09/08/2026
Sometimes you just have to back yourself.
Two years ago we asked funders for a community loan, not a grant, a low interest loan, to design and manufacture our own silt sock machine. We were turned down.
Today, that "no" looks like one of the best things that ever happened to us.
We'd already been producing silt sock for two years — leasing a machine, buying materials through the lease company, and still making a small profit. We knew we could do better, so we designed our own machine and branded materials, sourced them offshore far cheaper, and worked out that owning our own machine would transform the numbers.
We went to funders with production history, real customers and proven profit.
What we didn't have was a funding relationship — we hadn't asked anyone for a cent in over ten years. Not needing their money for so long seemed to count against us, go figure!
Funders speak warmly about social enterprise as the path to independence. Wai-Ora has been running social enterprise since the mid-1990s and funds its own operation, possibly the only organisation in Ōtautahi to do so.
To this day, the Christchurch City Council is the only funding body that supports any part of what we do — a small grant toward our volunteer coordination — and we are genuinely grateful for it. But when it came to helping us do more good, the value was hard for others to see.
So we funded the machine ourselves. The board sent Ricky to China to inspect it in person before it was imported — no consultants, no middlemen, just Ricky who also took Cindy and their 2 younger kids along to make sure what we were buying was worth backing.
Once unpacked, assembled and in operation the results spoke for themselves and the machine paid itself off in under six months.
Nearly two years on, Silt Sock is a standout enterprise generating real revenue for the Wai-Ora vision, with retail and wholesale customers and a new marketing campaign into the building and civil sectors.
It joins our eco-sourced native nursery — over 420,000 native plants this year — and our industry-leading ecological restoration division.
All profits go towards the vision of Wai-Ora which is to support people and the environment.
To anyone chasing a dream others can't see yet: back yourself, do the work, prove the model.
People healing the land — heals people.
Ngā mihi nui to everyone who has walked this road with us.
