Connecting With Our Home Community

MonkeyPod is grateful to call Hawai’i our home.

We first launched MonkeyPod from Kailua, HI in 2019, and we're thrilled to support so many nonprofits across the islands. While we do have team members live on the continent, it’s important to us to make sure our whole team continues to support our home community.

Our team had the pleasure of exhibiting at the Hawai’i Alliance of Nonprofit Organizations’ annual conference last week, and took the opportunity to visit a few of our other clients and see firsthand the impact they are making.

HANOCON

MonkeyPod has exhibited at HANOCON, HANO’s annual conference, for the past few years, and it’s been great to connect with so many Hawai’i organizations in person.

With the disruption happening for many nonprofits at the federal level, it was great to hear speakers discuss how we can come together to be more resilient as a nonprofit community. There were a number of inspiring conversations about sustainable funding, how to empower nonprofit employees, and even a fun zine making workshop.

We look forward to HANOCON every year, and encourage you to join us next year if you can!

Honolulu Theatre for Youth

Honolulu Theatre for Youth has been a long time partner with MonkeyPod, and we were so excited to see one of their performances in person. HTY just wrapped up a run of performances of Tales of the Sun and Moon, an original play written and directed by HTY Artistic Associate, Reiko Ho.

The show brings young audiences on a journey through space and time by re-telling stories from China, Korea, Hawai’i, and more. After wrapping up shows on O’ahu, they’ll be taking the show to the neighboring islands, so check out HTY’s website to see if you can catch a performance. The team has plans for shows on the mainland in 2026 as well.

MonkeyPod is honored to support the work of HTY, and it was so wonderful to see firsthand how they bring together people of all ages for such fun and creative performances.

KEY Project

Another long time MonkeyPod partner, KEY Project, was hosting their annual Koʻolau ʻOhana Dinner while our team was in town, so we stopped by to say hello.

KEY Project supports their community with programming designed for all ages, from keiki to kūpuna. The dinner showcased their community and culture, with prayers and performances by KEY Project staff and community members.

They also featured artwork made by their kūpuna in their silent auction, an awesome way to fundraise while showing the impact of their work. We love seeing the creative strategies nonprofits use to support their work!

Community Connection

In addition to HTY and KEY Project, we also had the chance to meet with newer MonkeyPod users, Hawai’i Workers Center. It was wonderful to chat with executive director Kami Yamamoto and director of organizing Nelson Salvador and hear firsthand about how they are helping workers in their community. At a time when workers’ rights are being threatened more than ever, we’re honored to support their work.

We also had the opportunity to visit Hawai’i Public Radio and participate in their fundraising drive. If you’ve heard about our Third Sector Fights Back program, you know that we’re committed to supporting independent, nonprofit media organizations, especially in the wake of the funding rescission recently implemented at the federal level. It was great to play a small role in their fundraising efforts so we can ensure they stay on the air.

From the entire MonkeyPod team, mahalo to everyone we had the pleasure of connecting with over the last week. We look forward to continuing to support our Hawai’i nonprofit community both locally and from the continent.