What is Impact Investing?

Investing that is made with the intention of creating measurable and beneficial social or environmental impacts alongside financial returns.

Why is BayTrust interested in Impact Investing?

BayTrust’s Purpose is to accelerate bold and meaningful change, assisting BOP communities and our environment to flourish. BayTrust operates a ~$200m globally diversified investment portfolio with considerable assets that are held on behalf of the community.  The aim of investing a portion of this portfolio in Impact Investments is to increase the Trust’s impact around its Purpose without materially compromising its overall investment returns and to address issues that granting is unable or ineffective in addressing.

Investing – an Impact Investment is not a grant.  Any investments considered will need to demonstrate how the funds will be repaid.

Intention – the intention to create impact needs to be embedded into the investment, not a by-product.

Measurable -  the impact needs to be identifiable and measurable in order for us to assess, manage and monitor the effect of the investment and compare it with other opportunities

Social or environmental impacts – BayTrust is interested in investing where the impact created is targeted towards three areas:

  • Improving housing conditions for those living in sub-standard or inadequate housing
  • Generating employment opportunities that create meaningful, sustainable employment especially in areas where there has been systemic unemployment or addressing the recession effects of Covid-19.

Addressing environmental or climate change issues.

Financial returns – the investment needs to return an appropriate risk-adjusted return.

Amount of Investment

BayTrust has allocated up to 15% of our total investment base of ~$240m to Impact Investing. Currently, this means around $36m allocated with ~$25m already committed to investments providing impact within the Bay of Plenty.

BayTrust usually only commits up to $2.5m into any one venture, however the total commitment depends on the nature of the investment and security over the assets.

 

New Scheme to support smaller social enterprises

BayTrust has allocated an additional $1m to a scheme that will specifically support smaller social enterprises providing social or environmental benefit in the BayTrust region. This allocation will consider investments between $50k and $250k.  The process will be more fluid than for higher levels of investment, with an aim of a quick response, more acceptance of risk and other forms of assistance may be considered to support the enterprise alongside the investment. 

 

Current Investments

A sample of some of our investments:

Purpose Capital - https://www.purposecapital.co.nz/  BayTrust has invested in Purpose Capital as one of the founding investors. Purpose Capital Impact Fund is an Impact Investment Fund seeking to create impact in the areas of affordable housing, environmental degradation, climate change and inequality.

 

Whakatohea Mussels (Opotiki) Limited (WMOL) - https://openocean.co.nz/  WMOL owns an open ocean mussel farm and processing factory in Opotiki. BayTrust’s investment into WMOL, both independently and through Purpose Capital, reflects the importance of providing employment in a region that has endured many years of disadvantage. WMOL currently provides ~200 jobs and this will grow as the company grows.

 

Tauranga Community Housing Trust – https://tcht.co/ TCHT is a registered Community Housing Provider that provides housing and related services to individuals and whanau with a special focus on disability and older people.


YouOwn – https://youown.co.nz/ YouOwn provides a shared ownership product, basically a loan that helps home buyers that lack a deposit but can afford repayments get into their own home.

 

For more information on this, please contact:

 

Terri Eggleton

Impact Investment Manager

Phone: (07) 578 6546 / Mobile: 027 2483905

Email: Terri@baytrust.org.nz

Funding Pop up Content

Thank you for showing interest in applying for funding. We fund programmes and projects that work towards achieving our Outcomes and Priorities and contain the Attributes we require. These Outcomes, Priorities and Attributes are listed below.

Strengthened Whanau - Babies and Youth

Rationale: BayTrust recognises the importance of family and whanau as the basic unit in communities – when the family unit is strong, it follows that our communities will be healthy and strong. Our priorities in this area are:

​The first 1000 days of Child’s Life

The first 1000 days of a child’s life is the best time to make an investment into a child, and addressing the needs of a baby means effectively addressing the needs of the family. Evidence supports the value of investment into this phase of a child’s development as cost beneficial

Priorities:

  1. Programmes addressing the needs of families and children, e.g. parenting programmes, especially where addressing those identified at risk or with high needs;
  2. Programmes should have identified outcomes and a long term approach, be based on sound practice and show strong alignment to the effective interventions identified in our research.

Youth

BayTrust believes that when Youth are involved and engaged within their community – through a range of activities (work, sport, volunteerism, education) they are more likely to lead productive lives and become good citizens that will provide leadership for our communities in the future.

Priorities:

  1. Activities that support youth engagement;
  2. Youth support services and programmes that encourage youth to be productive members of the community, that are strengths based, have identified outcomes and a long term approach, are based on sound practice and can show strong alignment to the effective interventions identified in our research;
  3. That facilitate youth into post-secondary education, training or employment.

Vulnerable families and children

For a variety of reasons, some families, children and parents need assistance to reach their full potential, improve their lives, or recover from setbacks. Supporting family members to become strong will lead to strong communities.  

Priorities:

  1. Programmes addressing the needs of children, especially those who are at risk or vulnerable, to help them overcome difficulties and thrive
  2. Programmes or activities that support adults/parents who are vulnerable, at risk or disadvantaged
  3. Programmes should have identified outcomes and a long term approach, and be based on sound practice.

Inclusive Communities

Rationale: BayTrust has a role in fostering acceptance of community diversity and assisting those at a disadvantage to participate in and contribute to the community to the best of their ability. 

Priorities:

  1. Programmes that promote general health and wellbeing for those who are disadvantaged – through illness, inequality, age, disability or geographical situation;
  2. Effects of demographic changes on people and activities that focus on how to reduce the negative impacts of these changes, especially those that take a regional perspective;
  3. Activities that promote the acceptance of diversity within our communities

Safe communities

Rationale: Feeling safe within communities is necessary to personal wellbeing and enjoyment of our natural resources.

Priorities:

  1. Lifesaving, Coastguard, water survival and safety organisations and activities;
  2. Search and Rescue operations and organisations;
  3. Community Policing activities and organisations

Healthy Sustainable Housing

Rationale: We recognise the importance of healthy, sustainable housing in enabling people and families to lead healthy, productive lives.

Priorities:

  1. Programmes that address issues of sub-standard housing and or lack of social housing;
  2. Retrofitting insulation programmes where there is a community approach to the programme.

PROSPEROUS COMMUNITIES

Rationale: Community development encourages communities to address their own issues, build on their own strengths and natural advantages. This builds cohesion, enhances the lives of people within communities and increases their sense of belonging, wellbeing and happiness.  Economic vibrancy, prosperity and jobs that provide a sustainable wage or better, plus all year round employment are essential to retain citizens and enable communities to thrive.

Priorities:

  1. Community organisations and activities that facilitate community development at a community level, encourage community cohesion and pride, volunteerism and equity amongst citizens;
  2. Activities that seek to address economic challenges, or improve economic welfare; the creation of sustainable employment opportunities;
  3. Activities that encourage or support the creation and enhancement of social enterprises.

ACTIVE COMMUNITIES

Rationale: BayTrust recognises the benefit of sport and recreational activities in contributing to the overall health and wellbeing of community members, and the role sport plays in providing a mechanism for inclusion of individuals in a community. BayTrust believes the most strategic manner it can contribute to sport is through its involvement in the CoachForce programme which is delivered across 19 sporting codes across the BOP region by our strategic partner Sport BOP, and achieves recognisable community outcomes.

Priorities:

  1. CoachForce programme due to its wide coverage and identified community benefits;
  2. Other sports and recreational activities that are not supported by CoachForce where the activity is an important part of that community, is well supported by the community and is easily accessible to all.

VIBRANT & FUN COMMUNITIES

Rationale: BayTrust believes involvement in arts, culture and heritage, community activities and events enriches people’s lives and increases their sense of wellbeing and connectedness.

Priorities:

  1. Applications for community driven arts, cultural and heritage opportunities / activities that enrich the lives of communities through active participation and that ideally work in a collaborative manner reflecting community priorities e.g. community arts programmes.
  2. Contributions to capital costs (generally up to a maximum of 20%) for buildings or assets where they are of strong local significance or historical importance with considerable wider community benefit.
  3. Events up to $15,000 maximum where the majority of the below elements are present:
  • a free to the public component;
  • high community appeal (the event reflects the interests of a high % of the community);
  • outreach to schools or youth involvement;
  • local community involvement in the organisation and delivery of the event;
  • high volunteer involvement;
  • where BayTrust funding will make a material difference to the event;
  • that have material economic development spin offs.

Tū Māori mai

  1. Activities or programmes that promote a strong Māori cultural identity (including Te Reo and tikanga) and contribute to a range of positive outcomes,
  2. Activities or programmes that help build knowledge of local Māori histories that help build understanding and positive collective futures
  3. Contributions to capital projects on Marae (up to $15k).

STRONGER COMMUNITY ORGANISATIONS

Rationale: We need strong community organisations and strong community leaders to deliver good quality programmes and activities that address community needs and aspirations.

Priorities:

  1. Activities that build the capacity and capability of community organisations or social enterprises, especially those that drive greater sustainability; support evaluative practices, service improvement and collaborative practices;
  2. Activities that support and enable community leaders;
  3. Activities that encourage and support volunteerism.

IMPROVED NATURAL ENVIRONMENT

Rationale: The natural environment is fundamental to the sustainability and future of BOP.

Priorities:

  1. Community led natural environmental initiatives;
  2. Activities that promote community involvement in sustainability practices or raise awareness of environmental issues at a community level;
  3. Activities that recognise the natural environment as a cornerstone of sustainable communities and support those that show leadership within this space.

 

To help determine the likelihood of
funding success BayTrust will apply
its funding strategically by investing
in programmes and activities that
contain the following attributes:

1. Are BOP wide or BOP replicable, and are
       community led.

2. Contain measurable outcomes and
       embedded evaluative practices.

3. Build capacity and capability of
       community groups and individuals who
       are potential community leaders

4. Support those in the BOP who have the
       greatest need

5. Incorporate a Partnership approach

6. Foster Youth engagement and early child
       development

7. Deliver innovative solutions to social issues

Note: the more of these attributes that an application can demonstrate it meets, the more likelihood of funding and the greater the funding that can be accesses.

My progamme, activity or project aligns with the above > 

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