Support for multicultural community: Cultural Connections

Eric Chuah, former head of migrant banking with ANZ, has launched Cultural Connections, New Zealand’s first social enterprise to specialise in researching migrants, is calling all migrants to join its research panels and in doing so help the country’s multicultural community groups flourish.  

“Companies have tapped into the fact that the migrant customer segment can be up to 10 times more profitable than mainstream customer segments. However, there is very little data available to understand how migrants are settling into Kiwi life, let alone how they make purchase decisions,” explains Chuah, adding, "a quarter of NZ’s population is now born overseas, there are numerous community groups (some well-known, some not so) supporting migrants, and an increasing number of companies are treating migrants as a discreet customer segment."

“We’re a market research company for New Zealand based businesses but we have a social purpose to help migrant community groups with their awareness and funding. For every migrant who joins our research panel, Cultural Connections will donate $2 to a migrant community group,” says Chuah.

Initially Cultural Connections will be supporting six groups: Multicultural New Zealand, NZ Newcomers Network, Auckland Regional Migrant Services, Chinese New Settlers Services Trust, New Zealand Indian Central Association, and Korean Society of Auckland.

Cultural Connections aims to contribute $50,000 in 2017 to the multicultural community groups and double that in 2018.