Grants

Want to make a positive impact in your local environment, but need funds to help make this happen? We facilitate several grants in partnership with Auckland Council. Having easy access to resources like this helps keen community members to restore the whenua (land) in many different ways.

Get started with food scraps grant

Help educate people around you – friends, whānau and community – about Auckland Council’s food scraps collection service. Receive up to $500 to support a community or neighbourhood event that includes discussion about the food scraps collection, or become a neighbourhood bin ambassador and help others get it right on collection day.

Love Your Neighbourhood grant

Our Love Your Neighbourhood grant helps you to actively care for a place you love – anywhere you might live, learn or play. It’s already helped hundreds of groups to organise planting days, stream clean ups and other projects where volunteers come together to connect and improve their local environment.

Projects this grant can help with:

• organising a clean up of your street, local park or beach
• community plantings or weeding bees
• local food growing projects
• installing composting or rain harvesting systems at your playcentre, school or community garden
• setting up a pest trapping programme in your neighbourhood.

Anyone can apply, whether you are a group of friends, neighbours or workmates. We’re also supporting schools, early childhood education centres, youth groups, sports teams and community organisations. 

You can receive up to $500 to cover expenses. Applying is quick and easy and you’ll hear back from us within seven working days. Projects need to take place in either the Henderson-Massey, Maungakiekie-Tāmaki, Whau or Waitākere Ranges local board area.

Zero Waste Events grant 

Community event organisers who want to minimise waste to landfill at their next event can apply for a Zero Waste Events grant. This grant could help you rent bins or reusable crockery, pay for compostable packaging, recycling and food waste collections or thank you vouchers for zero waste event volunteers.

Anyone hosting a free community event for 250 people or more anywhere in Auckland can apply. You’ll hear back within seven working days.

You can find zero waste event stories at zerowasteevents.org.nz, and get tips and tricks for creating your own.

Kaurilands School recently used their zero waste events grant towards compostable serveware, bins for separating out waste, and the collection of food scraps and cardboard for recycling. Watch their story here:

Community Composting Fund

If you are in the early stages of starting a community composting hub, or have one already running but need some more equipment to take it to the next level, have a look at the Compost Collective’s Community Composting Fund for assistance.

The Community Composting Fund is available to help people compost food and garden waste locally within their own neighbourhood. Communities to us are community gardens, urban farms, organisations, schools, and businesses, basically anywhere where the people in your community can come and drop off food scraps and garden waste for composting.

Anyone based in Auckland can apply to the Community Compost Fund, which can be used for expenses listed here. These include:

• Composting systems (new or DIY)
• Tools to help manage your composting systems, such as compost aerators, turning forks, thermometers and weighing scales (for data collection purposes)
• Composting signage (we have templates available if needed) 
• Subscription to the Living Compost Hubs App

When the fund is open for applications, these are processed on a weekly basis so you can expect a quick response.