Wa Mimma Razaqnahum Yunfiqoon
Our Challenges
Ukca Foundation clearly faces a range of specific challenges, some of which are obvious while others are less so but this is the nature of our work. We have to provide humanitarian support in the wake of natural disasters and human conflict.
INTERNAL
Duty of care to all our clients is our foremost challenge, followed by organization management, building and maintaining relationships with our supporters, funds acquisition, a rise in living costs, and changing supporter behavior. We need to mobilize volunteers to make our voices heard. We need technology plus technical knowledge and skill as we do not want to be left behind digitally and we have to avoid bad publicity. However, we are not deterred because we believe in our supporters, and coupled with our hard work, there will be ease/success.
EXTERNAL CHALLENGES
We are susceptible to external factors, particularly political, economic, social, technological, legal, and environmental influences. To future-proof our organization and achieve our mission, we need to be aware of these issues and how they could affect our clients and the organization. Ukca Foundation is serious about being around for the long term. We need strategies to mitigate these challenges and use them as a starting point for developing a comprehensive work strategy. We are a charity; our work is to find ways to alleviate the challenges people face in hard times.
RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES
We look outside our organization and identify risks and opportunities. We look at how political issues impact everyone, such as the impact of wars, corruption, and the benefits of transparency.
Our country/world needs arms control, there is a climate crisis, terrorism, COVID-19 Response and Recovery, and cyber issues.
There is a particularly steep increase in the need for our services. Poverty is a real issue, and many people are facing economic hardships and seek support and advice.
This is an opportunity for us to respond quickly to unpredictable situations and deliver much-needed services. However, we know that in some of the things that happen in this world, we do not have any power or authority over them. We pray and work hard with a positive attitude and hope.
The economic factors that may impact our organization and the beneficiaries include scarcity, cost increases, poverty and inequality, gender differences, crime, corruption, and gambling are all put into consideration. We have looked at changes that affect our society generally or that relate to our beneficiaries or mission, such as unemployment and security, the ever-growing number of social media platforms, the increase in online abuse and cybercrime, and the impact these may have on our clients.
We need technology and have specific issues relating to our mission, such as skilled personnel, equipment – Computers, and Cameras. There are also changes in laws that directly impact our organization, such as employment, safeguarding, or the environment. The impact of climate change on all of us and whether our organization is, or should be more environmentally aware.
HOW WE DEAL WITH CHALLENGES
Ukca Foundation has created a strategic plan to deal with challenges. We look at our strengths and weaknesses together with our opportunities and threats. We use our strengths to exploit opportunities, address our weaknesses, Mitigate to avoid threats, and decide what we will need to achieve to deliver our strategy.
We implement our plan and this involves everybody, ideally from the outset. We engage staff/volunteers to turn our strategic plan into the timetable, budgets, and actions needed for them to deliver it and monitor progress. It is our staff and volunteers who deliver our plan, so they need to know what to do and feel motivated to do so. We communicate through meetings and by emailing the strategy to everyone. This is done in a simple, clear way that engages all staff/volunteers. It is also reflected in other plans and procedures; such as our budget, risk assessment, and project plans. Whatever we do, we follow up.
Strategic challenges may cause us to be delayed or prevented from achieving our objectives. These include failure to control our costs or understanding the resources needed for a particular project or particular service that we wish to offer.
We know that we could be vulnerable to money laundering due to our lack of profits, however, we are a small organization and we do not work for profits, we aim to show how a small contribution can make a big change. We also have a strong regulatory framework. We do not allow anyone to use our name to launder money.
We have an organization bank account and provide the bank with information on where they operate, who we work with, and the source of our funds.
We know that regardless of our good intentions, even unintentional participation in a financial crime shall result in serious legal consequences, permanent reputational harm, regulatory penalties, supporter funding withdrawal, and interruption to our financial services. All of which influence the capacity to carry out our objective.
We do not allow/take anonymous donations. We do not allow our funds to be used for illegal activities or invest in illegal businesses. We do not put our organization at risk of reputational damage and legal action.
foundation.
FUNDRAISING CHALLENGE
Ukca Foundation needs a steady income to effectively achieve our objectives. This shall make budgeting manageable. We are small, and only take on what is in our means. We do not have many administrative costs to cover, so we can run our projects, and avoid running on shoestrings. We need fundraising and kindly ask for a minimum of ONE POUND from our supporters.
Ukca Foundation does due diligence on the people and firms with which we do business. We implement risk-based procedures to ensure we have sufficient information about supporters, beneficiaries, workers, volunteers, organizations, partners, and suppliers.
We are also concerned, about corruption, however, we avoid engaging with politically expose money-minded people. We make sure that our finances are run according to our standards and statutory duties. We demonstrate that the social impact objectives are being achieved through our work. We have aligned cost and social impact to deliver real life-changing results across all our activities.
We have a good management system, and we build and maintain relationships with our supporters for funds acquisition, resources, and technical knowledge and skill.
Ukca Foundation shall receive funding from the government. This may be in the form of grants or part of a matching scheme, or it may merely serve as a safety net to fill the gap when funds are short. We are aware there may be less to go around because of shrinking budgets at state, national, and municipal levels. Ukca Foundation custodian and supporters shall keep us afloat.
BRAND CHALLENGE
The Ukca Foundation brand was designed to be recognizable and helps us stay top of mind with fundraisers and supporters. We have invested in a customized, branded fundraising solution to give visibility to our brand. This shall help us gain more exposure nationally and internationally. We have pulled our branding all the way through from our website to our custom landing pages and other community fundraising platforms to allow for better brand recognition. We have done all this but we know that only progress seen within our beneficiaries shall make our brand stronger and more recognisable.
To ensure our mission never loses sight of its capability/reach, we use the right tools and recognize the importance of a break-even analysis. This makes us and our processes more agile, adaptable, and ready to meet changing circumstances with our resources.
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