Lani Evans Mnzm Email & Phone Number

Porirua, Wellington, Nz

Fundsorter helps New Zealand community organisations find and apply for contestable grant funding. We know (1) it’s difficult for organisations to find relevant funding opportunities, and (2) it’s time consuming to prepare funding applications. How does Fundsorter help?Fundsorter is building an extensive database of grant funding opportunities in New Zealand. We have a discovery and matching engine that can match opportunities to your organisation based on strategic alignment, timing and criteria. With opportunities identified, Fundsorter will generate unique, contextually relevant applications to meet funder requirements. You simply review and submit.We're currently in start-up phase, building an MVP and prototyping - stay tuned for launch!

New Zealand

Generous Ventures is a future-focused philanthropic trust working across Aotearoa New Zealand. Together with our partners at Thankyou Payroll, we are forging a new path, part of a global movement in which business profits are used for good. Since Thank You Payroll was set up in 2014, Generous Ventures - then called Thank You Charitable Trust - was its philanthropic arm. During this time, we donated more than $395,000 to 299 organisations across the motu, using a ground-breaking, pay-it-forward, community-led funding model. We are currently in the midst of a strategic refresh.

New Zealand

Share Collective is a new non-profit making it easy for companies, founders and investors to make a positive impact in Aotearoa through the donation of shares. We accept donations of shares in unlisted companies and hold those shares in a charitable portfolio. Funds derived from dividends or company sales support critical environmental and social impact areas in Aotearoa. We launched publicly, with seed funding and nearly $250k worth of donated shared. Our aim is to make donating a portion of equity become the norm for business in New Zealand - and around the world.

New Zealand

The Aotearoa Foundation is a private family Foundation established by Julian and Josie Robertson, and their family. The Foundation takes a focused, strategic approach to philanthropy and has historically targeted high-impact grants in three principal areas: education, environment and medical research. I will be leading the board through the development and implementation of an ambitious new strategy, to be launched in 2024.

New Zealand

Te Rourou, One Aotearoa Foundation is an innovative corporate philanthropic funder. We have a vision of an equitable Aotearoa where all young people have access to the resources and opportunities they need to thrive. We want all rangatahi to have a sense of agency - we don't want young people to be locked out of opportunity by systems and experiences beyond their control.Since taking on the leadership role, we have evaluated our historic work, created an aspirational 10 year strategy and pivoted to systems change and place-based approach. Our work is currently focused on digital equity, improving outcomes for rangatahi Māori and care experienced young people, and creating measurable, sustainable change in Murihiku (Southland).Success stories include: Launching international award winning OHI Data Navigator, a free interactive digital tool which analyses and shares population-level data on youth outcomes and experiences. The tool democratises access to information and tracks changes in population level data to help practitioners understand and respond to needs. The Thriving in Murihiku workstream - a place based funding programme using community and iwi engagement, data and research to develop a long-term funding strategy. The funding includes systems change, contestable funds and a participatory fund lead by rangatahi Māori. Toitū te Toki, an ambitious digital equity programme working to get 83,000 second-hand corporate laptops into the hands of NCEA students around the country. The NZ launch of DreamLab, an app crowdsourcing the processing power of smart phones to crunch complex genetic data for world renowned biomedical researchers at the Garvan Institute. The app received more than 25,000 downloads in the first 10 days.I led Sustainability from 2020 - 2023, focused on GRESB technical assessments, strategy and developing a high quality offsets programme. In FY22 we saw a 15% improvement in our GRESB score and in FY23 we hope to offset our carbon emissions.

New Zealand

The Peter McKenzie Project has a vision of an Aotearoa New Zealand where all children, young people and mokopuna flourish. He oranga tamariki, he oranga whanau, he oranga tangata.The J R McKenzie Trust established the Peter McKenzie Project as a spend-down fund dedicated to reducing child and family poverty in Aotearoa New Zealand. We are focused on supporting systemic change work that can, over time, contribute to a reduction in the numbers of people entering, or living in poverty and hardship. My contributions as a committee member have been focused on a radical shift towards participatory practice in philanthropy, including both funding decisions and collective strategy setting.

Thankyou Payroll is a purpose driven business that provides high quality, cloud based payroll intermediary services to thousands of businesses and charities all over New Zealand. As well as offering excellent payroll solutions, we provide philanthropic contributions to our community through the Thankyou Charitable Trust, we are certified carbon neutral and we are a living wage employer. The Thankyou Payroll team is constantly working to improve our product and respond to the needs of our customers, community, shareholders and stakeholders. After two years as the start-up CEO, I stepped into a governance role, working on high level strategy and direction setting, as well as continuing to support and develop the philanthropic model. In my tenure we served more than 11,000 organisations - mostly SMES - saving them time, money and stress. We established the Thankyou Charitable Trust and developed a unique pay-it-forward, participatory funding model that inspired other funders around the world. We contributed more than $1.5 million in benefits to communities through funding and in-kind services. We raised almost half a million dollars through equity crowd-funding with PledgeMe in 2017, and in 2020 we paid our first dividends to shareholders – a first not just for us, but a global first. According to Forbes we were the first equity crowd-funded company in the world to return dividends to shareholders. We became carbon positive, offsetting 120%+ of our emissions with Ekos and our team and board have planted thousands of natives and I love going back to see the trees we planted years ago growing into a forest in Sawyers Bay. in 2019 we implemented a parental leave policy for Directors in 2019 that directors to stay connected and contributing while caring for our pēpi.

New Zealand

Thankyou Payroll is a purpose driven business that provides high quality, cloud based payroll intermediary services to thousands of businesses and charities all over New Zealand. As well as offering excellent payroll solutions, we provide philanthropic contributions to our community through the Thankyou Charitable Trust, we are certified carbon neutral and we are a living wage employer. The Thankyou Payroll team is constantly working to improve our product and respond to the needs of our customers, community, shareholders and stakeholders. After two years as the start-up CEO, I stepped into a governance role, working on high level strategy and direction setting, as well as continuing to support and develop the philanthropic model. During my time as the founding CEO, I increased revenue by 400%+ year on year, increased the team size, developed the funding model and transformed our customer service.

New Zealand

Cheese Cartel is a subscription service sharing the best of small-scale, ethical, artisan New Zealand cheese. Curating a monthly selection of hand-made, local cheeses, the Cheese Cartel aims to provide channels to market for small-scale, specialist producers and introduce customers to diverse and innovative cheeses made by passionate New Zealanders. For the founders, this company was an opportunity to test the subscription service model, experiment with the luxury goods market and indulge our passion for cheese. We sold the company in 2021 after two years and the company has continued to grow and develop under new ownership.

Aotearoa New Zealand

60 Second Civics is a series of short films promoting and explaining elements of civic society. The pieces, produced by Matai Media, are voiced by everyday New Zealanders and explain structural processes, like "How a Law is Made", "Running for Council" and "What is MMP?" as well as ideas, such as "Why Vote" and "Whakaputa Whakaaro". The films are freely available online, can be imbedded into websites and used for any educational or promotional purposes. We hope to add to the initial pool of ten short films in the future. To view the pieces, go to https://vimeo.com/60scivics/videos

New Zealand

ReGeneration worked to support and develop young people who are interested in creating positive social, environmental, cultural and creative change in their communities, schools, homes and workplaces. After two years of volunteering with the trust, I stepped into a fulltime organistaional leadership role in late 2010. Over the following three years, we worked alongside more than 11,000 young people, produced 60 short documentaries about inspiring changemakers, produced curriculum linked resources on generosity and ran more than 80 events, including the Auckland Changemakers Convention and the Social Entrepreneurs Masterclass. We also conducted, with the support of the University of Otago, research into the efficacy of our programs. These results (later published as part of a PhD) demonstrated significant increases in self-esteem, self-efficacy, political efficacy, social justice personality, citizenships and more. We wrapped up the trust in 2013, as the board and leadership team considered the trust had done it's work of seeding, connecting and supporting the next generation fo changemakers.

Volunteer Otago is a referral, promotion and advocacy agency supporting 120 not-for-profit organisations and around 1000 individuals a year. At Volunteer Otago, I supported 5 paid staff and up to 20 regular volunteers to run a general volunteering referral service, a youth volunteering programme, a mental health recovery programme and a youth specific mental health recovery programme. During my time as manager, we also started a satellite volunteer centre based in Central Otago and started up the Chicks Project in Port Chalmers supporting young musicians and employed an assistant to the youthworker.

Dunedin

I began working for Volunteer Otago in early 2008, when the youth co-ordinators position was established. I worked alongside schools and other non-profit organizations to create an in-schools volunteer programme that gives young people the opportunity to connect with their communities in a real and meaningful way. The programme was run in seven Dunedin high schools with high levels of success, engaging around 250 young people in volunteering and community based action through its pilot year.

New Zealand

Over the Summer of 2006-2007, myself and three other women spent 84 days in the mountains, in untracked areas, traversing 1600km of the South Island. Our mission - to raise awareness for Youthline, a charity that specialises in youth development, and to become the first group of women to complete such a journey. Once the trip was finished, we made a short film documenting our journey and used it as a tool for talking to young people about help-seeking behaviour, working together and setting goals. I spent over a year working as a community education volunteer, visiting more than 4000 high school students to promote these ideals and the services of Youthline. www.manawahinewalk.com

Bachelor Of Arts Honours, Animation & Documentary

Graduate Certificate In Not For Profit Management

Te Ara Reo Māori - Level 1 & 2

He Papa Tikanga (Kaupae 3)

Graduate Diploma In Adult Education & Training

Bachelor Of Screen Production, Screen Communication