18. We need you!
Follow us: @childsi
Like us and ask us questions:
www.facebook.com/childsi
Say hello: meet up on Wednesday
20 th March @ Golden Fleece in
Bank
Join our team
lucy@childsifoundation.org
teri@childsifoundation.org
Thank you x
For those of you that don ’t know Child’s i Foundation I just wanted to give you a bit of background. All of this has been achieved in the last 2 and a half years due to the support and endurance of our worldwide family of supporters who have collaborated to make our dream a reality.
A little bit about me. I set up the charity in 2008, been volunteering at an orphanage in Uganda and working as a reality TV Producer. Producing BB attracting 10m viewers creating content that people felt connected to. So much so they wanted to vote them our of the House. I wanted to use video to create a connection so people could connect to these babies who had been left for dead in a ditch. Came back on a mission - give these kids a family and a future and provide care which will not fail them or damage them for life. It was possible
For small amounts of time, love and money correctly targeted, we believed, and still do, and in fact have proved, that a great difference can be made. When people get involved in the way they want to, they are acting to actually create something they can see and be part of . A journey they can follow. Not just putting a cheque in the post, “into a bureaucracy”. So to cut a long story short, we didn ’t have any money to build a website. But that didn’t really matter. We are in the age of social media and open source technologies. We used it to our advantage. Wordpress blog, a Facebook group, set up a Twitter account and started following interesting people and community influencers Set up Flickr to house our pictures, our brand assets Set up YouTube account to house our videos And managed our admin via a wiki. Moved onto google docs and Chatter Employing all of the advantages of social media such as interactivity, collaboration and the formation of communities in the most creative way we could. Most importantly we started documenting our journey using video to share our story and start a conversation..
So, The ‘I’ in Child’s i Foundation came to be not only about “interactivity” and collaboration but about “individual contribution” Giving credit where credit is due, genuine advocacy. We knew that our objectives could only be achieved through successful engagement with our supporters. Our Community. Love, Time and Money.
Community Child’s i Foundation is a community organisation and this is "our" charity. Together, we will achieve our goals. Doing things differently We’re committed to creatively striving for change in new ways, through both the work we do and the way that we do it. We do things differently, not for difference’s sake, but because we can. By collaborating in new ways we can all achieve more. Transparency We want our supporters and donors to be part of our journey, to know our successes as well as our failures. Most importantly we want them to know where their money is going. Crucial to the creation of a strong community and our ability to empower others is a culture of trust, fairness, honesty and transparency. Contribution The personal contribution that each and every participant makes as they support Child’s i Foundation – whether through time, money or love – is something we recognise and value highly. Individual contribution, giving of credit where credit’s due, genuine advocacy – are all at the heart of our passion, and they determine how well we can respond to the needs of those we are seeking to serve.
And when Lucy and Brian went to Uganda to structure the project and write the business plan, they posted a video every day of their progress and journey and asked for feedback. Documented the highs the lows, the problems faced and we shared our learnings along the way The groundswell of support and interest was overwhelming. Small and powerful group of people that was growing everyday.
We wrote our to-do list and supporters from around the world filled in our Get Involved from (google doc) and we built up a community of supporters who helped us with our website, community, graphic design. Tell us who you are, how much time you ’ve got, the skill you want to give and lets make a difference.
Every day our conversation continues on Facebook, the website and Twitter. The dialogue is genuine. We are a community, everything we do revolves around our community and the connections we make through it. We are far from glossy and it ’s all in a pickle - all our web comms are done by different volunteers and there are numerous FB pages and sometimes outdated and a bit rough around the edges but it’s authentic and transparent. My blog started off my dad telling me I ’m mad, being so stressed I got lock jaw on the tube. I poured my heart out online and stuck my head above the parapet because they were worth it. People behind it are real too. My Mum @hazelbuck is a mum to a lot of people now Being social is what we do, and building up more and more people to be part of our community Giving back to people what they give to us - recognition, credit, learning new skills, feel good factor = establishing and maintaining a very high level of engagement. Always say thank you.
Every quarter we like to meet. It’s nice to meet people face to face. Usually come armed with a huge to do list. Make decisions and come up with ideas. Most importantly – meet a remarkable set of likeminded people.
How do we organise ourselves? Salesforce Chatter. There are around 100 volunteers on the site. Project management – updates from Uganda. Ideally – no internal emails – all work, meeting notes, proposals will be posted on Chatter. All our values – transparency, community, doing things differently and valuing contribution.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nSwxY2urGo&list=UUzEV7jV_sEk_OcQnMJZPIiA&index=1 Done our maths. It costs £3 a day for a carer to care for children like Katie until we find her a family. We need to find 1240 supporters to sign up to mobile giving Simply text CHILDSI to 70002 and save a life.