A new charitable trust designed to support young people seeking to make a significant difference to our world has been launched by Nelson-based leadership and development coach Rebecca Mason.

The Kāmahi Trust aims to provide monetary and mentoring support to individual recipients and projects that have a notable and positive environmental or social impact.

The Trust’s first recipient is Jessie Cross. After finishing university in 2015, Jessie worked as a lawyer and travelled the world with an international education social enterprise. After she lost her job due to COVID-19, Jessie built “The Not So Redundant Club” to support people who have lost their jobs or businesses due to COVID-19, completed a yoga teacher training course, and started working for the Nelson Tasman Climate Forum, before receiving the inaugural Kāmahi Trust coaching scholarship.

“A mutual friend of Jessie’s and one of our trustees, Sacha MacDonald, introduced Sacha and Jessie to each other. Sacha then gave me Jessie’s details, as she thought that Jessie would be a perfect fit for the aims of the Trust,” says Rebecca. “I met with Jessie and soon realised that the best form of support the Trust could offer her was a full scholarship to the Genratec MasterLiving Coaching Programme. With the support of the other trustees and Genratec (NZ) I am now providing Jessie with six months of coaching.”

“The vision of Kāmahi Trust is really exciting to me,” says Jessie. “As a relatively young person who has always known that I want to make a real positive impact, I’ve often struggled with not knowing how to do that effectively. Having passion, drive, and energy are all wonderful traits, but channelling that can be really difficult without guidance.

“I came across Kāmahi at a time when my career was at a crossroads, and I really wasn’t sure what direction to take. I believe that the six-month coaching programme will provide me with greater clarity, focus, and direction and that at the end of it I’ll have a much clearer idea of where I’m headed and how to get there.”

The Kāmahi Trust welcomes applications from potential recipients from around Aotearoa New Zealand, not only from those based in Nelson Tasman. Both people and projects are eligible for support in the form of monetary grants, mentoring, time, guidance and support.

Founding trustee and trust chair Rebecca Mason sees the Kāmahi Trust as a way to continue the legacy of philanthropy and service to others established in her family by her parents, playwright Bruce Mason, and well-known gynaecologist and obstetrician, Diana Mason.

Rebecca also sees it as a natural next step as she nears the end of a long and successful career as a leadership and development coach.

“I want the Trust to endure beyond my lifetime and nurture future generations of individuals making a real impact,” says Rebecca. “Through all of my life and different careers, my major focus has been to make the world a better place by making a difference to the people I work with and come across in my daily life. This has been through values of kindness and courage and a strong commitment to developing myself and others.”

Rebecca is supported by fellow Kāmahi trustees Sacha MacDonald and Richard Abel.

“We are delighted to see the Trust come to fruition and to be announcing our first recipient,” says Rebecca. “While I am making a significant financial contribution to set the Trust up on a solid footing, we are hoping to attract other donors who share our vision for the Trust and its objectives so that we can ensure the Trust has real longevity and is financially self-sustaining. We also want to hear from people and projects that fit our application criteria and would benefit from our support.”

For more details about the Kāmahi Trust go to www.kamahi.org

For more details about eligibility to apply for support from the Kāmahi Trust go to https://kamahi.org/checklist-for-recipients/ For more details about how to support the Kāmahi Trust as a donor go to https://givealittle.co.nz/org/the-kamahi-trust

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