As charities emerge from the aftermath from the height of covid, I know many charities have had to adapt how they work and approach the services that they offer.
For us as a charity I feel we are now offering the services that are required as a covid response. What has been a challenge is working with some funders, other charities and communicating what we are now offering. The three Cs !
Covid – Covid has changed the way organisations offer their services and changed how individuals now live their lives. For me as a leader of a charity I have worked closely talking to service users, producing our own survey locally and analysing national figures to decide on what services were important to Women and girls locally. For information Isolation, safety and mental health support came up as the issues women were struggling with.
Covid also impacted team members, I don’t just mean them having covid, but the way in which they now lived their lives. For our charity we were lucky as our team wanted to be back working in our hub, but there was changes in the way that we work that we will always keep, in particular online working opportunities.
Covid is still around, but we the worst is over however the legacy lives on.
Collaboration – as mentioned above, charities have had to change their services and work closely with funders to have the funding in place to offer the required services. This is where the challenge begins and why I feel collaboration is the way forward in the charity world, I terms of space, staff, services and knowledge. We are all aware that the funding “pot” is a shrinking pot and that the pressure is ever greater for charities to income generate in many different ways. Collaboration is a great way to do this as it saves costs all round. My background is retail and at times the charity world can be experienced like retail the retail world in some instances, with the competitiveness that can take place. However with other charities this certainly is not the case they embrace collaboration and know this is the way forward for charities to survive and move forward in delivering their services.
Communication – I wish I knew the answer to this one but I don’t!
Communicating services to service users is difficult and needs to be communicated in a variety of ways.
Communicating to other organisations is also a challenge and one I personally find a challenge. Other organisations are also busy and therefore its difficult to find the time to fully understand what support other organisations are offering when the challenge is already there to communicate our own services.
My biggest challenge however is communicating to statutory services some that fund us – some not. I find myself sitting on endless meetings with the same people but hosted by different people. I attend because I feel obliged to do so, but in all honesty I don’t feel its a productive use of my time. I would much rather attend a really large meeting for longer to address all what people need to know, to make better use of my time. However I am not quite ready to voice this opinion yet, but hoping soon someone will raise the issue about how we communicate and come up with an idea that is less time consuming.
Working in the height of covid was a challenge, responding to service users needs as a response to covid was a challenge, but we got through. Moving forward I am absolutely sure there will be more challenges but am hopeful communicating and collaborating will see our charity through.