The Pinnacle Foundation
The Pinnacle Foundation is a new charitable trust established by Pinnacle to strengthen support for general practice and community health across Te Manawa Taki.
It creates a clear, transparent way to reinvest surplus income from Pinnacle’s profit-for-purpose entities back into primary care, alongside our role as a PHO.
At our 2025 AGM on 25 November, Pinnacle announced the establishment of the Pinnacle Foundation, a new charitable trust to strengthen support for general practice and community health across Te Manawa Taki.
The Foundation gives us a clear, transparent charitable structure to reinvest surplus income from Pinnacle’s profit-for-purpose entities back into primary care. It sits alongside Pinnacle’s role as a PHO and government-funded service provider, with a clear separation between PHO funding and charitable investment.
The Foundation will invest in practical, high-value initiatives that improve access to care and support primary care teams. This may include:
- support with workforce recruitment
- professional development and capability building
- proven technology and innovation that help practices deliver care well
- support for patients to maintain access to care where cost is a barrier.
The Foundation will go live on 1 July 2026, with funding rounds available to practices within the Pinnacle PHO network across Te Manawa Taki.
We will continue to update our network as this work progresses.
Why the Foundation is being created
General practice continues to face rising demand, workforce shortages and the shift of more care into community settings. Practices consistently tell us they need support with recruitment, capability building, and access to tools and innovations that make day-to-day care easier to deliver.
The Foundation creates a purpose-built charitable mechanism for Pinnacle to provide additional support in these areas. It follows social investment principles, so funding decisions will need to show clear charitable purpose and measurable benefit for patients, whānau and communities.
This is not new work for Pinnacle. It is the next step in a strategy we have been pursuing for many years to support practices and communities across Te Manawa Taki, and a way to ensure more of what we earn as a network flows directly back into primary care.
By focusing this approach within Te Manawa Taki, the Foundation will also help build evidence about what works in primary care, and where innovations may be scalable across the wider health system.
The Foundation will focus on four priority areas:
Patient access
Supporting access to care where cost is a barrier.
Workforce recruitment
Helping practices attract and retain clinical and non-clinical staff.
Workforce education and capability
Funding training, development and opportunities that strengthen teams.
Technology and innovation
Supporting proven tools and innovations that improve efficiency and patient experience.
These are areas where targeted charitable investment can make a measurable difference to equity, capability and access. Further detail will be confirmed through the Foundation’s governance and establishment process.
Funding will be offered through defined funding rounds. It will not be allocated as of right. Applications will need to show:
- benefit for patients and communities
- alignment with the Foundation’s charitable purpose
- evidence of impact, outcomes or measurable improvement.
Decisions will follow an outcomes-focused social investment approach, with clear assessment criteria published closer to launch.
Guidance on eligibility, application processes and reporting requirements will be available in 2026.
The Foundation will be governed by a Board of Trustees, made up of a mix of independent trustees and Pinnacle-appointed members. Oversight will sit with Pinnacle’s Risk and Audit Committee (RAC).
The trust deed, governance arrangements and Charities Services registration will be completed ahead of the July 2026 launch. Trustee appointments will be announced in early 2026.
Over the next year and beyond, we’ll move through a series of setup and implementation phases for the Pinnacle Foundation.
First, we’ll confirm the trust deed, governance arrangements and registration, and appoint a Board of Trustees made up of independent and Pinnacle-appointed members.
Once governance is in place, the Board will agree the final funding criteria, application processes and reporting expectations, and we’ll start sharing detailed guidance with practices and partners.
From mid-2026, the Foundation is expected to begin offering funding rounds for practices within the Pinnacle network across Te Manawa Taki. The initial rounds will focus on initiatives that support access, workforce, capability and innovation in primary care.
As funding decisions are made, we’ll share examples of the initiatives supported, what we are learning, and how this model is helping to return surpluses back into primary care and the communities our network serves.
Updates
We will continue to share updates via the Pinnacle website, newsletters and direct communication to practices.
Contact details
Liz Miller, Chief Governance Officer
liz.miller@pinnacle.health.nz
During the COVID-19 lockdown virtual consultations for POAC cases were funded. We are pleased to announce that this will be a permanent change.
Read moreFunding is now available for primary care, community, and rural health providers who are committed to supporting graduate registered nurses (RN) as they transition into practice. To be eligible for placement funding, employers must employ a graduate RN, provide preceptorship and clinical support, and hire the graduate RN for a minimum of 0.6 FTE for a period of 12 months or more.
Read moreThe extended care team is available to compliment the care you provide to your patients.
Business rules for the Primary Options Acute Care programme (Lakes), which supports primary care through funding specific clinical services.