Donny Trust - commitment to the community
Published on 7 April, 2021
Donny Trust Chair Barry Paterson
From the Momentum Waikato Annual Report 2020 - see full report in PDF.
The Donny Charitable Trust came into existence in the early 1990s when Frank and Germaine Donny both died leaving their estates to the Trust. The brother and sister, of Belgian extraction, had farmed in the Waikato for most of their lives.
The original trustees were Maurice van Houtte and Barry Paterson (pictured above). Maurice’s wife Joan and John Weir also subsequently served as trustees, and at the time of the recent transfer to Momentum Waikato, the trustees were Barry and Alison Paterson, Annabel Cotton and Jon Tanner.
The Donny Trust has more than doubled its capital base since 1995, while also making grants totaling around $10m to about 400 organisations. Since 2014 the trustees have been focusing their financial support in three areas – palliative care nurse training, agricultural education and child protection.
With the trustees getting older and capital management and legal compliance becoming more complex, the Donny Trust has decided to transfer its $11m of assets and their administration to Momentum Waikato. This will ensure the continuation of their trust’s mission, including maintaining their established commitments to organisations working in their areas of concern.
This is the single largest ‘trust transfer’ to Momentum Waikato to date and we are very appreciative and thankful for the trust and confidence they have placed in us as an organisation. Appropriate mechanisms for such a significant move have been put in place, most notably the Donny trustees continuing as a ‘Protectorate Group’ for three years to monitor and assist in building our ongoing relationships with the current beneficiaries.
The Donny Trust’s supports palliative care nurse training by providing scholarships, as administered by Palliative Care Nurses New Zealand.
Their commitment to agricultural education is via scholarships for students in the Agribusiness programme at St. Paul’s Hamilton and at the Waipaoa Farm Cadet Training Trust near Gisborne.
Their funding for child protection currently goes to The Brainwave Trust, which supports research into the brains of young children.
Momentum Waikato is honoured to be entrusted with the mission of continuing to facilitate all this empowering and essential support into the future.
