating to the advancement of Te Reo Māori and Tikanga and are provided with the relevant advice and support.

Our Commitment to becoming a climate responsible (Tiakina te ao turoa)

BayTrust accepts that climate change poses a serious and immediate risk to our community and requires urgent action. We believe that we all have a role to play in helping to mitigate the most severe impacts, and that we all will have to do things differently.  As a philanthropic, BayTrust has significant flexibility to help our BOP communities understand and mitigate their climate change impacts, as well as grasp opportunities through our internal actions, our investments and our community support.

As such, BayTrust is committed to becoming a climate responsible (Tiakina te ao turoa) organisation through the implementation of our Climate Change Action Plan 2024-2030: 

Privacy

At BayTrust, we are committed to ensuring the privacy of information. To read our privacy policy please follow this link: BayTrust Privacy Policy.