The Future of Philanthropic Giving in Aotearoa: A conversation with Phoebe Ashdown and Kena Hekau

By Hope Milo, Youth Press Gallery, Youth Parliament 2025

Co-chairs Phoebe Ashdown (left) and Kena Hekau (right) facilitating a Parliamentary Working Group discussion during the two-day Youth Parliament event in July.

Note: Articles in this newsletter edition were produced by the Youth Press Gallery at various stages of the Youth Parliament 2025 programme. Accordingly, the content presented reflects the context and timing at the date of its original writing.

On their final day at Parliament, the Philanthropic Giving PWG presented their findings and proposed solutions to Hon Louise Upston, Minister for Social Development, and other staff from the ministry.

For Co-Chair and Dunedin Youth MP Phoebe Ashdown, the group kept coming back to one core idea: people shouldn’t have to shoulder philanthropy alone.

“We think that people shouldn’t have to rely solely on charities, or even communities, to look after everybody. We think the Government should get involved and be the ones to set up initiatives that get that ball rolling.”

That led to a practical focus on the basics that make giving possible.

“I remember from my perspective, one of the biggest things I wanted to focus on – which a lot of the conversations we had encapsulated – was community spaces.”

“You can talk about wanting to have more fundraisers or wanting to have more volunteer initiatives, but you often can’t do any of those if you lack resources, if you don’t have a home base or you don’t have people running a community central group.”

Ashdown says the PWG applied that lens across everything from bequests to everyday giving.

“We addressed the prompts the Ministry of Youth Development gave us, like, how older people tend to leave money to charity in their wills.

“But then we also touched on the fact that people don’t have the money to give, and often the people who are more likely to give are usually those who have been through a period of need in their life.

“So, you can’t really rely on those people to be giving back financially because they’re often not the best off financially, even though they often have the biggest hearts.

“So, we want big businesses to take on that load.

“Big businesses need to have more transparency with what they’re doing to make things more charitable.

“The Government needs to make businesses be more transparent about where the actual money’s going, so big companies need to have more incentive to give back.”

Co-chair and Kelston Youth MP Kena Hekau says her own view on philanthropic giving shifted as the kōrero progressed over the two days.

“For me personally, at first, it was hard even for myself to grasp the concept of philanthropy along with the many ways to promote it not only to the community but also among youth.

“My understanding has evolved through hearing what my team and community thought and wanted out of philanthropic giving.”

It was these community conversations that pushed Hekau and the PWG toward discussing practical, school-based supports.

“When reaching out to my community, I was able to hear the voices of our youth, especially their want and need for workshops based around subjects and topics that aren’t taught in school but are necessary in our everyday lives, such as the understanding of civics and taxes.

“For many students, it was a want for these initiatives to be incorporated within school life more so that everyone is able to understand and contribute towards the community, creating stronger bonds together.”

Her long-term goal? Normalise giving.

“Many of us wanted philanthropy to be incorporated within everyday lives, as well as the promotion of philanthropic work based on community work around that area.”

The mammoth task of being asked to facilitate an entire conversation about youth voice in policy across two days did not come without its challenges – especially for such a vast topic.

 “I wanted to support everyone’s different ideas and beliefs, but it’s difficult when there are so many; whereas a PWG like gambling harm seems a lot more straightforward,” Ashdown says.

“With philanthropy, everyone had a much different thing to say about it, and I was struggling to keep myself thinking, how can we as co-chairs make specific proposals?

“How can I talk to the Minister tomorrow and say, these are the things you should do and ensure that all those solutions will support all these different things?”

“And that’s where the challenge arises because you have so many different aspects of philanthropy from all different sides.”

Her suggestion for next time:

“Maybe the philanthropic PWG should be more specific in the future – posing more specific questions like, how can we increase donations in the philanthropy sector, rather than how can we support the philanthropy in general?”

For Hekau, the biggest challenge was stepping up to lead: one that was made easier working alongside Ashdown.

“I think for me it was more of a personal conviction that I was not qualified enough to lead a group discussion based around such a topic.

“But with the help of my co-chair, along with the understanding of my team, we were able to properly work out our goals and create a report that reflected all of our work and communities.”

PWGs gave rangatahi (young people) a way to provide youth voice on real-world issues and put practical options in front of ministers – a deliberate shift in the Youth Parliament format this year.

That also meant their recommendations intersected with live portfolios. In this case, Hon Louise Upston holds responsibility not only for Social Development and Employment, but also for the Community and Voluntary Sector, the part of government that connects most directly with charities, volunteering and giving.

Whether it’s community spaces, small-donor culture, youth workshops, or greater transparency from big businesses, our young people have spoken: build the conditions that make generosity easy and accessible. And make them last.