Te Pū Harakeke was founded in 1971 as the Palmerston North Community Services Council, to bring together and provide support for Palmerston North-based community organisations. Read about how we began in Sharing Our Stories: 25 Years of Working in Community by John Thornley Read our 50th anniversary book, Te Pū Harakeke: 50 Years of the Palmerston North Community Services Council by Carol Phillips Our membership is made up of over one hundred different groups working in the community sector. Our members are mostly not-for-profit community groups, but include businesses, education providers and government agencies who are working in the community space. We are an incorporated society, governed by our Constitution. Our Board is made up of elected representatives of our community group members.

Pū harakeke (noun) A [single] clump of flax; (idiom) Flaxroots, grassroots; an initiative or enterprise which emanates from the people or community. The metaphor of a flax bush describes how we view the independent but connected member groups who form Te Pū Harakeke—Community Collective Manawatū. Like the shoots of te pū harakeke, connected at the roots, our collective aims to nourish, care for, and connect the many organisations in the Manawatū's community and social sector, and, like flax, is a resource which helps to sustain the community. The flax metaphor is something that the Community Services Council has used since the 1980s, as the title of our regular newsletter, Flax.

-Promote connection, collaboration, and information-sharing between community and social service organisations -Facilitate the building of the capability and capacity of community and social service organisations -Advocate on behalf of community and social service organisations -Research the needs of the community sector, community development, and social wellbeing generally, and undertake activities to meet these needs