Te Pūaha Talks – our online capability building programme for 2023

Our 2023 programme of Te Pūaha Talks, free online webinars funded by Foundation North for not-for-profits, continues a wellbeing focus from September with our new Ngahere for Teams programme. We are also offering a Te Pūaha Talk in association with Climate Action Aotearoa as part of the Auckland Climate Festival.

Ngahere for Teams builds on our earlier Ngahere workshops, facilitated by CSI associates Tuihana Ohia and Louise Marra, which were designed to help individuals reset, rejuvenate, nurture and care for themselves and those around them. With Ngahere for Teams, Louise and Tuihana will take people on a voyage of embedding holistic wellbeing practices for their teams.

“In these workshops, Tuihana and Louise will help participants explore the importance of wellbeing in self, team and system, how connectivity enables wellbeing, and how to ground and nourish the team through a greater connection to Papatuanuku,” CSI Kaihautu Karinia Lee says. “The aim is to build team skills and practices for restorative systems change work.”

Four workshops, each of one hour’s duration, are being offered.

“Each workshop is a self-contained module as we know that with time pressures, people may only be able to join us for one or two sessions,’ Karinia says. “If possible, though, we would encourage people to join us for all four sessions of the Ngahere for Teams journey.”

The workshops are scheduled for 8.30 to 9.30am on Friday 8 September, Friday 13 October, Friday 17 November and Friday 1 December. Registrations for all four sessions are now open at Humanitix.

Our Auckland Climate Festival webinar will be presented by Climate Action Aotearoa co-leads Esther Whitehead and Arohanui West. The session, Your Sphere of Influence, will help people working in community organisations, philanthropics and businesses to look at how they can influence action to respond to the climate emergency. The workshop is designed to help you gain clarity on your sphere of influence within your organisation and explore how to build capability for next steps. We hope you will join us online on 20 September, 10.30 to 11.15am. Registrations are now open at Humanitix.

Te Pūaha Talks - online resources from previous events

Ngahere - Nurturing our connectivity. 

The wellbeing webinars were facilitated by CSI associates Tuihana Ohia and Louise Marra. “We were delighted Tuihana and Louise combined their considerable wisdom and experience in helping people to nurture their wellbeing to create the Ngahere workshops,” CSI Kaihautu Karinia Lee says. “The workshops provided a welcome opportunity to think about how to reset, rejuvenate, nurture and care for ourselves and those around us, when so many of us are navigating so much disruption.” A recording of the Ngahere workshops and resources for the Ngahere wellness process are available here.

Communications in the Good Times & the Bad

It followed the success of our earlier communications-focused webinar, Social Media for Social Impact, with former journalist, editor, author and public relations expert Kirsten Matthew. Communications in the Good Times & the Bad was designed for beginner to intermediate communications practitioners and volunteers in the not-for-profit sector. A recording of the webinar is available here.

The webinar includes:

• Planning, Priorities & Platforms - how your organisation’s objectives, audiences and brand values can help you to create a communications calendar and plan for the year.
• Making the Most of What You’ve Got - how to use your existing resources - staff and volunteers - to create compelling content, implement your comms, spread the word about your mahi, and become your own ambassadors.
• Surviving a Crisis - how and where things can go wrong, dealing with negative feedback and criticism, how to stop a crisis from escalating, and when to call in the experts.

Funders and Climate Action in Aotearoa

Funders and Climate Action in Aotearoa introduced the Funders Commitment on Climate Action developed by the Community Trusts of Aotearoa.

The commitment was developed in recognition of the key role philanthropic funders can play in supporting collective action on climate, the low level of environment and climate action funding in Aotearoa (about 4% of all funding allocated), and to build funder understanding of climate issues and how they can contribute.

A recording of the webinar is available here.

The webinar includes:

• Context around philanthropy and climate action in Aotearoa
• The whakapapa of the Funders Commitment and Funders Climate Action website
• Key content of the website, including the Tika Transition developed by Associate Professor Maria Bargh, a uniquely Aotearoa approach to a just transition
• Some calls to action for community groups and funders to connect and support joined up climate action

Thanks to our presenters: Linn Araboglos, Chief Executive of Wellington Community Fund, Aimee Kaio, Te Rūnanga o Ngāi Tahu, Regional Investment – Rūnanga Engagement Manager, and Devon Judd. Devon, who is currently studying at Te Herenga Waka, has been involved in the youth-led climate action group, Generation Zero.

Evaluation series

Evaluation is an essential social impact tool. We all want to make a positive difference through our work but can struggle to understand and demonstrate that difference clearly. How do you practically work out the contribution you are making? How can you be assured you are not doing harm or unintentionally holding the status quo in place? How can you learn and adapt along the way?

Three online workshops were designed to answer these questions for those newer to evaluation and people who are less experienced or confident about evaluation. Facilitated by CSI associate Rachael Trotman , the workshops provide an introduction to some key ideas, frameworks, tools and guidance organisations can use to understand the impact of their mahi.

The topics of the workshops are:

• Session 1 - Key ideas and useful evaluation frameworks
• Session 2 - Getting to 'value' - how can we know what good looks like?
• Session 3 - Tools to gather data and capture learning

The presentation and resources from the three sessions can be found here.

Hauora wānanga for Matariki

Matariki is a time to come together, to reflect on the past year, our challenges, our triumphs, on those that have passed on, and on all that it brought us. It is a time to reset. This year we offered a series of three wānanga which provided us with the quiet space and the time to nurture ourselves and our hauora, and to be aspirational with our goals and ambitions for the year ahead.

The wānanga, which were made possible with funding from Foundation North, were facilitated by CSI associate Tuihana Ohia. Over the series, Tuihana took us through a series of reflective practices to draw out and bring us into a space to consider our taonga, pūmanawa and the magic of our tūpuna, ancestors. It was a process of navigation and discovery and an opportunity for rediscovery and rejuvenation of our wellbeing.

The presentations and some reflections from the three wānanga are available here. They complement Tuihana’s 2021 Unu Ora workshops on hauora and you can also access the unu ora resource here.

Social Media for social impact

Presented by Kirsten Matthew, mastermind behind public relations agency, Mabel Maguire, this workshop was designed for staff and volunteers responsible for social media posting and management for community organisations. The session looked at how participants could use their organisation’s values and audiences to design a social media strategy that will help them to grow organically on social media platforms. A recording of the session, Powerpoint presentation and associated resources is now available.