It is National Volunteer Week and Acorn would not be where we are today without the contributions of our hardworking volunteers over the last 20 years. We’ve come a long way from the early days when alongside our staff the trustees needed to be out and about in the community spreading the word about Acorn to friends and contacts. With the rapid growth of funds under management there has been a corresponding increase in the money distributed each year.

Lesley Jensen has been an integral part of Acorn Foundation’s success over the last eight years since she joined the Board and the Distributions Committee in 2015. Since then, she served as Deputy Chair before becoming Acorn’s Chair in 2019.

Lesley first heard about Acorn through Bill Holland who spoke at a function she attended. He shared the concept of community foundations and the idea of being able to invest the capital and distribute the investment returns to the community. Acorn took Lesley’s interest as she saw the potential it could have for the Western Bay of Plenty.

“In my role as Community Magistrate, I see people who are in trouble and struggling. I could see that the investment into the community could make a difference to a lot of those people.”

Lesley told us about her key moments from the past eight years of volunteering for Acorn including the joy of visiting and meeting with charities doing good around the Western Bay of Plenty.

The opportunity to join Margot McCool in Canada at the 2017 Community Foundations Conference was also a highlight for Lesley. They met with several foundations around the Toronto area and were inspired by what it could mean for the potential growth of Acorn.

The biggest change Lesley has seen in the past eight years is people’s increasing trust in Acorn. 

“Although we still go out and talk to groups and to professional advisors, I think a lot of Tauranga stood back and watched us and confidence has grown. We have people who come to the foundation as donors now that we have not personally met; instead, they have heard about Acorn and watched the success of the foundation. That has been the change; we crossed the line from being a relatively new foundation to being a more mature one.”

Lesley will be retiring from the Acorn Board at the end of 2023 and shared her view on retirement.

“It will be time to move on after eight years. You need fresh skills on the Board, and it is good to have that succession regularly. The next people will do really well. It has been a great experience; I have enjoyed working with the donors I have met and our wonderful staff and volunteers. It has been a real pleasure.”

Volunteering will continue to be a consistent feature in Lesley’s life once she retires from Acorn.

“Volunteering is something I can do; I get as big a buzz out of my volunteer work if not more than my paid work. You get as much back out of it as you give to the job.”

The Acorn team sends a big thank you to Lesley Jensen and to all of Acorn’s past and present volunteers.