The organisations behind the producers

Becoming a partner

Partners fund the work. We give them a meaningful place alongside it.

Partnership helps us make organic easier to find, understand and choose, while keeping producer listings free. In return, your organisation gains a visible, clearly identified presence across the work you help make possible, connecting you with people who care about where their food comes from and the future of organic — without buying influence over what we say.

What does an Organic Matters partnership give you?

When you become an Organic Matters partner, you are helping build something bigger than an advertising campaign: a platform designed to grow the number of New Zealanders choosing organic.

But this is not simply a donation. Your partnership needs to deliver value for your organisation too.

You become part of what we’re building

Organic Matters exists to make organic easier to understand, easier to find and, ultimately, easier to choose. Your partnership helps fund that work.

It supports the producer directory, farm map, independent information and research, consumer guides, The Weekly Harvest, new digital tools, campaigns and the ongoing development of Organic Matters.

In return, we give your organisation a visible and clearly identified place alongside that work. The larger the partnership, the greater the opportunity to be associated with the projects, guides, regions and initiatives you help make possible.

You reach people who care about organic

Rather than buying broad advertising and hoping the right person sees it, an Organic Matters partnership puts your organisation in front of an audience already interested in where their food comes from, how it is produced and the future of organic food and farming.

Depending on your partnership, that can include:

• a permanent partner presence on Organic Matters
• your own partner page
• acknowledgement within the guides and projects you support
• clearly identified placements within relevant parts of the platform
• presence in The Weekly Harvest
• regional or national campaign exposure
• opportunities to explain why your organisation supports organic
• reporting on the reach and engagement generated by your partnership.

You can put your money behind something tangible

We want partners to be able to answer a simple question: what did our partnership actually achieve?

Rather than simply putting your logo on Organic Matters, larger partnerships can help make specific pieces of work possible.

You might help us produce a national guide to buying organic. Support the development of tools connecting consumers directly with certified producers. Help us tell the stories of New Zealand’s organic growers. Support a particular region. Or help fund a major piece of consumer research.

Where appropriate, that relationship is acknowledged:

Made possible with the support of [Partner].

That gives your organisation something much more meaningful than another advertisement. It shows what your support helped create.

You get association without buying endorsement

This distinction matters.

Being an Organic Matters partner allows you to say that you support Organic Matters and its mission. It does not allow either of us to say that Organic Matters certifies, recommends or endorses your organisation.

That protects us, but it also protects you.

If people know that our editorial opinions, producer listings, search results and research cannot be bought, then acknowledgement of the organisations supporting our work means more.

We don’t want your logo sitting beside something consumers suspect you paid us to say. We want people to see: this organisation chose to help make this work possible.

Your partnership doesn’t change the evidence

Whether you contribute $1,000 or $15,000, the rules remain the same.

You cannot pay to appear higher in search results. You cannot buy a place on the farm map. You cannot buy certification status, a favourable review, an article or a recommendation. You cannot influence the conclusions of our research.

If we write about an issue involving one of our partners, we apply exactly the same standards we would if they had never paid us anything. And anything you do pay to publish is clearly marked as sponsored.

Why would you want those restrictions?

Because without them, Organic Matters eventually becomes another advertising platform. And that would make your partnership less valuable.

Our value to partners comes from building an audience that trusts Organic Matters to tell the difference between what is certified, what is claimed, what the evidence says and what someone has paid to promote. The independence is part of what you are investing in.

So what are you actually buying?

You’re buying a clearly defined association with Organic Matters. You’re buying visibility with an audience interested in organic. You’re buying opportunities to communicate why your organisation supports the sector. You’re buying acknowledgement for the work your contribution helps make possible.

You’re helping fund projects that can grow organic consumption and strengthen New Zealand’s organic sector. And, depending on the partnership, you’re gaining a closer relationship with us as we decide what tools and infrastructure the sector needs next.

But you are not buying our opinion.

At the highest level, we want to build things together

For our larger partners, the relationship should go beyond placing a logo on a website. We want to hear about the problems you see.

What’s stopping people choosing organic? What information is missing? Where are producers struggling to reach consumers? What could make the sector stronger? What could Organic Matters build that doesn’t exist today?

Those conversations can influence what problems we choose to work on. They cannot determine what we find, who we recommend or what we ultimately say. That boundary is important.

We want partners who don’t need to buy our opinion. We want organisations prepared to help us build something worth having one.

You help fund the work. We protect its independence. Together, we make organic easier to choose.

Partnership does not buy certification, editorial coverage, a review, a recommendation, or a place in our search results, maps or lists. Paying Organic Matters does not make a company more organic, and we will never present it that way.

We keep three things deliberately separate: certified producers, whose certification we verify against their certifier’s register; Organic Matters partners, who are identified as partners; and sponsored content, which is clearly labelled wherever it appears.

Partnership supports the work of Organic Matters. It does not influence what we verify, what we publish, or how we represent the organic sector.

And partners do not appear on the farm map. The map is for farms.