With schools closed in NSW and Victoria, and childcare restricted to authorised workers in Victoria, many children will be at home for the next few weeks. And with their usual creative and physical outlets – libraries, sport, playgroups, and other public places – now cut off, families want to be innovative in the ways they interact with kids in the home.

Children have experienced trying to stay safe from the virus for 18 months now.

Jony Doe

Use Zoom, Facetime, or Skype to keep in touch with family and friends, both local and overseas to stay social, and maintain friendships and relationships when you can’t be together.

How to keep kids engaged and parents sane

Keep a routine. Giving children a structure to each day will help them feel more secure, and it gives parents and caregivers a routine to work around. Try to do the things you would normally do, including your showering/bathing routine, keeping consistent mealtimes, and restricting recreational access to screens, having at least some screen-free time each day, as you would at other times. 

If possible, ensure that everyone in the family has time and space to retreat and have alone time. It is challenging to be in a confined area with the same people for extended periods of time. Maintaining your mental health is important at times like these.

Find time for children to get fresh air and sunlight. This may be as simple as spending some time in the backyard or on the balcony. If you live in a place where you can’t get outside, open your curtains and windows if you can, and let the natural light in.

Children thrive on parental attention

For both parents and children, it’s important to remember, the lockdowns won’t last forever. This period of time may be difficult, but it will pass as Australia speeds up its vaccination rates, providing protection for those vaccinated against hospitalisation and death. With strong vaccination rates, we can be confident into 2022 that we can protect the most vulnerable members of society.

In this time ask them if they just want to share, or if they want you to help them to find a solution. Children don’t always want advice, sometimes being heard is enough. If you or your children need further support, please reach out to a trained professional such as a psychologist, social worker or GP. 

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It’s time to rethink our approach to data in fundraising so everyone feels like a pro, even if Excel makes you break out in a worried sweat. When we use data we’re more equipped to make better decisions for our strategy, supporters and team; important in a year of more uncertainty!

Children have experienced trying to stay safe from the virus for 18 months now.

Jony Doe

Use Zoom, Facetime, or Skype to keep in touch with family and friends, both local and overseas to stay social, and maintain friendships and relationships when you can’t be together.

Invest in a good CRM – and use it!

• Think about data in everything you do
• Network with other data “non-geeks”
• Get comfortable with a new way of working

If you’re a fundraiser that’s daunted by data you may be surprised how much you’re already using it. Every time you segment your database, draft your budget forecast or analyze a campaign to see if it can be saved with a tweak (or it’s time to let go), you’re using data. Data in fundraising is using the statistics and insights available to you, not intuition or feeling, to make decisions.

Find time for children to get fresh air and sunlight. This may be as simple as spending some time in the backyard or on the balcony. If you live in a place where you can’t get outside, open your curtains and windows if you can, and let the natural light in.

Be aware of data pitfalls

It’s time to rethink our approach to data in fundraising so everyone feels like a pro.

Nikki Bell

If we have a good idea that we’re passionate about, it’s very easy to analyse data in a way that will prove that we’re right. This is called ‘confirmation bias’ and is something you need to be mindful of from day one to keep yourself and your team in check. Without this awareness, we lack the opportunity for innovation and growth – a key focus for charities in 2021!

In this time ask them if they just want to share, or if they want you to help them to find a solution. Children don’t always want advice, sometimes being heard is enough. If you or your children need further support, please reach out to a trained professional such as a psychologist, social worker or GP. 

The post How to get started with data in fundraising appeared first on createfuturegood.

For some charities trustees may consider that holding a virtual or hybrid AGM or other required meeting is not a viable solution. It may also not be possible for them to move immediately back to face-to-face meetings.

Wherever possible, we would ask you to file your annual return, report and accounts on time. However, where the pandemic has impacted your ability to do this, we have given a filing extension to any otherwise compliant charity that applied to us for one.

It is important for the good governance of your charity that you record your decision and the reasons for it.

Jony Doe

If your governing document does not allow you to postpone or cancel meetings you should use any power in your governing document to amend the rules to ensure you can hold meetings in a valid format. You should update the governing document and approve any previous decisions as soon as possible.

Postponing or cancelling AGMs or other meetings

For some charities trustees may consider that holding a virtual or hybrid AGM or other required meeting is not a viable solution. It may also not be possible for them to move immediately back to face-to-face meetings. In these circumstances trustees may consider they have no choice but to cancel or postpone.

If you do consider such a decision is necessary, you should follow any rules in your charity’s governing document that allow for postponement or cancellation.

Annual return and accounts

Since the start of the pandemic, we have generally been understanding and taken a proportionate approach if trustees have decided to hold meetings on a remote or hybrid basis or postpone or cancel a required meeting where:

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Over the last 15 years, Tata, and Yanti have been focused on one thing in their work: keeping families together when it’s safe to do so. But their jobs, along with the rest of the team at Save the Children Indonesia, have been made immeasurably difficult with the COVID-19 pandemic.

This incredible journey heavily supported by my mum has taught me a lot about working internationally. I have attended several meetings with other delegates and have also been put into working groups to develop proposals we will be presenting to Ministers attending the Pre-COP26.

There are thousands of children that have become separated from their families due to COVID.

Jony Doe

In 2007, two years after the Families First program started, about 500,000 children were living in more than 8,000 childcare institutions, the highest number in the world. In 2019, that number was only 100,000. Many of the reasons children are living in institutions, despite having parents or extended family to care for them, can be addressed, says Tata.

Keeping children and parents together

Often parents believe that they can’t afford to keep and educate their children. They desperately want their children to have a good education and believe these institutions can offer that. But education in some of these institutions isn’t guaranteed, and abuse and neglect are common.

This is the way to be independent – providing families the opportunity to keep the kids with them and ensuring their basic needs can be fulfilled – love, attachment, food, education, a house.

It’s never been a more important time to get involved

Sometimes I feel disheartened and hopeless, as I hear how politicians continue to advocate for continuing with coal, but my Jewish background reminds me to never give up the fight. I stand up for others because I know there were people who protected my family. 

The first-ever protest I attended was the School Strike 4 Climate Global Day of Action on November 30, 2018. I had never been to a protest before. The feeling of being surrounded by passionate young people was one I will never forget. From then on, I was all in.

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