Tū Manawa – Active Aotearoa

With our Small Fund, come in for a kōrero on your kaupapa and we’ll complete the application for you.

 

With our Large Fund, come in for a kōrero on your kaupapa before you complete the application form.

Tū Manawa supports costs for projects that activate young people who have barriers to being active. Who’s missing out on Play, Active Recreation, or Sport? This fund supports projects for them!  

 

A project is a number of sessions that engage a group of young people in an activity. Projects look totally different from one another and are guided by the specific aspirations of the young people you’re engaging and their barriers. As a successful applicant, you’ll agree to report on the positive change your project makes through these engagement sessions. You’ll need to be able to track the attendance of these sessions and be able to speak to the overall highlights and learnings you had at the end of the project.  

 

If you’re purchasing items, it’s likely that those items will have a long life of use. Your project doesn’t have to include every time your equipment gets used… ever. That would be a lot to report on! Instead, you might shrink the project down to a reasonable number of sessions that you can deliver, will have positive change in the young people, and you can report on at the end.

To align to the fund’s youth-driven purpose, a successful application shows that the project is built from what young people tell you they want (not necessarily what adults think is good) or even better, that the project itself is designed by young people. (If you’re a provider, you’ll need to show that the specific group of young people want this activity. Previous delivery to other young people is not evidence of a project being youth-driven.)

 

And to align to the fund’s desire to remove inequity, successful applicants show that they are listening to young people missing out to understand the barriers they face, and then have designed a project to break down those barriers.

 

The project will also demonstrate how it considers participants mental, social, spiritual and physical wellbeing.

 

It doesn’t get more youth-driven than that! We will help you apply. 

 

We have kaimahi for whom Te Ao Māori is their identity and way of life. We are here to support your Kaupapa Māori projects. 

 

Ki te hiahia koe, ka taea e koe te tukuna mai i tāu tono i roto i  Te Reo Māori.

Look at the costs for your project – separate from your operating costs, if you have them. What would you need to purchase or pay for to make this project happen? For example, do you need to purchase equipment, pay for wages for delivery, venue hire, transportation costs to get your participants to the activity/the activity to your participants, kai, etc. If the costs are connected to the activity that is being provided to these young people, then it probably fits the fund.  

Being a relatively small fund, it can’t fund infrastructure build or repair. It doesn’t build playgrounds; it doesn’t repair roofs, etc. Additionally, it can’t fund a group’s operating expenses or wages for existing roles (unless the project you’re applying for adds to that person’s deliverables). Please see the Community Guidelines/Ngā Aratohu Hapori (link above) for more detailed lists.

 

And because the fund focuses on those missing out, the fund doesn’t provide more or better activities for young people already engaged. While traveling to tournaments or training camps, or bespoke coaching is valuable to our young sportspeople, that doesn’t sit within the scope of the Tū Manawa fund. Thankfully, other funders support these costs.  

If you’re applying for the Fast Fund, your request must be $10,000 or less. If you’re applying for the Large Fund, your request must be between $10,000 and $30,000. 

Applications will be accepted from October 2025. As detailed below, we want to learn about your project and the aspirations of your group. If there’s overlap with the priorities of Tū Manawa, we’ll start the online application with you. (See “How does my group apply?” below.) Sing out to our staff when the fund is open to schedule a consult (kanohi ki te kanohi, or by phone or zoom). In the meantime, listen to the young people you’re working with, understand what kind of project they’d like, and then begin listing the things you’d need to pay for to achieve this project.

The assessment process is done by 2 panels, therefore it takes time for successful projects to receive their funding. For that reason, this round suits projects that will start after Term 1 2026. Please note that Tū Manawa cannot fund retrospectively, (i.e.) costs you’ve already paid for or events you’ve already delivered.

Our next Small Fund round will be opening in November 2025, and is for projects in Term 1 2026.

 

Seek out our kaimahi for support, listen to the young people you’re working with, take your time to line up the logistics and supporting materials and make an appointment to apply.

We follow a kanohi ki te kanohi / face-to-face approach to supporting groups. Reach out to any of our kaimahi for an appointment. We want to hear about your group’s aspirations and how you want to break down barriers for young people who are missing out. If your project, or part of it, aligns to Tū Manawa, we’ll do the application whilst talking with you.

It’s possible that Tū Manawa isn’t the right fund for what you want to do. That’s okay. There are quite a few funders out there that fund purchases or other costs, without the need for engagement sessions.  We can help you determine if the Tū Manawa is the right avenue. If not, we can support you to apply elsewhere.