A NEW ZEALAND CHARITABLE TRUST

Clean water
for communities
that need it.

Good Trust funds water and sanitation projects where we're confident they'll have an impact. As a 100% charity, every dollar you give goes direct to the projects we fund. There are no New Zealand overheads deducted from your donation.

Donate See a recent project
Children laughing and splashing under the spout of a newly completed Good Trust well in rural Cambodia
01Why water

Start with water. The rest follows.

Of all the needs in the developing world, we chose one. Mostly because we understood it better, but also because water is upstream of almost everything else - and a water project, once built, keeps giving for decades.

— Food

Crops, livestock, livelihoods.

Reliable water turns subsistence farming into surplus, and surplus into household income.

— Education

A walk replaced with a classroom.

When the daily walk for water disappears, children — most often girls — can stay in school.

— Hygiene

Prevention, not just cure.

Clean water and proper sanitation reduce waterborne disease and infant mortality dramatically.

— Life

The thing everything else needs.

It is not a metaphor. Without it, nothing else we might build for a community can hold.

02Project examples

What your giving actually builds.

A few examples from across the years. We've funded work in South East Asia and East Africa since 2009. Below are some project examples to show how the projects have evolved over time. We've witnessed an incredible maturing of this space. Projects we fund now are incredibly well built, effective and durable.

Latest completed: 2 schools, Kampong Chhnang
James Grafas high-fiving a student outside one of the schools in Baribour District, Kampong Chhnang — January 2026 project visit The whole student body of one of the project schools gathered in front of the new BioSand filter station Students filling water containers from the newly installed school BioSand filter tap
Cambodia · School WASH for Better Health · Baribour, Kampong Chhnang · Jan 2026

Two schools. Safe water, clean facilities, healthier kids.

Our most recently completed project, delivered with our partner Clear Cambodia in Baribour District: BioSand filter water stations, handwashing stations, accessible latrine blocks and waste kilns at two primary schools in Kampong Chhnang. Principals and teachers were trained on filter use and maintenance, so the hardware keeps working long after we leave.

  • 2School BioSand Filters (1 small, 1 large)
  • 2Handwashing stations
  • 2Latrine blocks — 3 stalls + 4 stalls
  • 2Garbage kilns for school waste management
Students served
451
Schools
2 primary
Completed
Jan 2026
Partner
Clear Cambodia
A young student drinking from the pipe of a new well at a Cambodian primary school, 2015 A completed charity:water hand pump installation at a school A girl with wet hair smiling after washing at a new school water point
Cambodia · with charity: water · Completed July 2015

Seven schools. Clean water for 4,132 students.

Funded with our partner charity: water: BioSand filter systems and sanitation facilities at seven primary schools across Beantey Meanchy, Cambodia. Hardware, training, ongoing monitoring — still running today.

Students served
4,132
Schools
7 primary
Completed
Jul 2015
Partner
charity: water
Plaque at Preah Tvea Primary School: BioSand filter and hand washing station, funded by Good Trust, built by Clear Cambodia, dated 20 October 2022
In between · 2022 · Preah Tvea Primary School Between the two examples above, dozens of smaller projects — school filters, village wells, hand washing stations, repairs and training — have rolled on year after year since 2009. This plaque is one of them: a BioSand filter and hand washing station completed with Clear Cambodia in 2022. The one below is just for fun: where we started.
A young man emerging from a hand-dug well shaft, smiling at the camera — one of Good Trust's earliest projects in Cambodia, 2011 Worker inside the hand-dug shaft, on the rope Two men at the surface working the rope and pulley over the new well
Where we started · Hand-dug well · 2011

One of our very first.

This is what the work looked like in the beginning: a village well dug by hand in 2011, with Good Trust funding the materials. We've come a long way since — today most of what we fund is delivered through partners with engineered hardware, BioSand filters and trained Water Committees. The principle hasn't changed: locally owned, built to last.

03What you can do right now

Our next project. Four schools, this winter.

Between May and July 2026, Good Trust is funding School WASH for Better Health — safe drinking water, handwashing stations and waste kilns at four primary schools in Kampong Chhnang province. We're delivering it with our long-standing partner, Clear Cambodia.

Students collecting safe drinking water at a sBSF water station — reference image from a previous WASH project A newly built school handwashing and sanitation block — reference image from a previous WASH project Flow-rate testing on a school BioSand filter — reference image
Schools
4
Students
585
Teachers
22
Timeline
May–Jul
Raised so far NZ$12,120
Goal NZ$33,200
37% funded NZ$21,080 still to raise
Total project cost
~NZ$33,200
Approx. USD 20,115 at today's rate
What's built
4 BioSand filter water stations (3 large + 1 small), 4 handwashing stations, 3 garbage kilns — plus training for principals and teachers.

What your gift buys

NZ$60Safe water at school for one student.
NZ$1,200A complete handwashing station at one of the schools.
NZ$1,500A garbage kiln — safe waste management for the school.
NZ$5,500A full School BioSand Filter water station — clean drinking water for hundreds of kids, daily.
NZ$8,500Fund an entire school's WASH facilities — filter, handwashing station and kiln.
NZ$33,200Fund the whole project — all four schools, all 585 students. (Or rally a group.)
Donate via Givealittle Fully tax deductible in NZ.
04How we fund it

Two other little ways to chip in.

Alongside direct donations, Good Trust runs two side projects. 

good.music logo
A Good Trust project good.music

Music that pays for water.

We partnered with Luke Thompson to record his song Water, inspired by Good Trusts work. Streams, views and downloads all fund Good Trust. And, it's a great song!

Watch on YouTube Donate instead
good.coffee logo
A Good Trust project good.coffee

Coffee you can drink for water.

In partnership with Excelso, a New Zealand coffee roaster: every bag sold contributes to Good Trust's work. Same good coffee, but this time it makes a real difference!

A shelf of good.coffee bags branded goodtrust.nz — every bag funds clean water in Cambodia for one person for five years
Visit Excelso Donate instead
05Our story

Two New Zealanders, one quiet idea, 2009.

Good Trust was founded by Andrew Nicol and James Grafas in 2009 — a difficult year for the New Zealand economy, and a season in which we'd both been thinking hard about needs we kept reading about in the developing world.

The idea was simple: find creative ways to raise money and direct it into water projects where it would do the most good. Over the years that's meant straightforward donations, partnerships with businesses big and small, and side projects of our own — like good.music and good.coffee.

We chose water because we understood it, and because we believed it was foundational. Without it there is no food, no education, no hygiene. With it, almost everything else becomes possible.

More than fifteen years on, the same belief still runs the trust. Quietly. One project at a time.

Andrew Nicol, Good Trust co-founder
Andrew Nicol Co-founder · 2009
James Grafas, Good Trust co-founder
James Grafas Co-founder · 2009

Got an idea, or want to chip in?

Donors, supporters, businesses, the merely curious — write to either of us directly. We read everything.

James Grafas

email +64 21 461 635 Co-founder

Andrew Nicol

email +64 22 637 39 Co-founder