“We realise that it is somewhat unusual for an organisation to have been active for nearly a decade and yet not have officially launched and declared itself fully ready and 'open for work',” Executive Director, Adam Blakester, said.

“However, this is the case for Starfish. We are different!”

While Starfish began in 2008 with the New England Sustainability Strategy and Farming the Sun, its official launch was withheld until it had gained approval for its charitable work - particularly the ability to receive tax deductible donations.

“It is with a mix of great relief as well as excitement that Starfish Foundation was finally awarded this tax deductible donation status in 2016,” Mr Blakester said. 

“And our final approvals came through just over a month ago ~ taking more than six years of negotiations in total. This is why we are both officially launching and celebrating our 10th anniversary at the same time.” 

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.