Since January 2020 when the first cases of COVID began to spread across Australia, the corporate community has looked nervously for signs of a return to ‘normal’.
Now that a new phase of the pandemic appears to be unfolding – as we learn to live with the various variants – NFPs are keen to keep the impetus for donations moving forward and rebuild their bank of volunteers and staff.
In this series of features for Hearts & Minds, some of Western Australia’s leading NFPs discuss how COVID-19 has affected their operations and what the future looks like in the ‘new normal’.
Rebuild and refocus
Foodbank WA was hit hard by the effects of the pandemic, as it depleted the number of volunteers the organisation could count on at the same time as demand for their services rose.
Despite this, the requirement to evolve enabled the NFP to dig deep into its reserves of innovation and survival was always the only way forward.
“Since 2020 we have evolved significantly,” chief executive Kate O’Hara said.
“Volunteers across the welfare network declined rapidly as they were self-isolating, and agencies started asking to refer their clients direct to Foodbank WA.
“As a result, we started welcoming households to our branches and a growing network of mobile sites.”
New situations called for fresh solutions.
The mobile sites were an increasingly efficient way of delivering the vital food services required by so many who could not make the journey to Foodbank hubs.
“As we extended our reach to households direct, we realised that transport was a barrier to access,” Ms O’Hara said.
“Our Mobile Foodbank service now has 34 weekly locations in the greater Perth area and services over 1,000 customers a month.
“Regional branches are also growing their mobile service capability.”
COVID-19 also highlighted the need for a wider range of groceries than just food staples.
“In the essence of our ‘people in need strategy’, we adapted and broadened our offering to introduce packaged bundles and boxes of mixed product, pet food, nappies, cleaning and personal hygiene products,” Ms O’Hara said.
“All of this impacted infrastructure, staffing and volunteering.”
For RMHC WA, the pandemic reinforced the organisation’s focus on health and safety, not just for the children and families under their care, but staff as well.
“Following the pandemic as an organisation, we have learnt to be more versatile and act quickly and with confidence when challenges are thrown our way, particularly those that directly impact the safety of our families, volunteers and staff,” executive manager operations and facilities Courtney Kennedy said.
“Being a home away from home for sick or injured children and their families, it is imperative that we provide an environment that is safe for everyone.
“One of our main focuses during and post the pandemic was to elevate our existing cleaning protocols.”
This included additional scheduled cleaning, increasing hygiene signage and installing additional readily available sanitisation stations across its houses and family room spaces.
Ms Kennedy believes valuable lessons were learned and the organisation is stronger.
“We have learned that the processes we implemented during the pandemic have equipped us as an organisation to be ready to adapt and deliver the very best service at all times,” she said.
Opportunities to learn and grow
RMHC WA is part of a global organisation and operates under its governing body.
During the pandemic, policies and procedures were implemented across all programs around the globe in order to keep families, staff and volunteers safe.
In a sense, the pandemic brought geographically disparate partners together for the greater good.
“The COVID-19 pandemic provided us with an invaluable opportunity to work even closer with our national office and other state-based teams,” Ms Kennedy said.
The experience gained by RMHC WA because of its global connections offered the NFP an invaluable opportunity to share and educate other organisations in best practice in the health service space, raising its profile in the process.
“Through our close association with the National COVID-19 Committee, which was made up from a select group of CEOs and executives from around Australia, we were able to assist in leading the changes required as an organisation to better equip our people (staff and volunteers) to provide a safe environment for the people that we serve and ensure COVID-19 was not a threat to our most vulnerable people,” Ms Kennedy said.
The committee met daily in the initial stages of the pandemic and provided all Chapters across Australia with safety plans.
“These included cleaning regimes, how to prepare and close down spaces, redeployment of staff and volunteers, transitioning a workforce to remote/online working and how to respond to ‘close contacts’ and positive cases while still providing a caring, supportive and home-like environment to ensure affected families who needed services provided by organisations like RMHC WA the most during this critical time were comforted in the support provided,” Ms Kennedy said.
For Foodbank WA, the pandemic has underlined the need to be adaptable with its service model, product offerings and day-to-day operations.
In short, “COVID helped us to listen better”, Ms O’Hara said.
“By implementing a new point of sales system to improve efficiency, reducing the time for customers and giving us better data to make future decisions on suburbs with greater food stress as well as the types of food and groceries in demand, the pandemic has had some positive impacts,” she said.
“We also diversified our funding to reduce reliance on government monies and we have developed a capability for many staff to work from home where they can when it’s needed and still remain productive.”
