Our Philanthropy Partners

We refer to Biome Trust as a philanthropic ‘organism’, as a nod to the nature of our ecological focus. We are a living community of people, who aspire to be in dynamic relationship with the environment and contexts that surround us.

‘Organism’ also points to the fact that Biome Trust is not a single organisation, but rather a collection of multiple legal structures and relationships. We designed it this way so that we can be flexible for our giftees and our mahi (work), which is focused on ecological health and regeneration.

Specifically, we have chosen to partner with multiple Donor-Advised Funds (DAFs), who enable us to more efficiently make gifts in different geographical areas and manage our endowment across multiple asset types.

Those with experience in the nonprofit funding world can likely relate to the challenges associated with sending money to another country, giving donations to early stage projects, or directing investment into less conventional assets. While we cannot change the overhead administration required for compliance, we want to offload as much burden as possible from the communities we serve, so that they can focus on their important work.

We also have our own registered charity, called Biome Trust Aotearoa. This operating nonprofit is how we coordinate our team, trustees, endowment, and activities in New Zealand.

Significant research and effort went into arriving at this current structure of Biome Trust, and we’re deeply grateful for everyone who shared their advice with us along the way.

Here are the Donor-Advised Fund partners we are working with:

For accounting and legal support:

We have benefitted significantly from the experiences of others. We’re happy to pay it forward by sharing our lessons with other funders, or those early on the philanthropic journey.

We are also open to working with additional partners. While our DAF needs are fully met at this time, we are always keen to meet others who are working to increase the scale and velocity of funding for our living world. If you represent or know an organisation who is doing something unique in this space, you can send us a message here.