Education. I would like to introduce myself a little bit. Um I work um as a co-founder for Society of Women Coders. Uh Society of Women Coders is a nonprofit organization uh based out of New York City, but we operate in the developing countries.We conduct free coding and entrepreneurship camps for young girls. Um We currently have a presence in Haiti, Belize um Afghanistan, Kazakhstan and Kenya. Um And only recently. And why is this topic so relevant to me is because um all of our programs that we planned for summer and um had to be canceled due to social distancing and travel restrictions and all the services and all the classes that we offer. Um And it was a really difficult thing for us because we operate in the emerging countries in the developing countries and they are not well equipped with um computers and wi fi to be able to access the programs that we offer online. Um So this is um a really, that's, this topic is really close to my heart because it's something that I am working towards every day as well to make the organization more relevant and deliver our services better. I will talk more about society of women coders and I will introduce um different things we do and how we are um conducting these um introductory coding and social entrepreneurship camps in different countries and how we um changed our model and change the services we offer um during this time um to fit the context and to be more relevant.

Uh But I will do so towards the end of my presentation, um I will be starting my presentation first by talking about the problem. So um we know that the world of nonprofits is disrupted right now, especially the funding streams. Um They are, they are a complete mess. There is significant disruption to the funding streams of most nonprofits. And on the other hand, there is a significant increase in the demand for services. So, um how do we make sure that the services that were being offered or the impact that we were creating with these organizations stays intact even though we are facing such significant disruptions to our funding stream, to the donors alley to stakeholders and everything. A recent survey actually from nonprofit finance Fund found that over 60% of nonprofits are experiencing um destabilizing conditions and to top that, over 64% expect to continue these kind of threats in the months ahead. Um So our problem is not, we already know what is the problem.

Our problem is to figure out how we can still remain impactful. Why we still want to remain impactful and who is it that we still wanna deliver our impact to? And all these three things are subject to change or can be changed because or we might have to change working in social impact because the world has significantly changed in the last couple of months. And the services that where you know, a very important part of our world a few months ago are no longer needed. And there are so many new services that this new world needs. So I think every organization working in social impact needs to figure out the right fit for them to still the impact for them to still fit in this world post COVID. So the most important thing for any um organization working for social impact is right now is to do these three things you have to reconsider. Um why you do what you do. So um the most important I would say out of these three revisiting the vision, revisiting, how you deliver your programs and services and to stay relevant is um the delivery. So how uh most organization that they're delivering their programs and services needs to be changed.

Uh They need to be forging new partnerships to increase their reach and impact. But the most important thing is how we look at the situation. Um I, I've talked to a lot of people, a lot of people who work with me um in the same space of social impact. And one thing that we all agree upon and it is a common um area of reflection is do we look at this um situation as an opportunity or do we look at this situation as adversity? And that is where you start, that should be the starting point to look at the situation as an opportunity to make things better, to change things for the better. So, revisiting your vision as an organization and we will be going over examples of how some amazing organizations out there, nonprofits and social entrepreneurs out there are already doing this uh post COVID. But these three things um are what we need to do. As I mean, if you're working in this space and if you have an initiative or an organization, you need to revisit your vision post COVID, you need to revisit how you deliver your programs and services, how you forge partnerships. And then you also have to make sure.

And this is um this might the first time I uh thought about this context or current context, you might feel um that my mission was framed a certain way. And then my mission is the core of my organization and that doesn't need to change, but that's not true to make sure that your organization stay relevant post COVID. And a very important consideration is how you frame the value of your work in the current context. So it's not about what your mission was or what your mission is, it's about why your mission matters. Now, how will you convince the rally donors or your partners or even like, motivate your staff that why are you relevant now? Um A very interesting example of this is one of my friends. Um she works for um ant Flow. It is a nonprofit organization that um it's a social entrepreneurial venture that sells their movement is to sell menstrual products to corporations and make sure that all all the um employees and people working there get menstrual products for free. That was their mission previously and flow.

Um But during the COVID um crisis, they completely changed their vision and how they deliver services to uh manufacture masks instead of. So they shifted their focus from manufacturing menstrual products to manufacturing pads um uh sorry to manufacturing masks. And I thought that was an amazing and a brilliant example to stay relevant and to contribute to the society. Uh At, at a time when the world is facing a global crisis, there are a few other examples that we will be talking about and how they uh implemented the uh the three things of vision delivery and context. Uh bread for the city is one and it's very interesting. Uh So bread for the city is a nonprofit based out of Washington DC. What they do is they would provide food, medical services, legal services and social services um in Washington DC. But obviously due to like COVID-19 and the restrictions they had to close their food pantry. So um I mean, that is definitely a roadblock for an organization that does all their work needs. Um volunteers to be present like on ground, working on ground, like with um with the people who, who are in need of food and medical services. So what they did is they closed their food pantries. The organization started working in delivery.

They changed their mission, they changed their model to um deliver groceries to different constituents of um Washington DC. And then they also expanded their medical health services to include um telehealth and most importantly, COVID-19 testing. And it was a very rapid change of vision that Bradford City brought along. And um and that's a testament to how strong the or the core values of the organization are and how uh quick and relevant they were um to help with the COVID-19 crisis. Then um another one is Kaboom and I'm sure most of you must have heard of Kaboom and what they do. So Kabo s uh main programmatic offering is to work with communities to build play spaces. So for an organization like threat for the city, it makes sense. They were already working for medical and food services. And if there's a clear correlation of how food and medical services are still so important um and more important in in the COVID crisis, so it was a clear uh that might have made more sense to move their vision in a way that it stays relevant. But with an organization like Kaboom, which uh which does, which builds play spaces. How would an organization like that ensure that the donors and the philanthropic uh philanthropist who in invest in their organization still continue to do? That was very interesting.

So what they did is um obviously, the organization knew that place, case will always continue to be important uh especially during the recovery from COVID-19. Um because kids are home and parents are parents need um things to keep their kids busy. So what they did is they completely shifted from building play spaces to helping with hurricanes and other emergencies. So they moved their model to be more important at this time. But they are only doing this until, until um COVID-19 crisis is over. And they have expressed that to, I mean, as far as their model, to their um to their stakeholders, to their donors. And it's, it's a beautiful example of how you can still be relevant and still create vital offerings for the kid. Like they're still bringing the community together.

They're still creating vital offerings for the kids, but they're doing it for the people who need it most. And uh I thought that was a really powerful example of shifting goals um during COVID. Um Then another one is my organization Society of Women Coders. Um What we did was we uh moved our programs online, we, we usually work with like local schools in developing countries and um civic organizations. And we go on ground, we fly there and we try to conduct these camps for girls. Um So what we have to do is we had to figure out a way to still be able to offer this service. So we uh in order to offer hope to all the girls, we had promised according camp to, we um offered coding without Borders, um which was an initiative that was open to any girl around the world that had a PC and internet connection. Um And the first ration of coding without borders, we had over 420 applicants from about 20 countries. And that completely changed the way we look at um changed our metrics for success for the organization because it turned out to be one of the most impactful programs we had done.

Um Even though we did not um travel or we did not uh go to a country, we made a bigger impact and created a bigger community for these girls. Um We're still working towards finding ways to maybe be able to deliver um computers to the girls that don't have access to a PC setting up workspaces for them possibly in the future. Um So these are a few examples of how people are changing their goals and visions in the time of COVID uh working in social impact space. Another thing. Um And I think this is an obvious one is how do you fund what you do to stay economically viable? Any nonprofit or any organization in the world needs to be financially viable to actually deliver impact. So any good organization that you can think about or any organization that is called Successful has a few things. And one of the most important thing is, you know, a continued, a predictable, a reliable revenue source. So, I mean, even if like there, they have processes in place to monitor finances and they have contingency plans, but a reliable revenue source is what matters and what makes an organization viable to be able to still be impactful.

So, um during this crisis, during this time of economic difficulty, how do you ensure that your organization is able to create the kind of impact um that it was creating before or more going forward? Let's just get an analyze together because this is actually a really important thing.

Um First off that first thing that any organization needs to do for their financial um accountability is to assess your current situation. Cash management is critical. So you need to re evaluate what are your monthly operating costs? What is, how much cash do you have? What kind of donors do you have? How are they diversified? Um I mean, this might not be the best time to pursue like new streams of funding, but it is very important to understand how your organization has been relying on different revenue streams and individual donors so that you know how to respond if a major funding source goes away.

So if you like organization is currently struggling with this, uh try to build a model which diversifies your donors, try to understand what is the source of income for your donors. Go take one step back, understand where are they making their money from and if that industry is affected. Um And so you have to like keep keep them aside for now and then um look at the donors that might still be able to help you with your mission or find donors that are still um uh persisting in this situation and are still working for philanthropy investments and philanthropy giving at this time.

So that would be the first step, then the next step would be to create financial plan. Um This is a very obvious one. I mean, most organizations already have financial scenario plans in, in place. But uh with COVID, I feel like all the, all the planning we did for 2020 all the financial planning we did in like um for um for this year, sorry, I'll go back to a bit for this year is um I mean, we have to understand that this might be the worst case scenario. Uh but you have to make sure that your financial plans are um in in alignment to your first step, which was assessing your current situation. So if you've already assessed that, ok. You've already diversified, your donors, you've already created a plan for each um revenue stream that you had. You have to make sure that sustainable impact over long term could mean that you are scaling back in the short term or even emerging as one like as a lot of nonprofits are doing or they did um similar um kind of expansions after the 2008 recession. So looking at this, uh looking at your financial model as a place where you already have a best worst and expected case scenario, but then also giving yourself the space or the ease to scale back in the short term to merge with another organization.

Or, you know, if there's a way for you to even expand, that would be the best case scenario, but like to give yourself that freedom and space and to have that conversation with your staff that how you are gonna be um how your financial scenario plans are going to fit in into this world right now is very crucial.

Then the most important in my opinion is to, you know, really have an honest conversation with your donors and your stakeholders. Uh You need to make sure that your donors understand what you need in this time. They need to understand what are your needs. You have to be direct with them, you have to talk directly about them, your for your plans intentions. So, you know, there is a sense of reliability of their and yours contributed revenue streams. Um Also like to help gauge the predictability of your revenue streams. You need to consider talking to your customers or members to better understand how they're planning to engage with your organization in the co in the upcoming months. And um it's, I mean, we're gonna go over the examples um after this, but many organizations are finding success and asking customers or members to donate like prepaid fees or like cancel services and events to help programs and services they care about. So, you know how a lot of organizational, local businesses are asking you to buy gift cards for your um loved ones in advance or for an event that possibly gonna come in the future right now, so that their source of income, you know, is not heavily affected. Um One of one amazing example is the cafe. Um the cafe is a social entrepreneurship venture. What they do is um it's a cafe, a major part of their profits goes towards helping kids in Haiti um with medical and food services.

Now, obviously due to the COVID-19 restrictions, they had to close the cafe locations in New York City in Jersey City. So what they did was they created a program um of uh you know, telling their customers to buy gift cards that um in advance so that they could still send some money to these kids in Haiti, which um is a great example of, you know, being clear or making use of, uh, prepaid services or, you know, prepaid fees for canceled services.

So, those were the three most important, um, points for, uh, ensuring that your organization is still economically viable. Does anybody have any questions so far? Um, please feel free to make this an open discussion, the questions or clarifications before I proceed. Ok. All right. The next thing.

And I think it's kind of like um very similar to economic um liability is the capacity to deliver. So what is supporting, what you do delivering any kind of social impact? It requires talent systems processes and you know, in response to like quarantine or staying at home across the world, most organizations are having to shift to virtual operations or make up for the lost volunteers that they have or to deal with like other challenges that are to capacity.

Like for example, um I'm sure most of you have heard about Planned Parenthood. So the Planned Parent Planned Parenthood of uh Metropolitan Washington, what they do, what they had to do was they had to move fast to establish technology and the infrastructure so that it could launch like telehealth services to patients a month in advance than originally planned.

And um similarly, there's another organization that's called share our strength. They um they experienced a dramatic decrease in their, their revenue from events, obviously and then a dramatic increase in giving from individual donors. So what they did was they shifted their team's capacity to focus on fundraising.

So now that we're talking about capacity, um this is relevant to both nonprofit and for profit world. Um how do you ensure that the sources of the limited sources or unlimited resources that you have that fit uh to still make your organization uh sustainable and to still deliver the kind of impact because I mean, the world needs um social impact and social entrepreneurs more than ever.

So there cannot be a compromise on, you know, being there for each other or being there um for um you know, for the communities that you were already serving before. So you have to make sure that your capacity to deliver um you know, is being used to the best of its um capacity. There are four kinds of cap um capacities that are important to any organization right now. And before I dig deeper into them, with examples, I would just point out before um leadership capacity, adaptive capacity, um collaborative capacity and then technology capacity. So we all like for resilience and for in these challenging times, every organization needs a strong leadership to make good decisions and to respond to evolving challenges to prioritize a well functioning executive team and to have frequent and transparent communications with the staff, to have a good governance, to have all of these things.

Most organizations require a strong leadership and by leadership capacity, what we mean is what we mean is flexibility, flexibility to be able to recognize in this moment, the full humanity of your staff and to model, you know, the authentic authenticity and the vulnerability that comes along.

So, um what we're really trying to say is we need flexible leaders. Then the other thing is adaptive capacity, adaptability is very important. Um You know, you, you don't know how your clients are going to behave in the next 12 months and how your organization would need to respond. So, you know, to set up short term financial goals, set up short term impact goals to, you know, adapt to each month differently is what an organization also needs as an adaptive capacity. And um you know, considering creative new approaches or solutions thinking about, you know, experimenting with different rapid prototyping approaches rather than, you know, launching major initiatives that require extensive analysis or proven track records. What you could do is you could build up on what you already have and then adapt it to um you know, each month as it goes and have shorter goals and shorter impact goals and shorter financial goals as you go move forward. The next one is collaborative capacity. Um This one is, you know, every organization and I think um this is I took this from uh PC Sha, she's a human resource strategist and what she talks about is, and this is very relevant.

Um Collaboration shows up in three organizational pillars, a culture that explicitly calls out the importance of collaboration in a team that you have, which builds up, which has collaborative skill sets and then the leadership that models and incentivizes this behavior. So these, I mean, if you have a leadership, the staff and a culture uh to be able to collaborate with each other that work well together, then that is something every organization needs right now more than ever and especially to build like extensive partnerships outside of your organization, you need collaborative capacity inside your organization.

Um And the next is technology capacity. This is most important right now, most organizations are already moving, you know, moving their operations virtually. Um There's a recent survey that sales force did that found out that 85% of nonprofits say technology is important to their long term success, but only 23% have a long term strategy or a vision for how they will use this technology. I mean, nonprofits are scrambling to shift to virtual operations, but there is a need for strong systems and staff that can also make sure that this technology is being implemented well and being used well. So we need more people in the, you know, who are more tech savvy, who understand the world of technology better. The need for like uh you know, technical capabilities is more than ever. But technology capacity is critical to any business right now, especially so that they can make like, you know, if during the time of recovery, they can make more data informed decisions and also make sure that the method of delivering services is at a greater scale and a lower cost.

There are a few examples and I think I already, um, talked about them in my previous slides, but one, I think this one I did not talk about and I'll bring it up. Um, Lisc is, um, Maurice Jones, who's the CEO of Lisc. And we all know um what Lisc does, what they did, um They had to be um very adaptive or very flexible with um their holiday planning, which you would think is not as important. But um what Jones said or what um a statement was that what religious holidays might mean to the people during this time is different, what than what they meant to the people before COVID. So now leaders more than ever need to embrace this authenticity and we need to be better positioned to recruit and support their talent over the long term with, you know, giving people more flexibility with their religious holidays or, you know, giving people more mental health days and things like that.

Um Like society of them encoders, we uh moved to using Zoom Slack. You know, we're planning to use Pro Gate or Google classrooms for virtual global camps and different. Um you know, we're trying to incorporate more um tools or technologically um proven tools to make an organization that was primarily working on ground more efficient from a virtual space. So, um these are a few examples of um capacity. Um I like I uh improving your capacity or being sustainable with your capacity to deliver. Um I'm towards the end of my presentation, but the most important thing about this is right now, we need all hands on deck. We, you know, most funders or more um this moment right now in history really calls for a new way forward for philanthropy or you know, we need investors or we need donors that are prioritizing, dismantling, you know, these oppressive systems that have been in place for so long, you know, they're, they're prioritizing this redistributing resources, they're prioritizing amplifying power for people closest to the problems the sector seeks to solve.

So, I mean, the practices that have been um in the philanthropy world for a long time, they have created deep inequities in terms of, you know, who's receiving funding and how they're receiving funding. I mean, it's been, I mean, white dominant practices and the charity mindset in philanthropy has created this kind of gap and has created like these kind of inequalities, especially uh you know, through the movements that are closer to marginalized communities and often grassroots organizations that are led by people of color or to build financial reserves and capacities that can help during the times of crisis.

So now that we've seen how, you know, the spread of COVID-19 has disproportionately impacted the communities of color funders must invest in movements and organizations that serve these communities better. We need to make sure that we can continue their important work and allow them the space to change course when it's needed and then ultimately recover in this time. Right now, we need all hands on deck. Like I said, we need a different way forward for philanthropy, a different way forward for social impact and a different way forward for social entrepreneurs to be more inclusive, to understand how people of color or marginalized communities need these services more than ever.

And funders need to, you know, consider that and need to incorporate that in their philanthropy plans or donation uh plans or stakeholder plans or whatever initiatives they're doing. And anybody who's watching this, I would also um you know, uh request you guys to learn more about how COVID-19 is disproportionately impacting founders of color or, you know, founders or in like investors of color more than it's affecting um other people. Now, the most important thing.

Uh and I think this is one thing I would like all of you to take away from my presentation today. Um Anybody who's working for social impact, uh we need to make all these changes, we need to make sure that um you know, you're, you're tweaking your financial models, you're tweaking your, how your capacity, how you're delivering things you're tweaking um to make sure that, you know, your organization is still relevant.

But what the most important thing is, please, um, you know, still stay true to your purpose past few weeks, past two months, honestly, you know, have left so many nonprofits feeling like they are, you know, in a position of a tailspin. What is my advice to everybody is to apply the same mindset to your organization that you are likely applying to your personal life. You know, the crisis has caused many of us to refocus on the things that mattered most to us personally. And I think this is the time that organizations can use. This is an opportunity that organizations can use to bring that kind of focus to their goals and, you know, to their purpose, the ground yourself in why your organization does what it does and then use that, you know, to determine what you need to support that vision, both financially and in terms of organizational capacity, but, you know, stay relevant, but we still stay true to your purpose.

And, you know, um hopefully, we'll all, you know, come out of the other end of this, stronger, more resilient and better than ever. Thank you. Uh That was, that marks the end of my presentation about um social entrepreneurship and COVID-19 and what we can do to be better. Like I said, uh before, um I will be talking about uh society of women coders a bit. So what I'm gonna do is I'm just gonna take you guys um back to um one second. I'm just gonna take you guys back to um the website to tell you guys a little bit more about society of women coders and our upcoming plans. So let me share my screen. So society of women Coders. Uh this is, this is the organization and this is our upcoming camp that we're gonna be doing. We're um launching nitration of intro to Coding without borders, which is an intro to web development uh with social entrepreneurship curriculum. And it's gonna be in July uh starting July 25th to August 16. And we are looking for mentors or people who've been working in this space to come forward and mentor these girls during this time. Um And I would, I would encourage um if any of you, if this interests you to come forward and be mentors with us for this camp uh in July going forward in August, I will be leaving a link of um corporate initiative here.

Um Please feel um yes, Ishika, I will be sharing um the slides, I can share the slides. Uh But this is what society women cos is doing as an upcoming camp. And we're really looking for more people to join, for more people to mentor with us, to more people, to partner with us, for more organizations to work with us in this space. We're trying to create um a bigger impact with um girls around the world at age 13. To 18 to learn more about coding, social entrepreneurship and you know, work in the impact space going forward. So if you're interested, please feel free to reach out. Um You can find me on linkedin. Um You can find me through this website as well. Society of Women coders.org.

Um This was um so this marks the end of my um session and I hope you guys enjoyed um enjoyed this session and learned something about social entrepreneurship and how uh COVID-19 is impact, impacting us and how we can do better as a community and as a group and even as organizations.