Kumara Vine CE Update September 2022
The ‘new normal’. We have heard this for the last two years now, but what does ‘new normal’ actually mean? For many of our community and social service organisations, it means more demand for services, increasing complexity of client and service user cases and continued underfunding of government contracted services. The ‘new normal’ is more online meetings, services, and social interactions, disruptions to face-to-face fundraising events and staff shortages as people actually take time off when they are unwell. The ‘new normal’ has presented a range of new challenges for us as a sector, and for the people our sector supports. It has tested our systems and demonstrated where there are cracks. But ‘new normal’ can also be a euphemism for new opportunities. The global pandemic saw greater financial investment in the for-purpose sector which facilitated a range of changes and prospects.
Over the past two years we the community and social service sector has engaged in more collaborations and partnerships. This resulted in the development of the platform ‘Here to Help U’, the shared delivery of services across sectors such as food and psychosocial services and the cooperation between service providers that enabled gaps to be filled and needs to be met.
The lockdowns in 2020 required many organisations invest in more technology and equipment. The funding community provided significant support to many community and social service providers to ensure they were equipped to deliver services remotely. This is an area that has been difficult to invest in previously so the opportunity to secure up-to-date technology provided a vast range of previously unexplored solutions in the future for service delivery and organisational operation.
The pandemic also resulted in organisations changing how they work. Staff delivered services from home and many organisations introduced flexible working hours to support staff with families. Since the return to the office, we are seeing many organisations maintain a hybrid model of home/office workspaces. This has been partially to reduce the impact of illness across a team compromising business continuity, and partly due to the benefits experienced from this flexibility.
We have seen organisations invest in the wellbeing of their staff and we see a growth in understanding of the importance of the health of the team. We have seen many organisations undertake new strategic thinking sessions as there is a growing recognition that the world is changing and there may be new solutions to grow the impact of our work.
The challenges the sector experienced also highlighted the stress points in our systems, including the vulnerability of working in small teams and the impact of the disruption of fundraising activities. But we have also gained a lot of learning, new relationships and improved infrastructure. We have seen the benefit of greater sector communication and if cross-sector partnerships. And as we navigate the new normal, we expect that even more new opportunities will emerge.
Community Waikato is excited about hosting the 2022 Conference, ‘Embrace the Challenge.’ We are keen to come back together to talk about what we have learned and to showcase what new prospects exist. We have a range of speakers who will push our boundaries, inspire us to think outside the box and introduce us to new tools to support our work. It is also an opportunity to reconnect, to share and to rejuvenate after what feels like a long winter of isolation. This edition of the Kumara Vine will give you all that you need to know about what to expect at the conference, plus a bit extra to cogitate on in the meantime. For those of you unable to make the conference, please keep an eye on our YouTube channel, as we will record the keynote speeches and make them publicly available. And for those of you who haven’t registered, there is still time and we hope to see you there!