How does Māori business intersect with the principles of social enterprise?
He maurea kai whiria – Focus on what really matters
Globally, organisations that are pursuing purposeful objectives beyond sales and revenue are on the rise. This growing business model of social enterprise is becoming more prevalent in New Zealand too. So how does the social enterprise kaupapa intersect with the business practices in te ao Māori?
In Aotearoa, social enterprise is defined by the Department of Internal Affairs as an organisation that has a social mission and derives a substantial portion of its income from trade or services and reinvests the majority of its profits in the fulfilment of its mission. Simply put, social enterprise is the point where the non-profit sector and the for-profit sector meet.
Māori organisations: values-led, future-facing, and sustainability-focused
While social enterprise is a growing phenomenon in Aotearoa, the ideology of values-led, community-driven business is not. The inclusion of tikanga values in Māori business has been guiding Māori organisations in practice for many years. Many of these values – such as kotahitanga (oneness), mohiotanga (sharing information), manaakitanga (extending care and support) – set Māori organisations apart.
Furthermore, Māori organisations also show strength beyond being values-led, but future-facing. Māori look to the future and set plans in place for the coming generations and lean on a long-term view to guide organisation planning and management.
A recent report from The Productivity Commission shone a spotlight on how businesses can learn from Māori business, saying that
‘Kaupapa Māori firms are distinctive for having long-term horizons and managing multiple stakeholders and objectives and offer valuable lessons for other New Zealand businesses.’
For many Māori organisations, the goal is not to purely generate profits, but to create an income stream to provide for a social or community cause. This way of working mirrors the ideology behind the social enterprise business model. Māori organisations often work with the resources they have available to generate an income stream to reinvest back into the wellbeing of whānau, hapū and iwi.
Te Kāwai Toro is fortunate to work with many inspiring Māori organisations around the country. A few of these rōpū have adopted the social enterprise model to fuel the initiatives for their community.
Manawa Honey
The face of Te Whare o Rehua – Te Kahutoirangi Tawa is beaming in sharing his experience catching a pig in the bush at Maungapohatu whilst part of Te Whare o Rehua held there in July 2019.
When Tūhoe Tuawhenua Trust approached us to work with them a few years back, we were excited to learn about their Te Whare o Rehua project. This initiative aims to reconnect tamariki and rangatahi with the ways of living of their tupuna – teaching them valuable skills to live in harmony with the land, such as fishing, hunting, conservation and horse riding.
Being located in the beautiful remote bush in Ruatāhuna, Tūhoe Tuawhenua Trust utilised the land they had to create a honey business, Manawa Honey, which is now stocked in Countdowns nationwide. Manawa Honey created a new income stream to provide for social and community initiatives for their people. This includes reinvesting honey profits back into initiatives like Te Whare o Rehua.
Tūhoe Tuawhenua Trust Executive Trustee, Brenda Tahi, says that Manawa Honey is one component of the broader strategy of their rōpū.
“For now, we have our honey business and Te Whare o Rehua as one avenue but we’re going to continue building up our people to take care of our land, which in turn then takes care of our people. It’s about whenua and tangata existing in harmony.”
Hikurangi Enterprises
Panapa Ehau, Director at Rua Bioscience, harvesting a field of hemp plants
One of Aotearoa’s most well-known Māori social enterprises is Hikurangi Enterprises, which gained public recognition back in 2017 when it became Aotearoa’s first licensed research-grower of medicinal cannabis. Since then, Hikurangi Enterprises has initiated several whanau community projects and is supporting Maori businesses to create jobs and increase economic development in the Waiapu Valley and Te Tairawhiti.
It started in 2015, when local whanau looked to the resources available around them – land, growing skills, and people needing work in the region – and established a Trust, with Hikurangi Enterprises its vehicle to drive opportunities for sustainable economic business development and employment.
Business offerings include the licensed growing of medicinal cannabis, which was instigated alongside a hemp growing trial. They also established a bioscience arm which is successfully conducting research into the bioactive and medicinal properties of kanuka. With new projects recently initiated to build sustainable housing and kai (food) models.
Hikurangi Enterprises provides any profits it makes back to its sole shareholder, Hikurangi Huataukina Trust, a charitable trust established as its philanthropic distributor which also has interests in education and economic development on the East Coast.
How can Māori organisations incorporate the principles of social enterprise into their kaupapa?
One core component that all organisations – be they businesses, not-for-profits, community organisations or social enterprises - need to get off the ground is funding, investment, and support. The social enterprise model can set organisations up to generate their own income streams and reduce the need for external sources of long-term funding. Māori rōpū can become interdependent – from a place of early-stage funding to being independent, and then on to being interlinked with other Māori organisations and businesses to sell or offer their products and services.
The initial support, however, can come from a variety of avenues. A few of these options have been outlined below.
Philanthropy
Organisations like the J R McKenzie Trust and other philanthropic funders often have an arm dedicated to supporting Māori development. Different Trusts have different eligibility criteria but checking out the list of philanthropic funders here can be a good place to start.
Grants and project funding from the government
For Māori organisations seeking to progress a new innovative idea, there are many public sector grants for research and development. If there is an element of research, development or innovation, experts at organisations like the Māori Economy team at Callaghan Innovation can help point people in the right direction to the public resources available to them.
Crowdfunding
As demonstrated by Hikurangi Enterprise’s record-breaking crowdfunding raise of $1M, crowd funding can be a highly effective way to raise the funds needed to get an initial idea off the ground. Be sure to check out your obligations to crowd funders however and set clear and realistic goals. This article here helps to describe the crowdfunding process.
Incubators and Accelerators
Te Wānanga o Aotearoa has been running a Māori-focused Accelerator programme for the last few years. The programme, Kōkiri, aims to accelerate Māori tech and business development with equity-free funding, mentorship and coaching over a 12-week period.
New Accelerators and Incubator programmes pop up regularly, such as the new government-funded Tech Incubator programmes, and the Creative HQ accelerator programmes.
Māori social enterprise
The reality is social enterprise existed in Aotearoa before the term was popularised in the broader economy. The Māori economy has long been values-led, future-facing, and sustainability-driven, and these organisational components mean social enterprise models can be adopted well by Māori business and organisations.
He maurea kai whiria – Focus on what really matters.