Making a positive impact for women, girls and their families 

Good Shepherd acts on two of the biggest issues facing women and girls in New Zealand — poverty and family violence — and challenges that stem from these.

We want women, girls and their families to be safe, strong, well and connected. 

We make a positive impact for women and families faced with two specific challenges:

• High-cost unmanageable debt
• Economic abuse and harm from family violence.  

Our services help to reduce harm while providing people with new opportunities. Our efforts to drive and support system change help stop harm before it happens and reduce the impact of harm when it has occurred. 

Through services and systemic change

Many women and families face financial hardship. They do not have enough money to live comfortably and safely, and have no savings for assets or emergencies. People on low incomes are often forced to take on high-cost debt to pay for essentials, or go without. So we:

• Provide alternative lending options at a low cost — no-interest loans up to $15k for essential items, services and debt consolidation.
• Negotiate with lenders to reduce high-cost debt on behalf of clients, eg to reduce a $20k high-cost loan to $10k which the client can immediately repay through our no-interest loan. 
• Provide financial coaching to clients burdened by or seeking to avoid high-cost debt.
• Help clients of our loan service protect high-value assets through affordable, comprehensive car insurance.
• Provide small grants to unlock other services or opportunities, give someone a break, or stop them being held down when other options aren’t available.
• Educate about the issues we see, eg inform policy makers about financial issues, and regulators about poor lender behaviour.
• Advocate and help create safer lending regulations and practices, eg changes to the Credit Contracts and Consumer Finance Act.

Women experiencing family violence can have their financial resources and assets completely depleted because of abuse. Some women can’t afford to leave violent relationships. Some have to choose between safety and poverty. Financial harm can last long after the abusive relationship ends. So we:

• Work with and for people who have experienced abuse to remove unjust debt (debt they were forced to take on or that was taken out without their knowledge) and to reduce unreasonable and/or unmanageable debt.
• Help people build financial capability and confidence.
• Help people access government entitlements, grant opportunities, and improved access to essential services through things like reduced and capped energy costs.
• Provide no-interest loans so people can access items and services to keep safe and help them recover and thrive.
• Provide small grants to unlock other services or opportunities, give someone a break, or stop them being held down when other options aren’t available.
• Educate about the issues we see, eg inform policy makers about the impact of economic abuse.
• Advocate and help create safer lending regulations and practises, eg creating operational policy so economic abuse is spotted earlier and lenders take responsibility for reducing the impact where abuse has occurred.