Over two days at the Community Foundations of Aotearoa New Zealand conference, I heard a phrase repeated again and again: our time has come.

It’s an exciting proposition. Community foundations across Aotearoa are growing in confidence, visibility and ambition. I agree that your time has come, but I wonder whether the statement is less about the growth of community foundations and more about the challenge of what you are now ready to do together. 

The time has come to build community power. 

Throughout the conference, we heard about the challenges facing communities today: declining trust in institutions, increasing polarisation, loneliness, inequality, and a growing sense among many people that they have little influence over the decisions that shape their lives. These trends are not unique to New Zealand. They are playing out across the world. 

The 1980s marked a profound shift toward markets, competition, private ownership, and individual responsibility. From Thatcher in Britain and Reagan in the US, to economic liberalisation in Australia and Rogernomics here in Aotearoa, our societies were reshaped by powerful ideas about how economies and communities should function. 

I’m not claiming those changes caused the decline in social cohesion. I can’t prove that. But perhaps it isn’t a coincidence, either. Perhaps understanding where we are today requires us to reflect on how our economies, institutions, and communities have evolved. 

There is another lesson in that history that feels particularly relevant now: ideas travel. 

Australia and New Zealand have never been immune to the political and cultural currents flowing from elsewhere. We weren’t 40 years ago, and we aren’t today. Some of the ideas travelling around the world now are increasingly divisive. We all know what they are. 

That makes strong local communities, relationships and institutions more important than ever. Because systems do more than determine how money moves. They shape who owns things, who makes decisions, who carries risk and who benefits. 

Read the full article about building community power in New Zealand by Georgia Mathews at Alliance Magazine.