Building community wealth
hum gives communities the tools to govern resources, grow local prosperity, and decide together what matters most.
- For funders: trust-based philanthropy made practical.
- For charities: participatory grantmaking without the overhead.
“There is no reason to believe that bureaucrats and politicians, no matter how well meaning, are better at solving problems than the people on the spot, who have the strongest incentive to get the solution right.”
Real wealth isn't only money. It's the knowledge passed between neighbours, the trust built through collective decisions, the food grown locally, the culture kept alive, the relationships that hold a place together when things get hard.
hum builds tools that help communities grow all of it — funding what matters, recognising what's valuable, and exchanging what they have with one another. So local groups can govern resources, track what's genuinely thriving, and build the kind of prosperity no balance sheet fully captures.
This isn't just better grantmaking. It's new infrastructure for communities ready to define prosperity on their own terms.
Who is Hum for
Funders
Public / private, large or small
- Streamlined, low-cost administration
- Real-time impact visibility
- Transparent, traceable funding flows
- Fast, efficient grant cycles
Community Organisations
Impact Stories
Real communities, real change. See how participatory funding is transforming local initiatives across New Zealand and beyond.
Business community
Walworth, London, UK
Working with The Social Innovation Partnership to bring the business community together to share and develop ideas for improving community health
Community wellbeing
Walworth, London, UK
Working with The Social Innovation Partnership to bring the Walworth community together. Using their first-hand experiences and local knowledge to think of new ways to create a better place to live, work and manage money.
Youth local food production
Wellington, New Zealand
Aya Miyaguchi of the Ethereum Foundation seeded the Rātā Rangatahi Fund, enabling youth to guide grant allocation supporting food production, climate healing, and community development.
Urban goverance
Melbourne, Australia
Regen Melbourne's New Urban Governance project to strengthen democratic systems by enabling communities to collectively allocate resources and trial new governance and capital mechanisms.
Māori Mens Health
Wellington, New Zealand
Tāne Ora piloted a new participatory community-controlled funding model, amplifying a Māori men's health group's impact and establishing a transformative approach to resourcing communities
Environmental
Tasman, New Zealand
Golden Bay community pioneered a grassroots sustainability initiative, empowering locals to collaboratively reimagine decision-making and community development through participatory grantmaking.
Testimonials
“It's rare to see a project with the potential to make giving more transparent, more human, and more effective. hum.community is one of them.”
Malcolm Rands
Ecostore founder, social entrepreneur and philanthropist
“I see the immense potential of this initiative to harness decentralised technology for the betterment of underprivileged segments of society.”
Aya Miyaguchi
President of Ethereum Foundation
“I've watched hum.community evolve into something powerful: a new model for funding that restores agency to communities and redefines what meaningful giving looks like.”
Hannah Knight
Director of Philanthropy for Rod Drury
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