Recipes for impact: Organisational change during a pandemic
COVID-19 has put our organisations through difficult times. You might have had to take urgent and important decisions with a high degree of uncertainty. The current context leads us to think that changes are here to stay and we want to support you the best way we can. Together we can face the challenges ahead.
Stone Soup’s mission is to help optimise organisations and initiatives so that they achieve their greatest possible positive impact. Today our team wants to pay our community back and voluntarily share their knowledge and expertise with social organisations. We want to be useful, practical and efficient in our support, without missing our community touch.
We want to share our Recipes for impact with you.
The past few weeks have shown us an urgent need for support in four specific areas that we would like to focus on:
1. Rethinking business models
2. Fundraising opportunities
3. Strategic rethinking
4. Communication
Talk the talk, walk the walk
Photo by Tim Marshall on Unsplash
By Cláudia Pedra, Managing Partner
Stone Soup Consulting
Editorial of quarterly newsletter 1/4 April 2020
In the last months, we have all been learning about a strangely named virus, which is holding humanity hostage and making us self-isolate and rethink the way we communicate, work and even relate to the people we love. It is not a dystopian novel, nor a figment of our imagination, but the hard reality of a situation for which we were all unprepared to tackle.
In risk assessment we normally speak of catastrophic level event. Something so negatively impactful that it can destroy an organisation. When we do discuss this, organisations seem reluctant to design detailed mitigation strategies. The reason why? It will never occur. In the matrix of probability versus impact, they always consider that the probability is so low that it is not worth the time spent. Unfortunately COVID-19 has shown us this is not the case.
Fundraising and financial sustainability
Stone Soup clients that have hired our Fundraising service have, al least, doubled their budget with Stone Soup's support. Our team has an extensive and diverse practical experience as most of our consultants are, or have been themselves, social entrepreneurs, fundraisers, project managers, etc. We understand the everyday needs and pains of our clients! So...
A falta de contexto e o trabalho remoto
By Cláudia Pedra
Managing Partner, Stone Soup Consulting
Hoje em dia, em plena pandemia da COVID-19, o que mais ouvimos falar é da necessidade de fazer trabalho remoto. Mas será assim tão fácil gerir pessoas e equipas em trabalho remoto?
Há 11,5 anos atrás quando criámos a Stone Soup Consulting, discutimos muito como acompanharíamos pessoas, espalhadas um pouco por todo o mundo, em trabalho remoto. Pensámos que seria um dos nossos maiores desafios. 11,5 anos depois o desafio mantém-se, agora com novas condicionantes.
O trabalho remoto tem imensas virtuosidades. Podemos diminuir a nossa pegada ambiental, cortando em deslocações desnecessárias, trabalhar com pessoas em locais remotos e de difícil acesso, e cortar em custos de viagens e estadias. Permite trabalhar de forma flexível, aumentando a produtividade, com uma gestão de trabalho mais eficaz e eficiente. Tem também a vantagem de permitir um maior equilíbrio vida-trabalho, pois podemos acompanhar a nossa família/nossos amigos de mais perto, sem perder tempo nas (por vezes muito complexas) viagens entre a casa e o emprego.
