Southland has seen growing interest and activity in community-led development over several years.  The Community Trust of Southland is a pioneer for funders in taking a community-led approach.  The Mataura and Rakiura/Stewart Island communities are both members of the Inspiring Communities Core Learning Cluster.  In May 2010, Southland's first regional community-led development forum was held.

November 2009

The Community Trust of Southland is pioneering a community-led development approach to funding.

John Prendergast is Chief Executive of the Community Trust of Southland. In 2007 he was sent by the Trustees on an exploratory excursion to Canada, led by Mary-Jane Rivers of what is now Inspiring Communities (then an idea and a broad network of parties interested in or simply curious about the concept of community-led development). John admits he boarded the plane with some scepticism, unsure how community-led development was relevant from a funder's perspective.

"Before Canada I really didn't understand what community-led development meant in practice. Afterwards, as I thought about the people we'd met and what we'd seen, I realised a funder can have a pivotal role to champion the idea."

The Community Trust of Southland lost no time finding a way to apply the new way of thinking, adopting a proactive approach. The same year, community leaders of the Southland town of Mataura had received some concerning research about the health of the community, and rallied the locals to come together to do something about it. The Mataura Taskforce was born. John met with them and expressed that the Community Trust of Southland (CTOS) was keen to help and support - asserting that the ownership would always remain with Mataura and the Trust was not offering an open cheque book.