Blog

Aisha Daji Punga, CEO, Starship Foundation

1. What is the best piece of advice you’ve been given recently?
It’s an oldie but a goodie, ‘Don’t sweat the small stuff!’ I think this whole experience has given us perspective as to what really matters – to revisit what’s core to our purpose, our family and friends, our neighbours and community and to be very clear on what’s important.

At Starship Foundation this meant our number one priority was the health and well-being of the team; that they were in an emotional, physical and financial safe space.

Second, we addressed how we could support front-line essential workers at Starship Hospital, many of whom had been preparing for the pandemic for several months and were already stretched.

Business continuity, in particular cash flow, was our third priority. We needed to replace the loss of funds to ensure we could support our commitments, in particular to Starship Hospital, and to do this in a way that maintained donor dollar integrity. We also agreed it was important to maintain an acceptable administration ratio.

2. What’s been the most challenging part of the lockdown journey?
I think on a personal front maintaining emotional resilience. When I look back it is only very recently that I’ve regained a sense of normality. Working with such sustained effort during a period that calls on all your skills from strategising, to forecasting, to being creative and leading the team is intense. And you’re managing that alongside your personal life and wanting to be there for your family and friends. I refer to this period as the sprint and now we are embarking on the marathon!

3. What’s the smallest change that’s had the greatest impact?
The lack of time. The team has become far more agile, so much more intuitive and solution-oriented than before lockdown. And that was simply because there wasn’t time to over analyse anything – we did so many things particularly in those first couple of weeks that we just didn’t think was possible. And it while it was intense it wasn’t hard – we took on a completely different mindset knowing that we needed to just get on and do it.

4. What’s been your biggest learning?
During lockdown we formed multiple teams with specific responsibilities for the health and well-being of the team, donor care, income generation and welfare packs. We made these cross-functional and small based on the premise that if you can’t share a pizza then your team may be too big.   While we have always been quite cross-functional, with these smaller more agile teams the silos within the organisation disappeared and accelerated our impact.

5. What have you been surprised by?
That I know my team so much better than before we went into lockdown. I now know their children, pets, the inside of their houses and not only do I know what their hobbies are I’ve experienced some of them! If someone had asked me if I’d know my team better remotely than working alongside them in the office I would have said never. It’s been an absolute delight.

The other pleasant surprise was the impact of our WhatsApp group. We initiated this to try and recreate the water cooler conversations. One of the team very early on shared their concerns and fears and it immediately became a place of support, care and empathy and at times a good dose of humour! It wasn’t a place to talk work but to be there for each other and it wasn’t something I had expected would become so important.

6. Strategically, what’s the biggest opportunity lockdown has created for your organisation?
Growing our digital capability, diversifying our funding streams and forming deeper relationships with our donors are three initiatives within our strategic plan that have been accelerated as a result of COVID-19. We are further down the path with each of these than we were before.

Like everyone else our digital capability has step-changed. Prior to lockdown we were of a mind that digital donations could only be a small portion of our income stream, with a lower average contribution, and we’ve now dispelled this myth. We turned our first appeal around in a week and now most of our campaigns are attracting new donors through digital platforms. Digital has also helped to reinforce our nationwide remit – we are the nation’s brand and now have greater engagement throughout the country.

We’ve diversified our donor base into more ethnic areas which has enabled us to broaden our audience and we continue to invest in donor care and development.

7. What are you most proud of?
I am most proud of how my team came together, how they focused on our purpose and rallied together. I saw it not just with my team but with Starship Hospital and across the sector as organisations collaborated more.

I have seen some genuine collaborations arise from lockdown and gain real traction during this time. In the children’s health area, I’m leading a collaboration with 8 children’s health charities aiming to provide greater support experiences and connection for families; create an impact framework that demonstrates our economic benefit to the child health sector; determine how we become a more credible partner with government so we are helping them make the money go further and looking at shared services and resources so we can be more effective and efficient. Lockdown provided the impetus to move this collaboration to the next level and we are starting to make headway.

8. Have you implemented any changes that you will keep post lockdown?
There are 5 key changes we have adopted:

1. A mixed model of working from home. Most staff found that they were much more productive at home so we’ll combine this with days at the office where we can connect and communicate alongside one another.
2. We are converting one third of our office space into a creative and collaboration space.
3. We are accelerating our digital journey by building our in-house capability.
4. We have reconfigured our business to be more donor-centric.
5. We have initiated the children’s health collaboration to create greater impact for families.

9. Most non-profits have seen their fundraising opportunity shrink. How should the sector respond to this?
There may be areas that won’t recover and while the landscape has changed it’s important, we don’t talk ourselves into a downward spiral.

My observation across the sector is that people’s generosity is not declining but it is being delivered in different ways. I’m not sure that as traditional charities we are embracing these new opportunities as quickly as we should be. We need to adopt a growth mindset and explore new ways of giving.

Secondly, I think collaboration amongst organisations is going to be critical. We need to reduce the overlap, fill the gaps and find better ways of working together to serve those in need.

Lastly, we need to look at how we might engage and connect with social impact investing. There are billions of dollars in social impact investments that we as charities are not tapping into.

We are on the road to recovery now and have been presented with a huge opportunity to do things better, to reach new audiences and make our organisations more sustainable.

10. Final thoughts….
I think this is our trickiest time right now. Lockdown was fueled by adrenalin and we were in the mode of solving problems but as we move back to normality it’s so important we don’t lose the gains we made as we return to the workplace environment. How do we keep the positive forward momentum we achieved during this time of crisis to rebuild our organisations and the sector to be more sustainable with a better future?