One Percent Collective is on track to hit $1 million raised for local charities this year – all from New Zealanders personally donating one percent of their income.
An Owaiaraka School student participating in the Garden to Table programme - one of the charities supported by the One Percent Collective. Photo: Pat Shepherd - One Percent Collective / Facebook
Currently, 430 donors give an average of $10 from their weekly pay cheque – around 1 percent of the NZ median income of $50K – to the Wellington-based collective, which supports 11 New Zealand partner charities.
"The joy, of course, is you can claim a third of it back at the end of the tax year, so it is even less than that in the end," founder Pat Shepherd says.
Shepherd started One Percent five years ago, spurred by the memory of seeing kids living on a rubbish dump in Burma a couple of years earlier.
"It just gave me a real kick in the guts as to how lucky I am … One Percent is kind of the least I can do to try and help those who aren't as lucky."
One Percent targets millennials especially (people around 24 - 35) and works on making it as easy as possible for them to donate.
It's almost at the $800,000 mark, and says all donations go directly to 11 partner charities, which include Garden to Table, Nga Rangatahi Toa and Sustainable Coastlines.
"We'd love to reach over 1000 donors 'cause what it would mean is half a mill coming in each year," Shepherd says.
Learn more about the One Percent Collective here.
