Fellowships & Awards: Funding Individuals
The current application round is open. This round includes the Borrin Foundation Justice Fellowship, the Borrin Foundation Community Law Fellowship, the Borrin Foundation Women Leaders in Law Fellowship and our Travel and Learning Awards. The round will close 12pm 2 April 2024.
We offer three Fellowships – the Borrin Foundation Justice Fellowship for outstanding legal professionals with more than 10 years of experience in the law, the Borrin Foundation-Community Law Fellowship for lawyers at one of the 24 Community Law Centres and the Borrin Foundation Women Leaders in Law Fellowship for women who are on a journey to becoming leaders in the law.
We offer two Scholarships – we have partnered with Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga to offer postgraduate scholarships in law for Māori law graduates to pursue a postgraduate degree in law overseas or domestically. We also offer the Borrin Foundation Te Pae Tawhiti Postgraduate Scholarship to recognise and support law graduates to pursue postgraduate study in law despite financial obstacles and complex life circumstances.
Our Travel and Learning Awards support members of the Aotearoa New Zealand legal community to learn from others, build networks and investigate innovative ideas.
Borrin Foundation vision and guiding principles for individual funding
The Borrin Foundation aims to support, invest in, and celebrate people whose knowledge, skills, commitment and passion will contribute to the achievement of our shared vision for Aotearoa New Zealand.
Our decisions on funding for individuals will take into account the following factors:
- Commitment: we aim to invest in people with a demonstrated commitment to the relevant field and to New Zealand,
- Impact: we believe that investing in people can have a significant long-term practical impact on the way in which the law meets the needs and aspirations of New Zealanders,
- Catalyst: our support should be a catalyst for change for the people we support, and for the field they work in,
- Diversity, equity and inclusion: We believe that when funders make diversity, equity, and inclusion central to their work, philanthropy has greater impact. That’s because having varied perspectives helps generate better ideas to solve the complex problems of a changing world.
- Capacity-building and growing talents: Change is made by people. He aha te mea nui o te ao. He tāngata, he tāngata, he tāngata! We want to build capacity and maximise talents.
- Areas of need: We aim to focus our support on people working in areas of the law that are under-resourced or under-developed.
- The ‘but-for’ question: Would our funding enable something to happen that otherwise would not? Is there a clear need for external support?
Application dates
We currently run two application rounds for our Fellowships and Awards. In March we invite applications for the Borrin Foundation Justice Fellowship, the Borrin Foundation – Community Law Fellowship, the Borrin Foundation Women Leaders in Law Fellowship, and Travel and Learning Awards.
In August, we invite applications for the Borrin Foundation – Ngā Pae o te Māramatanga Postgraduate Scholarship, the Borrin Foundation Te Pae Tawhiti Postgraduate Scholarship, and Travel and Learning Awards.
See the individual Fellowships and Awards below for specific dates for the application process.