The Trust was formed in 1988 as the Trust Bank Bay of Plenty Community Trust to hold shares in the Trust Bank Group for the benefit of Bay of Plenty Communities. In 1996 this share, along with all the other shares in the Trust Bank Group, was sold to the Westpac Bank and the sale proceeds of approximately $90m invested by the Trust.

Our name changed by dropping the “Trust Bank” part in 1998 and changed again to BayTrust in March 2006 to give the Trust a shorter more easily remembered name. We are known as BayTrust, but our official name is the Bay of Plenty Community Trust Incorporated.

Our Area is from Katikati to Turangi to Cape Runaway including Rotorua, Taupo, Tauranga and Whakatane. 

Where does BayTrust get its money and how does it spend it?

The original fund resulted from the sale of the Trustbank shares to Westpac Bank in 1996.

The Trust now has a fund of approximately $250m (at 31 March 2024) invested in a carefully planned, diversified way, both locally and globally. Returns from these investments form the Trust’s income and are distributed to Bay of Plenty community groups by way of grants (and sometimes loans).

The Trustees aim to re-invest enough income each year to cover inflation and some population growth in the Bay of Plenty, plus in good income years to put some funds aside to cover grants in poorer income years.

BayTrust's income is primarily spent on community groups serving the Bay of Plenty, in order to help build, strengthen and enhance present and future BOP communities. We generally aim to distribute approximately three per cent of our capital base per year.

Help us to Improve 

If you feel there's something we can do better, we would like to know about it. You can let us know by emailing info@baytrust.org.nz, or alternatively by emailing our CEO Alastair Rhodes at: Alastair@BayTrust.org.nz. All complaints will receive a careful hearing, a thorough and objective investigation and a response.

BayTrust is also Registered Financial Services Provider and all complaints related to that role will be dealt with in terms of the FSCL Practical Guide for Members. You can find out more about this by visiting https://www.fscl.org.nz/, including how to lodge a complaint

Our Commitment to the Treaty of Waitangi

We desire to work with Māori in a way that is consistent with the Principles of the Treaty of Waitangi including partnership, protection and participation, particularly:

•acknowledges that New Zealand was founded on the basis of bicultural partnerships; 

•aims to work together with Māori to ensure a true partnership exists, sharing skills and supporting one another;

•will ensure Māori, Iwi, hapu and whanau are aware of their rights to make applications to BayTrust including projects relating to the advancement of Te Reo Māori and Tikanga and are provided with the relevant advice and support.

Our Commitment to becoming a climate responsible (Tiakina te ao turoa)

BayTrust accepts that climate change poses a serious and immediate risk to our community and requires urgent action. We believe that we all have a role to play in helping to mitigate the most severe impacts, and that we all will have to do things differently.  As a philanthropic, BayTrust has significant flexibility to help our BOP communities understand and mitigate their climate change impacts, as well as grasp opportunities through our internal actions, our investments and our community support.

As such, BayTrust is committed to becoming a climate responsible (Tiakina te ao turoa) organisation through:

• Embedding climate responsibleness in our culture and ethos and measuring our internal greenhouse gas footprint, making this information publicly available and looking to reduce and offset this with the aim of being carbon neutral by 2022.
• Use a robust and evidence-backed approach to assessing all new investments to ensure that the Trust’s investment portfolio’s carbon exposure is reduced over time with the long-term goal to be carbon neutral by 2030 and to achieve a 50% reduction in emissions by 2025.
• Support our BOP communities to understand and mitigate their climate change impacts and grasp opportunities through embedding climate change as a foundational principal across our funding framework

*if you would like to find out more information on what we are doing or are a BOP group looking for assistance in this space please refer to our detailed climate change action plan or call our helpful staff

Privacy

At BayTrust, we are committed to ensuring the privacy of information. To read our privacy policy please follow this link: BayTrust Privacy Policy