Love Queenstown is a non-profit initiative managed by Destination Southern Lakes – a collaboration between Destination Queenstown and Lake Wānaka Tourism. Love Queenstown and Love Wānaka (our partner initiative over the hill) are delivered in partnership with the Wakatipu Community Foundation – a donor driven charitable trust that supports localised philanthropy right here in our region.

Love Queenstown funds climate, conservation and biodiversity action exclusively within the Queenstown-Lakes region (bordered by the Cardrona Saddle in the North and Kingston in the South, and including the towns of Glenorchy, Arrowtown and Gibbston). Love Queenstown supports the organisations who are championing this work right here and now, as well as the innovators and the change-markers who are striving to meet the future needs of our region.

Each year, Love Queenstown allocates funds to local organisations and initiatives who are working to benefit Queenstown’s environment, and support our region’s shift to a low carbon, regenerative future.

This is about funding an entire ecosystem to support our region’s regenerative, carbon-zero future and putting it in the hands of our local organisations and change-makers. We’re blessed with an array of local organisations who are out there doing the hard work and leading climate, conservation, and biodiversity work right here in Queenstown. We’re all about supporting their mission and the unique, localised solutions to the challenges – and opportunities – tourism brings to our region

Each year we allocate funds to local organisations who operate in the climate, conservation, and biodiversity space. Every dollar raised is spent exclusively within this region, so you know you’re making a difference to the place you love. Funding is available to charitable organisations and initiatives on a contestable basis, with annual grant rounds open each year. The first round of funding will be distributed late 2023

There are a number of ways your business or organisation can get behind Love Queenstown, from sharing the initiative with your customers, to raising or donating funds. Check out the for businesses page here for more detail.

20% of all funds raised are invested in an endowment fund, enabling long-term, substantial funding opportunities that will benefit this place for generations to come. Funds are invested with support from the Wakatipu Charity Foundation.

Love Queenstown is all about supporting a unique, local groups catering to the opportunities that high-volume visitation brings to our region. Funds raised are pooled for collective impact, so no matter how big or small your donation is, it has the capacity to protect this place in a meaningful way. 20% of all funds raised will also be allocated to an endowment fund, ensuring Love Queenstown creates impact now, and into the future.