Partner With Us

New Zealand schools and their school leaders are a critical foundation for the success of our young people. By enhancing school leaders strategic leadership, we support positive change throughout the education system.   Our Partners are the organisations that support all the work we do and make all the magic possible.   What is a Springboard Trust partner?  Springboard Trust’s Partners are either public, private or philanthropic organisations supporting us in many ways, shapes and forms. They come from a wide range of backgrounds and regions, and we share the the common goal of supporting positive change in New Zealand schools and for the future of Aotearoa New Zealand.   Partners often taking the lead in their communities by supporting us to dramatically improve the life skills of all young New Zealanders.   Who do partners work with?   Our Partners work with our Board of Trustees, Partnerships Manager and our leadership team (among others) to help us achieve our goals.   How do partners support Springboard Trust?   When organisations partner with us, they provide support in whatever way they can – typically associated with their highly skilled and capable people throughout New Zealand.   Partner support can be through funding or providing volunteers to be part of our Strategic Leadership for Principals Programme and Alumni Services. However, partners also support us by:   Providing products or services, such as auditing, supporting us with our digital transformation and bookkeeping.   Promoting and communicating what we do within their own organisations that supports their own specific strategic goals such as social responsibility or corporate citizenship, leadership development or diversity and inclusion..   Providing us with consultants and industry experts to assist our internal functions.  Who are Springboard Trust’s partners?   We have three partnership categories in our Parternship Model: Strategic Partner, Major Partner and Supporting Partner.  Strategic Partners  Strategic Partners support Springboard Trust’s organisational structure, stability and growth. Through this, they support the transformation of schools in their communities, often building their own leadership development by volunteering with us.  .   Major Partners Major Partners’ contributions facilitate the development and delivery of Springboard Trust’s portfolio of programmes around New Zealand. A primary source of volunteers, Major Partners have a direct impact on their communities and foster massive leadership development within their own organisation.   Supporting Partners Supporting Partners help with the day-to-day operation of Springboard Trust. In turn, they help us transform local schools and develop more cross-sector collaboration that develops tomorrow’s educational leaders.  

If partners are the backbone of Springboard Trust, our volunteers are the vital organs. With a crucial hand in supporting our school leaders’ leadership journey, volunteers build transparent and trusting relationships with Aotearoa New Zealand’s school leaders. Springboard accepts volunteers from all sectors and levels of experience. The strength of our cross-sector model lies in principals and volunteers from completely different sectors finding common ground and building shared understanding, development and trust. It is a challenging but incredibly rewarding role. Meeting school leaders for the first time, often those facing needs outside their area of expertise, can be a challenging experience. Yet time and time again, the feedback from our volunteers is that, working with Springboard is an amazing opportunity to support others and learn themselves through the experience.   How do volunteers help New Zealand principals?  When you work with Springboard Trust as a volunteer, we have five main roles:   Capacity Partner (as a 1:1 coach working alongside a school principal)  Impact Coach (working alongside a rural school principal) Facilitator (facilitating either our flagship SLPP programme or our High Performing Leadership Teams programme)  Subject Matter Expert (working on a variety of projects supporting school leaders to support how them implementing their strategic plans)   Coach (as a 1:1 coach working alongside them as part of our Springboard Coaching for Leadership programme)  Additionally, we have some key one-day roles that come under the Subject Matter Expert umbrella, including Critical Friends, who provide support to leadership teams in our Skills Workshops. Please note that many of our volunteer roles will operate outside of New Zealand’s metropolitan centres – where there may be a need to work with individuals or teams from various regions or using technology to support virtual coaching.   The benefits of being a volunteer  Common feedback from volunteers is that, despite feeling at the beginning they had nothing to bring to the table for principals, they were able to affect true positive change through the programmes.   Additionally, volunteers consistently report that they bring back enhanced leadership capabilities and social impact understanding to the organisations they come from. To find out about current volunteer opportunities with Springboard Trust, please contact our Volunteer Manager Rebecca Brown at rebeccab@springboardtrust.org.nz!