Westpac Northland Business Excellence Awards 2012

The management team of supreme award winner Kamo Home & Village Charitable Trust has made no bones about how the trust has travelled a rocky road over the past two years and that winning the supreme award was "success beyond our wildest dreams".

Board chairman Eric Dodd told the 430-strong audience at the awards that the big challenge was operating as a charitable trust while making enough money to stay viable and work towards improving services.

General manager Zoe Pothan, who joined the business about three years ago, said later that adopting the principles of international business improvement system Baldridge and joining the Business Excellence Foundation in 2010 had been crucial to keeping the trust afloat, supported by a committed staff.

"It's pretty simple stuff.

"You follow the principles and apply them to your mission statement and values," Ms Pothan said.

"That gave us the framework to succeed as a charitable trust with a Christian philosophy without looking as though we were profit-driven."

Ms Pothan said the operation was now in a position to move into further developing the charitable aspect by providing more individualised solutions to need "not necessarily ones that make the most money."

This involved making three of the community living units into rentals for people who couldn't afford to buy a unit in the village.

The judges said: "The trust has adopted leading management tools and applied them consistently to achieve continuous improvement and best practice throughout the organisation."

The supreme award is judged from the category winners: the Kamo Home's winning category was the Channel North Best Not-For-Profit Organisation Award.