Case study of Collaboration: Home and Parry Field Lawyers

Business is about relationships. One that we’ve enjoyed growing is with Home. A building company with a difference, Home specialises in community and affordable housing developments where there is much more than just quality houses being constructed – but an additional focus on creating communities.

Every team from within our firm provides support in some way. This ranges from helping with drafting contracts, purchasing land, arranging financing, structuring, intellectual property and as Home’s vision has grown, even recently helping with the creation of Home Foundation: a charitable trust focussed on ending homelessness.

Those are just some examples of a deep relationship across the core areas where businesses like Home can use our legal support.

Home co-founder Israel Cooper says: “The team at Parry Field are a unique group of legal experts. Their approach to any legal situation is both strategic and relational, recognising that business is fundamentally about preserving relationships as much as possible. It is their character and the values to which they hold themselves that is their best attribute. People you want to have your back in any difficult situation. “

One of the reasons we enjoy supporting Home is that we can play a part through our legal services in addressing a pressing social need in our wonderful country: housing. This sense of purpose and a shared alignment of values has been essential to the relationship growing.

Chair of Partners at Parry Field Kris Morrison adds: “We have loved putting our skills and legal knowledge to use in supporting a for-purpose company like Home. Contributing to their work coincides with the social justice motivations which led many of us to become lawyers in the first place.”

Paul Nanai, the CEO of Home, comments: “The team at Parry Field have provided exceptional service and expert intervention across many facets of our Business. We can say, outcomes and success achieved are because of them. We honour and value the true partnership we have and their heart and approach with resolving issues. For us the journey and ‘how’ we get to a destination is just as important as the result itself. And Parry Field have made the journey a lot better for us”.

Partner Steven Moe remembers talking with co-founder Israel Cooper for his podcast seeds here and says: “The clear focus and vision that Israel shared for Home is inspiring and shines through – it makes me proud that we can be involved in that kaupapa”.

We participated in the creation of a video which tells the story of Home over the last 10 years which can be seen here:

This video emphasises how we started this case study – relationships, and how critical they are to good being done in our world.

While the housing crisis continues it is nice to know Home is working to do their bit to contribute solutions. Supporting them in what they do brings us satisfaction too.

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About Parry Field Lawyers: With 80 staff in four offices (Christchurch City, Riccarton, Hokitika and Rolleston) we have three main teams: Commercial, Property and Disputes. Within each of those areas we offer deep experience in areas like Employment, Family, Charity, Immigration, Estates, Subdivisions, Litigation, Leasing, Business sale and purchases and more. We welcome the chance to discuss how our team might support yours.

The Addington Farm is a not-for-profit urban farm that seeks to support the people and place of Addington so that it flourishes and grows in tūmanako (hope). Located in the suburb of Addington they have converted backyards of houses into places that grow vegetables for the community with volunteers helping to grow them.

Wilby Le Heux is the Farm Manager and he invited Steven Moe of Parry Field Lawyers, who has a focus on assisting purpose driven organisations, to help Addington Farm become a charitable trust. Steven and the Impact Team at Parry Field assisted Wilby to consider the different legal structure options and sources of income and then develop a trust deed that suited The Addington Farm’s structure and purposes.

The Farm had started in 2018 under the umbrella of another organisation but it was time to create their own identity legally and start something fresh. After considering the context and background, it was decided that a charitable trust would be best (how to set one up is set out in this article here).

Within a week Steven and law clerk Sophie Tremewan were visiting Addington Farm to have a tour of the urban farm and witness Wilby signing documents to incorporate the charitable trust (the visit is shown in the picture).

The Addington Farm involves the community to care for the mana of the whenua to promote principles of kaitiakitanga (stewardship), all the while allowing people from diverse backgrounds to connect and learn together https://addington.farm/

Farm manager Wilby Le Heux says “Parry Field Lawyers were incredibly supportive of our journey to set up a new charitable trust. They provided us the legal services and guidance to help us set up our own entity after outgrowing the umbrella services of another organisation.”

We enjoy collaborating with clients like this to help them set up and adopt structures that will suit them the best to achieve maximum impact. If you would like to talk with one of our team about how we could help you drop us a line.

For more information on charities, take a look at our handbook on Charities in New Zealand here.

Parry Field Lawyers is pleased to have assisted tech start-up Komodo on their recent capital raising. Komodo have successfully raised $1.8 million allowing them to provide much needed wellbeing support to students. The start-up provides a platform for students to communicate with staff and provides schools with ways to identify and address issues such as mental health and bullying.

We are proud to have supported the company on this journey for several years now right from the beginning. Their company represents an ongoing shift towards companies and investors wanting to create an impact through their work.

The transaction was led by Senior Solicitor Aislinn Molloy and Partner Steven Moe with assistance from many in the Parry Field team as well.

Chris, CEO and Founder of Komodo says this:

“From incorporation and crazy ambitious dreams, to this point of our exciting journey, Parry Field Lawyers have been superb in guiding us through an area that can be tricky for many founders to get right. The team have ensured we have done things right from the beginning and we are truly grateful for the dedication that both Aislinn & Steven, with the rest of the team, have provided.”

For more on the deal, see this article: https://techcrunch.com/2021/08/30/new-zealand-based-student-wellbeing-platform-komodo-raises-1-8m-nzd/

If you are needing advice on a start-up or capital raising please feel free to contact Steven Moe stevenmoe@parryfield.com, or Michael Belay michaelbelay@parryfield.com at Parry Field Lawyers

Following the Social Enterprise World Forum in Christchurch, placemaker Laura Taylor identified the social enterprise approach as an excellent fit with community-led place governance.

She invited social enterprise specialist Steven Moe of Parry Field to attend placemaking huis underway in the Innovation Precinct and introduce local business owners to the concept of social enterprise.

Over the next two years, the precinct evolved to become SALT District, backed by New Zealand’s first Town Team – positive and proactive neighbourhood stakeholders collaborating across sectors.

Steven assisted Laura to develop a trust deed that provided alignment between the Town Team Movement and the SALT Model.

The Town Team Movement is a best practice in community-led place governance www.townteammovement.org

The SALT Model is a holistic approach to place development that supports fragmented localities to develop community, identity and destination through initiatives which grow social capital, values-based vision, active citizens and community wealth, benefiting the locality as well as the city.

With Steven’s support and guidance, SALT Collective Charitable Trust was incorporated in October 2019.

Principal Placemaking Advisor Laura Taylor, of Crown-owned entity Ōtākaro Ltd, who facilitated SALT District’s development, says “SALT Collective Trust would not exist without Steven’s support. From the outset, he understood the vision and that it needed to break new ground. He understood the impact and helped craft the legal instruments needed to turn that into a reality in a manner that could be understood by Charities Services. SALT Collective are committed to sharing what they learn so that this can support other areas to also break silos and progress their locality for the greater good.”

One of our recent purpose driven clients wanted to set up an organisation which seeks to revitalise, strengthen and raise awareness about Indigenous approaches and worldviews. This is exactly the sort of assignment which we really enjoy.

To progress this we collaborated through discussions with our client leads on this, Jodi Gustafson and Erin Matariki, to really get an understanding of what the activities would involve and the steps they would be taking.

We then talked through various structure options before settling on a charitable trust being the right one.

While in different cities we could understand what was planned and used that to help to draft the purposes to ensure they were charitable and reflective of the kaupapa/purpose of what was intended.

We then helped guide through the different stages of signing documents needed and applying to incorporate the Trust Board and then also for the registration as a charity with Charities Services which was successful. This means that the plans can now be rolled out. To find out more about what River Aotearoa Charitable Trust do, visit their site at https://www.weareriver.earth/

In reflecting on the process of working with us Jodi and Erin wrote this:

He toka tū moana he ākinga nā ngā tai. Steadfast as the rock that scorns the lashings of the tide. This is the whakatauki (proverb) that comes to mind when reflecting on the solid support that Steven Moe and his team provided us at RIVER Aotearoa Charitable Trust during our formation. Founding our not-for-profit entity that encompasses work from Turtle Island (Canada, USA) to Aotearoa was complicated and inter-twining. Steven Moe and his team at Parry Field Lawyers were knowledgeable and patient way-finders as we navigated our unique circumstances to land with a safe, sound organisational structure. With Steven’s guidance we have now received our charitable status and can begin our work in revitalising Indigenous values to care for Papatūānuku. We are very grateful for all of Steven’s effort and dedication to our mahi and we look forward to working with him as we grow. Ngā mihi aroha ki a koe mō tō manaakitanga, e Steven.

We really enjoyed this project and it is reflected in the positive result – we look forward to journeying with the River team into the future.

If you are looking at your structure options then have a listen to this 10 minutes on often used structures (a seeds podcast episode). We are also happy to have a discussion at no cost to work out if we are well placed to help with the set up of you charity, social enterprise, not for profit or other form of purpose driven organisation. You can reach Steven Moe at stevenmoe@parryfield.com

We first met Richard Waggott, the Co-founder of The SplashSave Foundation (https://splashsave.org/), through the work that we have been doing on social enterprise structures and charity set ups.

The initial contact email said “I am looking for some advice and idea of costs to engage you in helping me structure our social enterprise / charitable foundation appropriately and transparently.”

That is exactly what we do so it was a great fit and from the first call we could tell that what they wanted to do some serious good in Aotearoa New Zealand with a focus on education for parents and caregivers to empower them to teach young children to swim.

We were able to work through what they had been doing to date and discuss options for the future. We helped them with the set up of a new charitable trust and now they are able to ask for donations and get on with doing some education in the community.

We enjoyed this process because underlying it we knew that they would be doing great things – from his perspective Richard comments as follows:

Parry Field were excellent to deal with, from the first moment I talked with Steven it was clear my research on finding the best advisory team to support charitable and social outcomes had paid off.

Steven was clear in his advice and added huge value in the way I thought about setting up our Charitable Trust to help parents teach their own children to swim. Steven understood that sometimes the wheels can turn a bit slowly when pulling voluntary support together, especially in the early stages and was always very supportive and responsive every step of the way. Also accessing Stevens podcast and networks opened up a whole new world of people looking to make a positive difference which gave me the confidence to push through.

I would recommend anyone looking to establish a purpose and mission driven organisation should talk to Parry Field and Steven Moe.

Richard Waggott, Co-Founder, The SplashSave Foundation

It will be exciting now to watch what happens next and to know that a lot of children will be learning to swim!

Case study of Collaboration: Home and Parry Field Lawyers

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