Ka Wai Ola - Office of Hawaiian Affairs, Volume 39, Number 5, 1 May 2022 — Huliau... A Turning Point, A Time of Change 'O ka ho'ohui 'āina, he huliau ia no Hawai'i [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

Huliau... A Turning Point, A Time of Change 'O ka ho'ohui 'āina, he huliau ia no Hawai'i

By the time you read this, the legislature is about to "sine die" (adjourn). And hopefully, SB2122, SD1, HD2, HD3 has passed and become law. How OHA has pushed for years for a greater share of revenue ffom the land formerly held by the Ha-

waiian Kingdom. Ihe has shortchanged OHA of $638M over the last decade. OHA uses the Publie Land Trust (PLT) revenues (currently capped at $15.1M per year) to fund grants and programs that serve Hawaiian beneficiaries. Ihe history of the 1.4 million acres that currently comprise the PLT is very complex, going all the way back to the Māhele of 1848.

Forty years ago, "management" was a very bad word in nonprofit organizations. Because management meant "business" and the one thing a nonprofit was NOT, was a business! Today, nonprofits understand that they need management even more because they have no conventional bottom line. Now they need to learn how to use management so that they ean concentrate on their mission. For years, most nonprofits felt that good intentions were, by themselves, enough. (Peter Drucker: Managing In A Time of Great Change, 1995) And although OHA is a state agency with a high degree of autonomy and is responsible for improving the wellbeing of Native Hawaiians, it does take on a nonprofit perception. We, as Trustees, are primarily tasked with setting up OHA's policies and "managing" the agency's trust as its top fiduciaries. We must have discipline rooted

in our mission. We must manage our limited resources of our aina (land) and money for maximum effectiveness. Ihe "danger," Drucker explains, is in acting on what you believe satisfies the customer. You will inevitably make wrong assumptions: "Leadership should not even try to guess at the answers; it sbnuld always go to cus-

tomers in a systematic quest for those answers. And so, in the self-assessment process, you will have a three-way conversation with your board, staff, and customers, and include eaeh of these perspectives in your discussions and decisions." OHA, in my humble opinion, is expandina; our 10 CA.paiiuiiig uui

vision by listening to our beneficiaries, by encouraging constructive dissent, and by looking at the sweeping transformation taking plaee in our society. (Huliau) Ihe Hōkūle'a is a perfor-mance-accurate wa'a kaulua, a Polynesian double-hulled voyaging eanoe whose first voyage was to Tahiti in 1976. One of its original crew members was my very good ffiend, top-notched rough waterman Tommy Holmes, who was the driving force to raise funds to make this first voyage possible. His gift to me was this "Hōkūle'a" rock that I share with you today. Hōkūle'a marks its 45th anniversary since its maiden voyage, and also marks a Huliau for Hawai'i's people and for OHA. Mālama nā po'e; Take care of eaeh other, Trustee Leina'ala Ahu Isa ■

Leina'ala Ahu Isa, Ph.D. Vice Chair, Trustee, At-large

īhe "Hōkūle'n" rock gifted to Trustee Ahu lso by Tommy Holmes. - Photo: Courtesy