For Purpose March pānui: A dose of creativity and imagination to inspire change
For Purpose
We work with communities and organisations that seek to make the world more equal, just, and sustainable.
Kia ora
We’re exploring different changemaking themes throughout this year to feed our curiosity and keep us inspired. Our theme for March/Poutūterangi is creativity and imagination.
As advocates and changemakers it can feel like we spend a lot of time and energy fighting, pushing back, resisting, opposing. It’s hard and it can be exhausting, maybe overwhelming.
And yet, the word ‘advocate’ is intrinsically linked to positive, forward motion - to supporting, championing, promoting. Advocates are proponents, not opponents. When so much of your energy goes into defending and resisting, that can be easy to forget.
Our challenge for this moment is to embrace the role of advocates as visionaries. If we want to change the direction we’re travelling, we need to have an alternative destination to move towards.
Imagining the future doesn’t make it so, but vision gives us direction and purpose. By envisioning a future that is just, sustainable, and inclusive, we lay the groundwork for the collective actions needed to bring it to life. Creativity can provide us with the fuel we need to get from where we are now, to where we want to be and to keep us moving forward.
Creativity and change - a dose of inspiration
Design, art, craft, music and performance are deeply embedded in the past and present of protest, advocacy and movement building in Aotearoa. Here are some things that have inspired us recently.
Stitching solidarity: Artists for Palestine is a collective fabric artwork that has been travelling around the motu - but you can also view it on instagram. The quilt honours art as an act of resistance, and each contribution to the quilt tells a unique story of connection, community and care.
This is Aotearoa is a kaupapa dedicated to promoting community wellbeing through storytelling. The stories of This is Aotearoa weave together the shared experiences that make up the fabric of Aotearoa and in doing so shape a vision of our shared future.
Over the past year we’ve been sharing some of our whakaaro around care and safety in storytelling with communities. ATA has created an outstanding Storyteller Protection Policy for this kaupapa that demonstrates the principle of kaitiakitanga – guardianship and stewardship – that platforms need to provide to care and protect stories and storytellers.
Together for Te Tiriti - creating a visual identity for a movement. Movements need a strong visual identity (and this is something we at For Purpose love working on). Design studio Extended Whānau have shared insights into creating the powerful symbolism of the Together for Te Tiriti identity.
With Wonder - unlocking creativity for a healthy mind. A collaboration between celebrated New Zealand artists and registered art psychotherapists, With Wonder is an art box designed with the goal to encourage all people to regularly engage in art and creativity to improve our overall mental health.
The Commons social change library has a whole section dedicated to creative activism. Dive in for creative inspiration using tools and resources spanning artivism, craftivism, humour, puppetry, music and more.
“Hope is that place between fantasy and certainty. It’s the ‘could be’, a place of imagination. It’s the place of possibility, it’s the place of imagination” (Marshall Ganz - A Call to Leadership)
Our creative hopes for 2025
We’re looking forward to unleashing our creativity this year! We can't wait to get involved in bold, innovative campaigns, inspiring storytelling and exciting new digital tools and experiences. The vision for the future we’re imagining includes more user generated and interactive content and custom-designed digital tools. With a lot changing in the social media space, we expect to see a lot more innovation around building platforms and using different forms of media to engage and connect audiences and communities.
What’s your vision for this year?
If you’re not sure, there’s no time like the present to reconnect with your vision and purpose. Make space this month to:
We offer free 30 minute consultations.?
Recent For Purpose highlights
Kindergartens Aotearoa is a collective of six regional kindergarten associations, operating 260 early childhood education (ECE) services nationwide. We’ve worked with them to create a new website and a communications, advocacy and brand strategy that reflects their values and supports their impact goals. - learn more about this project.
PPTA Te Wehengarua - Pride in Education. We designed a mascot for PPTA’s Rainbow Network to put on tee-shirts and giveaways.
Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) Survivor Experiences Service videos - The Department of Internal Affairs approached For Purpose to create three animated explainer videos for the Survivors Experience Service website and social media. Their goal was to make their services more welcoming and accessible to Deaf and Disabled communities. Learn more
Age Safe, NZNO campaigns Age Safe is a campaign that brings together caregivers, whānau, and the community to advocate for better government funding and systemic changes that support both workers and those in care. We supported NZNO in putting together the campaign identity and webpage.
Community generated storytelling with Nationbuilder Kristin Gillies presented a Nationbuilder masterclass in Sydney last week where he shared examples of real-world campaigns using NationBuilder to collect stories and present them in a way that brings the story to life. He talked about our approach to building digital tools that allow everyone to participate and see themselves as part of a campaign, and how these tools nudge people along in their supporter journey to be nurtured into becoming effective advocates.
For Purpose resources in The Commons Social Change Library. We’re big fans of The Commons, so very pleased to share two new resources with this community:
Join us for our the first Lunch and Learn of 2025
Last year we initiated monthly Lunch and Learn events, which gave us an opportunity to learn and connect with our community of changemakers. We’ve got an exciting programme lined up for 2025 with some amazing For Purpose friends. Stay tuned for more news soon on sessions that include:
You can catch up on highlights from last year’s session here.
Our first Lunch and Learn session for 2025 is about tapping into imagination and creativity to create a compelling vision for change.
Having a clear vision for the change we want to create is an essential part of movement building, but it can be hard to communicate a vision of a possible future in ways that feel achievable or even inspiring. How can we get beyond mission statements and strategic language and talk about the future in ways that feel tangible and meaningful?
In this session, we’ll explore creative ways to explore possible futures and bring them to life. We’ll experiment with ways to engage with the future through storytelling and play and discuss how we might use futures-thinking and creative storytelling as advocacy and movement building tools.
Friday March 14, 1pm Learn more and sign up to this session here.
The following month in April we will be joined by our friend Dan Anderson from Te Hou Ora Whānau Services
Leadership isn’t about control—it’s about creating the conditions for potential to thrive. It means shaping environments where collective strength fuels individual growth, flipping narratives to build real solutions before seeking investment, and fostering cultures of curiosity and innovation. True leadership is relational, grounded in trust, connection, and collective wisdom. It’s about enabling movement, not exerting authority—guiding with aroha, courage, and a vision for long-term impact.
Friday April 11, 12pm Learn more and sign up to this session here.
Mā te wā, For Purpose