Turning the Lights Off, But Not the Impact: A Love Letter to Ākina
Whāia te iti kahurangi, ki te tuohu koe, me he maunga teitei
Seek the treasure that you value most dearly,
if you bow your head, let it be to a lofty mountain.
It is with great sadness that the Trustees of Ākina, and our Chief Executive Officer advise that The Ākina Foundation will cease trading on 30 April 2025. This is a bittersweet moment, however we feel much pride in the achievements of our mighty social enterprise.
Founded in 2008 as a charitable foundation, Ākina has spearheaded innovation across the economy of Aotearoa. Our first chapter was focused on incubating environmental innovation, our second as a champion for the Social Enterprise movement, and our final chapter has focused on mainstreaming Impact Investment, Impact Management, Impact Reporting and Social Procurement across the New Zealand economy. Our vision for a sustainable, prosperous and inclusive Aotearoa has never wavered.
The current economic and political environment has been extremely challenging for Ākina, and we know it has been for our wider ecosystem too. We do not believe things will improve quickly, and continuing to trade would not be responsible, nor ethical. Therefore we have elected to close our doors.
We are extremely proud of our successes over the past 17 years, which have included:
Mainstreaming and spearheading Social Enterprise, Impact Investing, and Social Procurement in Aotearoa.
Hosting the Social Enterprise World Forum in Christchurch in 2017, the largest event held in the city post earthquake.
Organising the Aotearoa Social Enterprise Forum at the Wellington Zoo, bringing together over 350 attendees from all sectors.
Leading the Social Enterprise Sector Development programme - a 3 year government partnership from 2018 - 2021.
Founding the Impact Enterprise Fund in partnership with New Ground Capital, raising almost $9 million to establish Aotearoa’s first domestically focused impact investing fund.
Running the Impact Investment Readiness Programme for over 7 years in partnership with Foundation North, Bay Trust, The Tindall Foundation, WEL Energy, and Kiwibank. Throughout its lifetime, the programme granted $1.2M and helped raise over $100M as a result.
Delivering hundreds of hours of capability building support to start-up Social Enterprises and community groups across the motu.
Developing Aotearoa’s Social Enterprise Certification Programme, certifying over 100 products and services from impact-led businesses. These businesses were hosted, open source, on the ‘Ākina Impact Directory’.
Launching the Ākina Social Procurement Buyer Programme in 2018. We provided countless master classes to procurement practitioners across the public and private sector, as well as introducing social enterprises into corporate supply chains.
Releasing a range of open-source Impact Tools to help kickstart the Social Enterprise sector in New Zealand. These are available on the Impact Initiative website.
In May 2022, Te Rūnanga o Ngāpuhi welcomed Ākina kaimahi and trustees to Waitangi to share mātauranga on Te Tiriti and Impact. For many of the tīma, this was a standout experience during their time at Ākina.
Publishing a range of thought leadership pieces including the recent white paper, ‘Developing a Successful Social Investment Approach: Supercharging Social Investment in Aotearoa New Zealand’.
Partnering with The Manukau Urban Māori Authority and Toyota, with support from The Tindall Foundation, Auckland Council, MBIE and Waka Kotahi to establish Waka Aronui, a social car leasing programme launched in May 2022.
Publishing in partnership with Fonterra, the Social Return on Investment for the Kick Start Breakfast programme and catalysing a conversation about the importance of taking a holistic approach to measuring social impact.
Winning the EY Social Entrepreneur of the Year in 2024.
Continuing our commitment to Papatūānuku and reducing our carbon emissions by 53% since 2018 through the Ekos Climate Positive Business Operations certification.
Remaining committed to contributing to a more equitable society, celebrating the unique role Te Ao Māori plays in Aotearoa, and upholding Te Tiriti o Waitangi. We underwent Te Tiriti o Waitangi training, formed an action plan, supported staff to use more Te Reo Māori, and did our best to weave tikanga into our ways of working.
Lifting the bar on the standard for impact reporting in Aotearoa with the Ākina Impact Report - a treasured artifact of our work amplifying the impact of others.
During that time we have seen wide ripples in the economy. Professional service firms have established teams focused on Impact, corporates began hiring supplier diversity consultants and creating social procurement roles, and there has been a rise of competition delivering impact services. Impact, as a viable alternative mindset to how we do business in Aotearoa, has become mainstream. We take pride that The Ākina Foundation’s journey contributed to this.
Despite all this, the Board had to make the difficult decision to close.
Ākina has taken on many forms over the years in the attempt to prove that it is possible to be a successful social enterprise. It is within the advocacy and innovation space that Ākina made its reputation as it attempted to create meaningful change across the New Zealand economy. However, the highs and lows of recent economic cycles have made it challenging to hold that space without a cornerstone partner.
The goal of putting impact at the heart of the New Zealand economy is certainly a lofty one. In our mission to create a sustainable, prosperous and inclusive Aotearoa, we branched into many new sectors, often where there was no precedent within New Zealand. This left us with many workstreams split across a small team. While this diversification assisted us over the past 18 months, it also meant that our clients sometimes did not know what we did or where we fitted in. We could have been clearer about who we were.
The successes of Ākina were ultimately the successes of the kaimahi - both past and present. “Ākina changes you” has been repeated across numerous heartfelt letters of resignation, but watching the career development of Ākina alumni has been hugely rewarding and demonstrated the ripple effect in action. Our whānau has led to a bungee-cord of staff returning to the team, as well as lots of tears upon their farewells. The final tears have not yet dried, but we hold the sorrow because of the joy we have felt.
To those who have supported Ākina, been a treasured client, partner or friend - we thank you, deeply.
Ngā manaakitanga,
Te Pūoho Katene, Ākina Board Chair
Rachel Sanson, Trustee
Cheryl Reynolds, Trustee
Nicola Nation, Ākina Chief Executive Officer