Heal the Hauraki

The project:

Heal the Hauraki is a solutions and action based docu-series rooted in te ao Māori, science, and the deep love everyday people have for their rohe. The kaupapa is simple but powerful; if we heal the Hauraki, its moana, its whenua, its communities, we begin to heal ourselves.

Social Good partnered with the Heal the Hauraki team to bring this vision to life digitally, building a platform that started conversations online and drove people to take real action offline.

The challenge:

Environmental storytelling can inspire, but inspiration without action fades. The challenge for Heal the Hauraki was bridging that gap. Taking people who already cared about the gulf and giving them somewhere to go, something to do, and a community to belong to.

The project needed to connect with people across the Hauraki region, particularly urban wāhine on their own journey of healing and reconnection. It needed to translate the energy of the docu-series into real action: planting days, rubbish cleanups, donations, newsletter sign-ups, and shares. It needed an email database that would outlast any single campaign. And it needed to be built in a way that could eventually be handed over to a community organisation to run themselves.

Our role:

We came on board at the very beginning, working alongside the team as the documentary was still being filmed. Strategy, brand, website and social all came together at the same time, which meant every decision had to be intentional.

We built the website alongside developer Marko from Studio Rebeko, and worked with local artists to shape the brand identity. From there we advised on best practice for how to display and share their messages, how to position the social content, and set up all their social channels. We wrote the website content, filled the site, and launched it with the team.

That meant shaping a brand identity that felt vibrant and real, rich colours, genuine portraits, real landscapes, nothing soft or generic. The website hosted quality video, pulled through live social content and events, and connected to Mailchimp so the community kept growing long after people left the page.

The content pillars were built around hero episodes, community leaders, and clear calls to action so people always knew what to do next.

Every touchpoint was designed to reflect the ngākau of this kaupapa. Pāpātūānuku, Hinemoana, Mahuika. Nature not as backdrop, but as teacher, healer, and guide.

The vision:

The goal was always for Heal the Hauraki to outgrow us. To be owned and run by a community organisation, growing its own audience, delivering more stories, and improving as it went. The website was built to be a home. Somewhere people could arrive, feel something, join something, and leave ready to act.

What we loved about this mahi:

This project sat right at the intersection of everything we believe in at Social Good. Behaviour change, kaupapa Māori values, community building, and digital that actually does something. Heal the Hauraki wasn't asking people to scroll past. It was asking them to show up.