Back to Blog

Smartphone app tackles anger issues

Ron Vink, Whistlebox app: Lower Hutt, New Zealand     Police are called out to a Family Violence incident every 5 minutes in New Zealand, which takes up 43% of their time. In New Zealand a woman is killed by a partner or ex-partner every month. Children are being abused at one of the highest rates in the developed world and anxiety issues in the community is at an all-time high.Last year, Ron Vink met a gentleman who had come up with an app which connects to an Apple Smart Watch.&...

Making cents from scents for education

Bhavisha Kumar, The Good Karma Co: Auckland, New Zealand     Bhavisha was born in Fiji and came to New Zealand when she was 13. She always wanted to start a social enterprise and help underprivileged children get access to education. This passion came from her father who grew up in a poor family in Fiji.  He was one of the lucky children who did gain access to education, which provided a future for himself and his family.  However, Bhavisha has seen first-hand many Fijia...

Rescuing people through rescued food

Philippa Holmes, a Rescued Food Line: Auckland, New Zealand     Philippa has been working with rescued food products for the last two years; originally, she and her team were using it as a way to provide great food at community events for free.Over the last year, she has shifted to giving food parcels directly to families in need as she saw a huge increase in food security locally, in and around Panmure, Auckland.Up until March this year she was helping around 30 families per...

Our inaugural year - a success!

Wow, what a year!   All Good Ventures has just finished its first year of seed-funding our two inaugural social enterprise projects.Heather and Rod have personally mentored the first, mainly to give us hands-on experience to help us develop the mentoring part of All Good Ventures going forward.  The second project has been mentored by a volunteer mentor, John Birch.We are just about to launch our call for proposals for our second years’ projects.  We are aiming to keep this...

Founders to donate further funds to All Good Ventures

Those of you who know Rod and I know we both own our own businesses (or part of one, in the case of Quantec!).  My business is HMC, which is a small PR agency based in Hamilton, New Zealand.  This year I actually am celebrating my 15th year in business.  It's been a fun ride, that's for sure.To mark this significant milestone, I've decided to do something radical.  From this financial year onward, I'm donating 100% of HMC's profits to All Good Ventures.  Yep, that's righ...

16,000 Ugandans freed from health poverty

We've been chomping at the bit to announce our second supported venture, whom we started talking to way back in January!  Finally, we've got the funding and support sorted, so we can make the announcement.All Good Ventures is supporting OneDay Health.This amazing organisation, headed by Kiwi doctor Nick Laing, is building simple health centres in extreme rural areas of Uganda, bringing these communities access to healthcare which they otherwise couldn't access.  The name 'one day healt...

Announcing our first supported venture

We are excited to announce our first supported venture EVER! Morningside Urban Market Garden in Auckland is developing a community garden that grows microgreens and edible flowers with the help of refugee women in the local community. A disused bowling club is being regenerated as a garden and community space, local cafes will purchase the greens and these amazing ladies get the chance to learn new skills, practise their English, assimilate and settle as a valuable member of their new community....

The Means or the End?

Today, I was asking myself a question.  What is better…the journey or the ending?  You might think that a truly enlightened person would answer, “Of course, it’s the journey, never the ending.”  That’s also the answer that would be more political, more modern, more thought-provoking.  Sounds like something I’d hear on the Super Soul Sunday podcast Heather often listens to, actually.  I am pretty sure I would give that answer in more situations than not.&...

Living your purpose is scary

Can you relate to this?  When I was at Millville High School, someone asked me once how I envisioned my life playing out.  I can remember saying I wanted to be a music director and play piano for a big church one day.  Definitely, I saw music as part of my purpose.  When I started at Shippensburg University, my dreams were a bit different.  I planned to become a genetic counsellor.  I was going to help couples navigate the complexities of genetic birth disorders and...

Profits for people in need

Many, if not most, people spend their working lives employed by a business that pays the bills.  Obviously, they contribute to the bottom line of the company they work for.  But, rarely do they need to worry about how to pay for the company’s expenses.  They do their job and get paid for it.  The companies that they work for have a product or a service for which they can charge more than it costs them to make it.  The ‘margin’ between the cost and what they charge ...

Great (ad)ventures start with one step

Philippians 1:6 “ …. He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.” We’re starting something good. Today Rod and I launched All Good Ventures by telling our friends, family and close networks about this vision that God put into our hearts nearly a decade ago.  Reading through this website and watching our video on the home page, you can find out a bit more about what we’re up to.  So, how did all this get started? As happ...