How can businesses support their NGO partners through the impact of COVID-19?

Hi All! I’m Kate Woodhead. I work in the Group Sustainability and Community Engagement team at Standard Chartered. In my day job I look after the Seeing is Believing programme portfolio, but am also coordinating our emergency relief response to the Covid-19 crisis.

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For many companies the focus will be on protecting the business by reducing financial losses or shutting down certain business operations which may result in laying-off workers. For NGOs the focus is on protecting Human Rights, preparing and repsonding to the impact of Covid-19 on communities. In this situation is there a middle-ground? i.e. enabling the business to stay solvent while minimising staff losses or by ensuring that worker rights are not rolled back? Can NGOs support in identifying the people most at risk and explore creative solutions? Despite the need for a rapid response, we need to ensure that solutions are inclusive.

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Hi all. I am Darian Stibbe, Executive Director of the Partnering Initiative, dedicated to driving effective partnerships for sustainable development. Please go to: TPIglobal.org/covid-19 for our response to the crisis, including free helpdesk support. Look forward to the discussion!

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Stay-at-home orders and social distancing have transformed how we are working now, and limitations on social contact may remain for some time. For digital initiatives, COVID-19 may actually accelerate adoption; for projects that require face-to-face engagement, efforts to limit the spread may require wholesale changes to how work is done and exploration of new approaches and technologies. One area of focus for Mastercard is use of digital technology, both for payments and training, and we expect more organizations will now make adoption a priority.

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Response to Question 1

Pre-COVID, our research showed that one in five impact organizations encounter unexpected obstacles. Today, I would guess that number is closer to 5 out of 5. Both the health and economic fallout that is beginning to take hold is the equivalent of a natural disaster. But worse than a hurricane or earthquake, this disaster has just hit every single country in the world - simultaneously.

Many organizations are already experiencing immediate effects in terms of lost revenue and disrupted services. Others have approached us saying, ‘I don’t quite know yet what the impact is going to be, but I know it’s going to be huge.’ And they’re right. From cancelled galas to delayed funding for frontline response programs, we are seeing requests from all sectors and geographies. No sector is immune to this crisis, COVID-19 has derailed efforts in human rights, health, education, and financial services. Furthermore, many of the applications we have received as a funder are focused on the next three months. We haven’t even started to see the financial ripple effects that will hit six and nine months from now.

The fact that many traditional grantmaking programs are inflexible, restrictive, and slow, coupled with the uncertainty of this pandemic, also means that the social impact sector needs help to find a way forward.

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There are 3 top challenges I would identify:
The first of these is:
Focus: Many partnerships are finding that attention is diverted away from its usual focus. e.g. in our Seeing is Believing programme which focusses on eye health globally, we were already fighting hard to get eye care prioritised on many countries’ health agendas. We are now are seeing many eye care practitioners redeployed elsewhere in the health system(s) and there is concern that after the crisis there will be reduced eye health experts available to meet the huge backlog of cases that will have built up.

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There are two main issues potentially putting a strain on partnerships:

  1. Everyone is affected – the traditional split between more developed and poorer countries, with the first group “supporting” the second, is fading as all countries without exceptions are affected. As such, this creates a tendency to look inwards first to look for ways to protect oneself and our own employees. Incentives shift. But as we struggle to figure out what this crisis means for us, for those of whom this pandemic is just the latest in a long list of crises affecting their lives and livelihoods.
  2. We are doing all we can amidst great constraints and we need partners to support us to be flexible and adaptable. No one at this point is able to concretely predict when this will end and what the final impacts will be - deliverables need to be adapted and flexible, and re-routed to meet the greatest needs.
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Hi! I am Umme Umama, Project Support Executive at PRIMARK.I am really happy to join here.

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Since COVID-19 poses many restrictions on movement and gatherings, many planned NGO activities are having to be stalled or cancelled which has a knock on impact on project outcomes, KPIs and planned deliverables agreed with the corporate partners and outlined in contracts. Capacity is being squeezed at a time when we are seeing a huge demand for support needed in countries to protect and prepare communities and partners to respond to CV-19. At Oxfam up to 70% of staff are now on furlough, implementing country teams are having to work from home with low bandwidth, connectivity issues and child care responsibilities. This requires a real need to be adaptive and agile in how we operate together.

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Response to Q1: I think the whole context NGOs are facing now is relevant to their partnerships with companies. Many NGOs are in the frontline of the response to this crisis. For those working directly on health, the pressure from the crisis is obvious. But every NGO with a focus on vulnerable groups is facing an extraordinary combination of increased demand for assistance amid great uncertainty and in a rapidly-changing context. The health crisis and economic crisis are intertwined: vulnerable groups are starkly exposed to both threats, but their position may be overlooked by those in power. The need for both NGO services and advocacy on behalf of vulnerable groups is vast.

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The challenges we see are happening at multiple levels:

  1. Individuals – COVID-19 has impacted on individuals in different ways to different degrees. Some people will have caught it, taking them physically out of the equation. Some will be highly distressed, concerned about vulnerable friends or relatives. Many will be working from home in less than ideal conditions, with family and other distractions, including worrying about their own financial or career futures. And even those least affected, there is still a general sense of unease and stress. All of these things hugely reduces our efficiency and ability to work effectively.
  2. Organisations – most companies and most NGOs are massively impacted by COVID-19. Many companies and NGOs may be worried that they won’t survive the crisis. Every organisation has had to prioritise to tackle immediate challenges which will often mean focussing away from the partnerships they’re involved in. They just don’t have the time or energy to engage right now. In some cases they are having to make major decisions such as completely pulling out of partnerships.
  3. The partnerships – it’s hard enough having everyone distracted but at the same time partnerships having to move to online working where communication can be so much harder, planning and brainstorming so much harder. In many cases, partnerships are simply mothballing – but what happens to the relationship that’s been built up?
  4. The outside world – in most cases partnerships simply can’t implement!
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The second challenge I would raise is:
Funding: There are two ends of the spectrum here – there is a funding crisis in the charity sector with most fundraising activities on hold. This is greatly impacting many NGOs and their ability to continue operations. Equally, many companies are having to reprioritise their spending and make cost savings, which is pressurising the budgets available for philanthropy. At the other end of the spectrum, a flood of money will be made available for those NGOs supporting the relief and recovery from Covid-19. Here, the challenge is very much how we can spend this money in the most meaningful and impactful way, quickly.

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My third challenge is:
Business continuity (sorry, I couldn’t think of a third ‘F’!): Many organisations in both the private and NGO sectors have been forced to furlough employees or even consider redundancies. Many others are simply not equipped for remote working. Both of these challenges are reducing capacity to maintain partnership operations and deliver activities. Many project activities themselves are also halted due to factors such as lockdown conditions, travel restrictions and school closures in many countries.

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A1: For context I think it’s worth recognising that while corporate/charity partnerships have no doubt an increasingly important role to play, most donations from companies usually average below £5000 and the NCVO estimates corporate contributions generate only about 3-4% of a charities income.

At the moment all we know from the NGO side is what they’re telling us. CAF’s polling of the sector has found a huge rise in service demand for charities who support vulnerable groups - at the same time fundraising which is sometimes half of a charities total income has ground to a halt. Over half of the charities we’ve spoken to say they will not be able to continue for 12 months without further support.

As our CEO said to the BBC yesterday, the news from Govt of £750m to the sector is really welcome, but ultimately that still leaves a huge funding chasm (possibly over £3bn) which responsible businesses will be looked at towards to help plug. For many businesses who are navigating an uncertain future themselves, that’s a tough ask.

A more practical challenge for both existing partnerships and those in the pipeline are how to deliver on commitments made - in some circumstances by contractual agreement - when they are no longer appropriate due to the crisis. Programmes for example planned for schools or for the Easter holidays have been cancelled. Partnerships now have to show flex and explore how projects can be repurposed to support the charities and their beneficiaries.

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A1.1 CHALLENGES: COVID-19, is impacting all of us. The situation is fast-moving and not only concerning and disruptive to our day to day lives, but something that will affect the world for months, and perhaps even years to come - disrupting livelihoods, communities and organisations. Within the current crisis, key challenges that are testing both our capacity to implement critical programming in fragile places and the
partnerships that underpin these programmes are instability, uncertainty and potential lack of flexibility.

For Mercy Corps, every country we operate within is facing unprecedented challenges as the pandemic sweeps through communities, exacerbating the obstacles already faced in the most fragile places – including access to basic healthcare services, water and sanitation, unemployment, conflict, migration, drought, flooding, high population density. If COVID-19 spreads within these communities with limited resources, the negative impact will be amplified.

The needs of the communities we serve have not changed, they have increased during this unpredictable and global crisis. Amid huge constraints, our teams are working out how we adjust our programmes to the evolving situation, we know that now is the time we need to be working out how we pull together and scale up our responses to help our global community stay resilient, mitigate the risks and come through this pandemic with the most minimal impact possible.

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Companies and NGOs are needing to shift their focus to address immediate needs resulting from COVID-19, including stress on organizational finances, protection of staff, and financial and health risks for their clients. For example, one of our grantees, Technoserve, has shifted from helping MSMEs grow to helping them survive, with a new focus on addressing financial distress, business model adaptation and how to deal with suppliers, customers and delivery methods.

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Yes, I agree Darian - alongside the spiralling demand for NGO action in response to the crisis, NGOs are facing all the business continuity and operational issues faced by companies. They have to manage social distancing and remote working, employee safety and need for time off, supply problems, and the impossibility of travel. Each of those issues may interact with service delivery for vulnerable groups in complex and unpredictable ways.

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Current immediate challenges from the perspective of companies like Bayer which research and produce medicines, seeds and crop protection products are ensuring that employees who carry out that work that can’t be done from home are safe and able to continue to be able to work and make sure medicines and inputs for farmers continue to be available.

Making sure that medicines and other therapies can be transported around in a challenging environment where movement of goods is hampered by restrictions is testing.

COVID-19 though now a global health issue will become a food and nutrition issue all hands need to be on deck to work together on to redirect efforts to the areas of immediate need.

For the medium to longer term, not losing focus on other areas that are really important, particularly in times of crisis, like access to family planning which will have impact in the near to longer term.

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I think a key challenge across both sides right now is the ability to manage short term impacts while keeping an eye of the bigger picture of why we are here. NGOs will be facing many challenges relating to operation and continuation of delivery of services while corporates are also in unchartered territory. Now is the time to for open relationships with existing partners to work together to move through this

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Totally agree. Every NGO is worried about funding. They have had to cancel income-earning events and fundraisers that are critical to their financial stability, and are worried about funders putting holds on new grants and/or reducing grant funding for non COVID-specific issues. Corporate foundations need to be mindful about balancing support for the massive new needs resulting from COVID-19 and making progress with the important work that was ongoing before the current crisis.

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