CULTURE

A new generation of Canterbury women is proving that philanthropy is not defined by individual wealth. It is defined by generosity, connection and what becomes possible when women choose to give together.

There is something immensely powerful about women deciding that they can make life better for someone else. Not someday, or when circumstances are perfect, but now. That is the heart of Impact100 Canterbury, a growing collective of local women pooling their generosity to create meaningful change across our region.

In its first year, the group raised more than $32,000. Its inaugural major grant of $27,000 was awarded to Hoa Motuhake Sports Trust, allowing 33 young people to come off its waiting list and access Te Pou o Te Whare, a programme providing tamariki in care with long term support through community sport, mentoring and meaningful relationships. The funding will also provide more than 3,000 additional hours of trauma informed coaching and mentoring over the next two years.

Hoa Motuhake founder Sandy Van Heyningen described the support as “truly life-changing for the young people we work with,” thanking Impact100 Canterbury members for believing in the organisation’s kaupapa.

This is philanthropy made tangible. It is 33 young people being given opportunity, consistency and belonging. It is thousands of hours of mentorship and support. Most importantly, it is the knowledge that somebody is choosing to turn up for them.

The giving extended further, with additional grants of $2,500 awarded to Aviva, which supports people affected by family and sexual violence, and One Mother to Another, which provides practical care and support for mothers and caregivers of hospitalised children.

There is a particular strength in this model of philanthropy. It is collaborative, connected and deeply community focused. Members do not simply make a donation and step away. They hear directly from organisations, consider where funding can have the greatest effect, connect with other women and ultimately have a voice in deciding where their collective contribution goes.

Founding member and Manu Restaurant owner Karen Hattaway captured the energy beautifully at the inaugural Awards Breakfast when she said, “Women move mountains.”

They do, but Impact100 Canterbury also reminds us that those mountains do not need to be moved alone.

For generations, the word philanthropist has often suggested extraordinary personal wealth. Collective giving challenges that perception. Impact100 Canterbury members contribute $1,100 annually, with $900 going directly into the grant pool. A further $100 supports administration and $100 is contributed to the Kate Sheppard Women’s Endowment Fund held by Kura Tāwhiti Canterbury Community Foundation, creating an enduring legacy of support for local women and girls.
It is a model that creates immediate impact while also investing in what comes next. Each contribution becomes part of something significantly larger, allowing women to participate in meaningful philanthropy while connecting with others who share the same desire to strengthen Canterbury.

Founded locally by Lynne Umbers and Jane Anderson, Impact100 Canterbury forms part of an international movement based on the simple idea that women can achieve greater impact by giving collectively. Here, however, the result feels distinctly Canterbury. Local women are supporting local organisations and helping money reach communities across Christchurch, Selwyn and Waimakariri.

The photographs from the 2026 Awards Breakfast tell part of that story beautifully. Women gathered around tables to listen, discuss, vote and connect. On stage, a $27,000 cheque represented the financial impact of their first year. Throughout the room, something equally significant was taking shape: a community of women united by generosity and purpose.

Perhaps that will become one of Impact100 Canterbury’s greatest legacies. Giving transforms the lives of those who receive it, but it can also transform the people who choose to give. It reminds us that influence can be used generously, success can be shared and community is something we each have a hand in creating.

Membership for Impact100 Canterbury’s 2026/27 giving round is now open to women across Canterbury.

For anyone who has ever thought philanthropy belonged to somebody wealthier, older or more established, this is an invitation to think differently. You do not have to change Canterbury alone. When women combine their generosity, their voices and their belief in what is possible, extraordinary things can happen.
Women move mountains. Together, they can move communities too.

On a crisp Christchurch evening at Hotel Montreal, supporters, artists, patrons and advocates gathered for more than a cultural event. They gathered for a glimpse into the next chapter of one of Ōtautahi’s most significant public art organisations.

SCAPE Public Art has long understood something essential about Christchurch. Art does not need to sit quietly behind gallery walls to be meaningful. It can appear in a street, beside a river, within a hotel, above a quad or across a cityscape, asking people to pause, look again and consider the place they call home through a different lens.

For more than two decades, SCAPE has helped shape Christchurch into an open-air gallery. Its work has supported public art, education, artist development and civic imagination, creating a cultural thread that runs through the city and continues to gather strength.

At the recent supporter gathering, newly appointed Managing Curator Aaron Kreisler spoke with a sense of momentum. The foundation has been laid. Now comes the work of further formalising SCAPE’s place within the artistic landscape of Christchurch, while allowing its reach to grow beyond the local and into a wider national and international conversation.

Kreisler brings considerable weight to that moment. A Christchurch-based curator, writer and arts leader, he is Head of Creative and Digital Arts at the University of Canterbury and a former Head of the Ilam School of Fine Arts. He has also worked as a curator at Dunedin Public Art Gallery, producing more than 50 exhibitions. His appointment signals a thoughtful next step for SCAPE: one that respects the organisation’s foundations while considering how public art can continue to speak to a changing city.

Those foundations deserve recognition. Former Executive Director Deborah McCormick was instrumental in building SCAPE into the respected and recognisable organisation it is today. Over 25 years at the helm, McCormick helped take public art out of the margins and into the daily life of Christchurch. Her legacy sits not only in the works themselves, but in the public appetite she helped cultivate: a willingness to engage, question and be surprised by art in shared spaces.

That sense of surprise remains one of SCAPE’s great strengths.

Neil Dawson’s Echo at Te Matatiki Toi Ora The Arts Centre is a perfect example. Suspended above the North Quad, the work has become a favourite for visitors who pose beneath it, creating the playful illusion of holding a house in their hands. It is joyful, clever and deeply Christchurch. More importantly, it proves how public art can invite participation before people even realise they are engaging with it.

Across the city, SCAPE’s presence appears in quiet and unexpected ways. From grand sculptural statements to intimate photographic works, from footprints to ceramics, from urban interventions to hotel-based installations, its influence continues to ripple through Christchurch. A favourite moment for CM was Heather Straka’s striking photographic work at Hotel Montreal, a reminder that contemporary art can be theatrical, unsettling, beautiful and entirely unforgettable.

This is where SCAPE’s true power lies. It does not simply place art in public. It changes the way the public moves through place.

Christchurch is a city still defining itself. It has been rebuilt, reimagined and repeatedly asked to consider what kind of urban and cultural identity it wants to hold. SCAPE has been part of that answer. It has offered the city not decoration, but conversation. Not passive monuments, but works that ask something of the viewer.

For Cantabrian Magazine, the evening at Hotel Montreal felt like a marker. SCAPE is not beginning again. It is building from strength. With Aaron Kreisler’s curatorial leadership, Deborah McCormick’s legacy acknowledged and a community of supporters gathered around it, SCAPE appears ready to move with greater clarity into its next era.

Public art matters because it belongs to everyone. It catches the commuter, the visitor, the child, the collector, the critic and the casual passer-by. It becomes part of how a city remembers itself.

In Christchurch, SCAPE has taught us to look up, look closer and look again.
And that may be its greatest contribution of all.