The Sunrise Foundation was launched by Sir Stephen Tindall in October 2014.
Although new to New Zealand, community foundations are the fastest growing form of philanthropy worldwide and have been operating for over 100 years in North America.
The strength of the endowment model is that all donations and bequests are held as permanent endowments.
Funds are invested and each year enough is retained to ensure that endowments grow in line with inflation, the surplus investment income is available as grants to charities and organisations in the local community.