Starfish Initiatives has officially reached tax-deductible status

Nine years later the foundation has finally gained tax-deductible charity status and can now make a more significant difference to rural communities.

“Starfish’s purpose is to create the changes to realise real rural sustainability,” Mr Blakester said.

“Obviously we have many generations of work ahead to achieve sustainability in full, but piece by piece we have real integrity to that role we play.”

Starfish Initiatives has been responsible for the community bulk buys of solar power and hot water in Armidale, Uralla and beyond.

The organisation also created the two first ever community funded solar farms in Australia in Lismore.

“We facilitate, we support, we educate, we provide professional service – we do a whole range of things, all of which are about enabling that change for rural sustainability,” he said.

“The thing that’s very unique about us is that as far as we know we’re the only organisation on Earth, and that sounds like a grand statement, but this has genuinely been researched over 20 years and we don’t know of any other organisation that specialises in rural sustainability.

"That for us is of great importance.”

The organisation works in seven countries and has just received confirmation of a half a million dollar donation to start up the Starfish Foundation.

“The enormity of what we’re working on, we’re like a teensy [sic] fly on a great bull elephant,” Mr Blakester said.

“Hopefully like acupuncture if we can apply our effort and our professional skills in the right point we can create a bigger change than the tiny tap of the needle we have to work with.”

The organisation now has 150 formal partners in seven countries.

The launch will take place at The Alternate Root cafe in Uralla at 10am on April 7.

It is open to the public.