Givewise: Local Community Support

5 hours ago
3 min read

The Beginning of Givewise

With all of Aotearoa New Zealand suffering from the aftereffects of COVID-19 back in 2020 and 2021, many charities went above and beyond to help support their local community. It was seeing this that the founder of Safewise, Tracey, finally came to a decision.

For quite a while, leading up to this, Tracey had been wanting to figure out a way for the Safewise team to give back to the community. Through seeing all these amazing charities out there doing their best, she realised Safewise could do its part in giving back by supporting them.

And so, Safewise's charitable arm, Givewise, was started.

At the beginning of each year, Safewise holds a team strategy meeting. It's at this meeting that each team member nominates a local charity for Givewise to support for the year. While the selected charity was initially drawn at random from a hat, it's now decided on through amiable discussion.

This Year's Chosen Charity

Givewise is excited to be fundraising for Rainbow Place!

Rainbow Place does amazing work providing specialist care to children and young people who are living with advanced or life-limiting health conditions.

All families are different, and so are their journeys. Rainbow Place strives to provide palliative care that will improve the quality of life for both the child and their family.

Rainbow Place is currently working on building a sensory room for the kids and young people in their care, and we're hoping our fundraiser can help with that.

This Year's Fundraiser

To fundraise for Rainbow Place, this year's seminar in collaboration with James Marris (Aurora Zone Coaching), will be free to attend with a Koha donation.

The seminar explores the topic under pressure: what high-performing teams do differently in an interactive workshop style, and a representative from Rainbow Place will come along to say a few words about the charity, too.

What can I donate?

As Rainbow Place cares for children and young people with advanced or life-limiting conditions, their needs are a little more specific:

If you aren't able to make the purchase yourselves, you can give the money to the Safewise team, and we will go make the purchase for you.

Past Local Community Support Activities

As we've gone over the charity we'll be supporting this year, let's give a little love to the charities we've supported over the last few years.

Kids in Need Waikato

Givewise has worked with Kids in Need twice now.

We initially supported them back in 2022 and more recently in 2025.

In 2025, we held a Wellbeing in the Workplace seminar, where entry was free with a Koha donation. We also had clients making donations outside of the seminar, too.

A woman smiling while taking her seat at one of the tables for the seminar. — Attendees arriving at the seminar.

The Safewise team, a woman from Kids in Need, and David Masters from Site App Pro posing next to the donated Koha from the seminar attendees. — The Koha donations received at the seminar.

The Safewise team with a woman from Kids in Need Waikato posing with the final donations that are being handed over. — Ann, Sara, Tracey, and Michélle handing over the final donations not gathered at the seminar.

Bellyful

In 2024, we ran a pasta drive. We collected packets of dry pasta and donated them to Bellyful.

Tracey and Michélle standing next to a car boot full of boxes of wide lasagne. — **Tracey** and **Michélle**, our office manager, handing over the pasta we collected.

The Cake Detective

Back in 2023, we ran an icing sugar drive and also donated $500 to the Cake Detective.

Six women smiling to the camera, posing with a Safewise cheque. — The Safewise team handing over the donated goods and their donation cheque to Laura from The Cake Detective.

Kids in Need Waikato

In 2022, we ran the Undie 500 fundraiser, where we aimed to raise 500 pairs of underwear. With the help of our clients, we managed to donate more than 500 pairs. We also donated $500.

Safewise bags filled with the donated underwear goods as well as a cheque to the charity from Safewise. — Some of the goods that were collected along with our donation cheque.

Paws 4 Life

In 2021, we ran a Gingo night (read gin tasting and bingo). This was held at Windy Ridge and also included a raffle/auction among other games, where all proceeds went to Paws 4 Life.

A room full of guests enjoying the evening. — Guests enjoying Gingo night.

Tracey and one of the guests posing next to each other with the item the guest won in the raffle. — One of the raffle winners with **Tracey**.

Huggable Hearts - 2020

The very first charity we fundraised for after establishing Givewise. We ran a quiz night where proceeds went to Huggable Hearts; in total we donated $1800, 60.5kg of rice, and 30kg of fabric, as well as 10 hours of volunteer time and some of the team helping to paint rocks.

A bird's eye view shot of the donations, bags of rice and rolls of fabric. There are also small rice-filled fabric hearts. — Some of the donations raised alongside the hearts Huggable Hearts creates.

A person holding a large rice-filled, fabric-covered heart. — One of the products Huggable Hearts creates.

The Joy in Giving Back

We love being a Waikato-owned and operated business, so being able to help give back to the community through helping out the local charities is a great joy of ours.

Each year since starting Givewise, we've been able to learn more about the local charities here in Waikato and have really enjoyed getting to know their teams and helping them on their mission.

While this year is still quite young, we're excited for what it and the following years will bring!