About
Founded in care for land and people.
Munay Ayni Sanctuary Ltd is an independent Australian charity created to support regenerative community, Landcare, Indigenous partnership and circular economy learning — from the Northern Rivers to the Adelaide Hills. Community-led, place-based, and accountable to the people and Country we serve.
Why we exist
Munay Ayni began with a simple impulse: to care for the places that care for us. In the Northern Rivers and the Adelaide Hills we saw the same pattern — deep local knowledge, strong community will, and too little steady support for the work that keeps land, water, culture and belonging alive.
Ayni — the Quechua principle often translated as today for you, tomorrow for me — names the ethic that guides us: what is received has to return, and the returning is what keeps a community alive. We chose that name because it describes the practice we are trying to build here, at home.
The Sanctuary exists to make that return practical: community-defined projects, funded by community gifts, philanthropy, Landcare and circular economy grants, and partnerships — governed with community and visible to anyone who wants to check.
From the beginning the question has been the same: how can people, schools, growers, Elders and neighbours work together so that care for land becomes care for each other — and keeps going?
What we are
An independent charity. Own board, own accounts, own obligations. Funded by gifts, grants and partnerships — not by an automatic share from a business.
Place-based. Northern Rivers NSW and Adelaide Hills SA are our first landscapes. We learn with Bundjalung, Kaurna and Peramangk custodians and respect their authority on Country.
Community-led. Communities nominate priorities. We co-design the project, budget and measures, then fund and deliver together.
Measured and open. Public ledger, annual report including what went wrong, and no claim without a source you can ask for within the hour.
What we are not
Not the seller of anything. No retreat, product or ceremony is ever sold on this domain.
Not a marketing arm. Our story is our own — an autonomous charity, not a business vessel.
Not a promise we cannot evidence. Pilots are pilots. We show status tags and blank numbers rather than persuasive estimates.
Not a health provider. We make no medical or therapeutic claims, for donors or for the communities we work with.
Governance
The parts that are supposed to be uncomfortable — and how we hold them
An independent charity must be worthy of the trust it asks for. We publish how decisions are made and who makes them.
Board of Directors
Responsible for the charity’s money, compliance and conduct. Our commitment: an independent chair, community and skill-based directors, and founders in the minority — so independence is structural, not personal.
Status: being formed. Directors will be listed here by name and background once appointed — not before.
Advisory Council
Members drawn from community — including Indigenous Elders, growers, educators and local leaders — who help shape priorities and hold a veto over any use of their cultural knowledge, language or imagery.
Council members are paid for their time. An unpaid seat offered to the people we claim to serve would be the contradiction at the centre of everything else here.
Independence by design
No parent company and no automatic business transfer. If we ever partner with a business to extend reach, every transaction is documented, priced at arm’s length, disclosed in the annual report, and decided by unconflicted directors only.
Cultural safety
No lineage-specific symbol, pattern, song or design appears in our identity without explicit, revocable, written consent in the owner’s own language. No photography of ceremony or medicine. No person’s name or image is published without consent — and support is never conditional on being visible. Our funding and respect do not depend on publicity.
Why our own logo is abstract. The mark is drawn from plain geometry — two open crescents passing a seed inside an unclosed ring. We did not use an Andean, Amazonian or Balinese symbol as a brand, because those belong to specific communities and are not ours to turn into a logo. If a community ever offers one, it will be their decision, in writing, through the Council.
Our standing commitments
Six things you can hold us to
- Diverse, resilient fundingCommunity gifts, philanthropy, Landcare and circular economy grants, and partnerships — no single source decides whether care continues.
- Communities nominate the prioritiesWe fund what is asked for. We do not arrive with a designed solution. Cultural authority guides what is appropriate to share.
- Support is unconditional and respectfulNo reporting burden placed on families or keepers, and no obligation to appear in marketing.
- Six months of committed support held in reserveRegeneration needs continuity. We hold reserve so a quiet fundraising quarter does not break a commitment.
- Every published figure traces to a bank recordWhere we cannot evidence a number, we publish the blank instead. Bank record → ledger, within the hour test.
- An annual report that includes what we got wrongA required section, every year, minimum three items. Learning is part of the account, not hidden.
The people
Munay Ayni was seeded by Omora and Sophie alongside early community members who shared a vision for care of Country, intergenerational belonging and practical regeneration in the Northern Rivers and Adelaide Hills. That shared impulse — not a business plan — is the origin story.
Today the Sanctuary is governed as an independent charity. Founders sit alongside community and independent directors and do not outweigh them; stewardship is held by the board and the Advisory Council together. Generations, Country and continuity come before any individual.
Directors, council members and their affiliations will be published on this page as they are appointed, with the date of appointment. Early community partners who prefer to remain private will remain so — support is not conditional on visibility.