Whiria Ngā Ara: Investing in Social Impact Through a Portfolio Lens
Practice Foundations – August 2026
Sacha McMeeking (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Mutunga)
Whiria Ngā Ara: Investing in Social Impact Through a Portfolio Lens
In this session, Sacha McMeeking (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Mutunga) returned to share insights from her report Whiria Ngā Ara.
Whiria Ngā Ara provides a shared architecture for understanding how change happens, a suite of practical tools designed to help investors and practitioners make better decisions, and a more coherent way of evidencing and communicating impact.
In conversation with Rachael Cole (Pākehā), Senior Project Lead at Tamariki Wellbeing, Sacha helped us explore what it means to move from funding individual initiatives to managing a connected portfolio of activity - the capabilities and mindsets needed, and the implications for commissioning.
The full Whiria Ngā Ara report and supporting tools can be found here: https://whiria.com/
A visual summary of the session, completed by the super talented Jacqui Chan, and Sacha’s slides can be viewed and downloaded below.
Sacha's previous Practice Foundations session on how Mātauranga Māori enables more effective social investment can be found here.
A transcript of the session is available by request, please contact: admin@aucklandco-lab.nz
