In 2013, the Rise UP Trust gained Lotteries funding to explore culturally relevant and responsive ways to engage Pasifika whānau in their children’s learning, and to support the development of transformative Pasifika research practice and theory. The aim of the research is to unpack the Rise UP approach by seeing how its ‘principles of practice’ relate to research evidence on what supports Pasifika educational outcomes, and strengthen the research base for community based educational programming for Pasifika whānau.