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What we do
Creating change that matters and will last.
We build strong communities by supporting local voices to be at decision making tables. We bring people together, build on what is already there and make change happen.
We work with individuals, groups, organisations, businesses and communities of all kinds.
We use place- and people-centred approaches to develop the most effective strategies, actions and tools for your situation and collective goals.
See some of our recent work below:
Focus on Community Engagement
Strengthening Auckland Communities
Community engagement, project management,
research and workshopping
Together with a group of community organisations committed to sustaining and enhancing communities, we facilitated a research and engagement process to find out what ‘good’ looks like and how we might get there in terms of strong communities in Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland. This work generated over 250 responses to online surveys, in-person interviews and written submissions, and included two in-person hui run and coordinated by Catalyse. In conjunction with Walk Together, this process established clear priorities for action and built new alliances. A steering group has now been formed to bring these priorities into being.
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Kororāreka
Community engagement, workshopping and placemaking
Working with local people and the Far North District Council, Catalyse was invited to the Kororāreka community to support local placemaking in the waterfront area. We helped organise and run a pop-up shop to gather ‘big ideas’ to improve an iconic and well-loved place. Over 1300 ideas were collected! These ideas were refined in a weekend activation that began to develop a cohesive plan. We used our community heart pulse resource to find out more about those who participated in the weekend and painted a fabulous footpath game for people to have an example of a playful ‘small change’ activation to enjoy until it washes away.
Tagalad Reserve Community Engagement
Community engagement, event organising and delivery
After being behind locked gates for several years, Tagalad Reserve was deemed suitable for selling for development by Auckland Council. Catalyse was asked by Ōrakei Local Board to work with the community and Mission Bay Kohimarama Residents Association, to develop a local campaign and open day to stop this sale. The open day offered a tour of the facility, opportunity to talk with elected members, and used our Ideas Board tool, footpath games and stencilled inspiration created by visitors to share ideas for more community focused development. This information, along with collective community action, successfully saved the reserve from being sold a few years later, and we were very happy to organise another open day to celebrate! This time we trialled a few of the ideas shared a couple of years before. There was music, some GeoLingo, a tuatara hopscotch, donuts and coffee as we also gathered thoughts to inform how the facility might be managed as a community asset.
Focus on Project Management
The Kūmara Awards
Project management, event delivery
The Kūmara Awards showcases and celebrates fabulous placemaking in several locations across Aotearoa. Co-created with Placemaking Aotearoa, the awards have been designed and run by Catalyse since 2020. We have developed processes for nominating, judging and celebrating placemaking projects - and the remarkable individuals and communities who make them happen - that infuse our public spaces with life. Each year, more projects are nominated and we are delighted to hear that the Kūmara Awards encourage even more people to actively contribute to the places where they live, work, and play.
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Youthline Leadership Connect
Project management, co-design, facilitation
Catalyse project managed the development of a pilot well-being program for youth with Youthline. Using co-design and peer review processes, we customised our adaptive planning tool and created supporting resources to enhance students' leadership skills and understanding of well-being. This approach and the resulting project empowered rangatahi in five Tāmaki Makaurau schools to participate in leadership, mental health, and strength-building opportunities and the results have informed the implementation of the program in schools around the motu.
Darwin Conference
IACD International Association for Community Development
Project management and conference organisation
Catalyse helped plan and deliver the IACD World Community Development Conference ‘From the Edge’ 2023 in Darwin. With a focus on indigenous peoples and knowledge, we were an active participant in the planning committee: drafting communications materials, guiding principles, sponsorship documents and designing the logo. We also facilitated the inclusion of two indigenous keynote speakers from Aotearoa, convened a series of conversations to help resource Kiwis to get to the conference, moderated sessions and delivered two events at the conference (Story Slam and Geolingo). For three days, over 650 people from all over the world shared experiences and knowledge in traditional conference events as well as yarning circles, collective art and storytelling. Many connections were made and continue to grow!
Focus on Research and Strategy
Community Strategic Plans
Strategic planning and community engagement
At the request of Timaru District Council, Catalyse worked with the Community Boards in Geraldine and Pleasant Point to deliver strategic plans and first-year work plans. The work used a range of creative community engagement tools, including our ideas board, online and postcard surveys, and happened in places as varied as local pubs, cafes, markets, theatres, libraries, rural halls and schools. The strategies and plans were both grounded in and refined by conversations with Mana Whenua, community leaders, and the public including primary and secondary school pupils. It was a real pleasure to bring this work to the places people already gather in and help surface ideas from locals who do not usually engage in such work.
St John's Feasibility Study
Research and reporting
St. John's Presbyterian Church in Mt. Roskill hired Catalyse to conduct a feasibility study for a new community centre on their current site. We used postcard surveying in libraries, community centres and outside shopping centres to engage a wide range of locals and encourage them to tell us more in a longer online survey. This information was complemented by desktop research, statistics and mapping to provide a comprehensive report that documented not only what people would like but showing how feasible and viable such a facility is likely to be too.
Harae Mai and Welcome
Evaluation, project support and playbook development
Catalyse joined this community initiative to welcome new residents after it had already been prototyped in Glen Eden. The project provides resources to help those new to the area ‘find their feet’ in their new neighbourhood. The resources are decided on by a group of locals and gathered or created locally. We worked with Innovation Unit, Kāinga Ora and Roskill Together to support Haere Mai and Welcome in Roskill by collating and analysing information from workshops as it emerged and feeding it into the design process. We also designed some easy-to-use evaluation tools and undertook a range of interviews to assess the process. Along with information already gathered in Glen Eden, this information was used to create a playbook for other communities to use, should they wish to develop Haere Mai and Welcome in their place. This playbook is now being used in Oranga and we are working alongside those delivering it there too.
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We also develop custom tools for our projects!
Our tools and resources are an essential part of Catalyse work process. Standing on the shoulders of many, we often design and adapt tools for specific projects, so we get what is needed in the most appropriate way.
Kainga Ora Impact Stories
Research, assessment and tool development
Two of our tools were developed when Catalyse was commissioned by Powerdigm to collaborate with Kainga Ora to gather stories about the impacts of two community hubs. Together, these tools helped people who shared a community space (but didn’t always know one another) get to know one another better, stimulate conversation, prompt all sorts of reflections and questions as well as help facilitate an initial analysis on how well the hubs had worked.
This process means those contributing data also have a chance to contribute to making meaning of that data and the visual tools we've created make the gathering and analytical processes easier and accessible.
We have successfully adapted both of these tools for other contexts and purposes since and they continue to reveal all kinds of things! You can see the tools here.
Focus on Placemaking
Hibiscus Coast Placemaking
Placemaking through play.
When the Hibiscus and Bays Local Board decided to invest in encouraging more play in their rohe, they were not thinking of dedicated playgrounds but of opportunities for play in all kinds of places. Catalyse was asked to work with local communities to help locals develop playful activities that mattered to them, cultivating community connections along the way. With 10 projects to deliver across the area in a 9 month period, we partnered with a wide range of local groups and organisations to deliver playful placemaking as diverse as a cupboard of games designed by adolescents for adolescents, a series of footpath games with an accompanying guide book and GeoLingo - a way of sharing language and feeling more at home in a place.
Mairangi Bay Placemaking
Locally-led placemaking facilitation and support.
Building on previous efforts led by Auckland Council and the Hibiscus and Bays Local Board, our role in this initiative was to support local residents to co-create meaningful placemaking. First, we facilitated a collaborative mid-winter/Matariki co-design workshop with community members. This session revealed a diverse array of placemaking ideas and identified three priority projects. Using a divergence-emergence-convergence framework to guide us in our role as enabler, these ideas were all integrated into a cohesive map, collaboratively developed and designed with input from the community.
Takapuna Pavement Placemaking
Community-driven placemaking facilitation and support
When local people expressed distaste for blocks of colour painted temporarily on footpaths in Takapuna, we asked them what they would like instead and, using chalk, they told us! With the support of Eke Panuku, people young and old, from all kinds of backgrounds and with many different experiences of ‘art’ shared ideas in a pavement art workshop that were then developed by a smaller group of locals with the help of two professional artists, Kingi Gilbert and Paris Kirby. With Catalyse’s facilitation and support, the group engaged with Ngāti Pāoa as Mana Whenua, navigated rules and regulations, and sourced materials to co-design several art pieces. One of these artworks, referencing key local features and stories, was installed for 8 months and will inform permanent works in the future.
