Notes from Some Inspiring Fall Time Fundraising Events from the GWC team

In recent weeks, Goodwill Caravan’s UK and Greek teams have been thrilled to participate in different fundraising events. Last week, we’re delighted to attend the International Fundraising Congress in Amsterdam put on by the extraordinary team at the Resource Alliance. This event welcomed over 1,200 attendees representing more than eighty countries for 4 jam-packed days of highly moving, thought-provoking, community-driven masterclasses, workshops, leadership summits, debates, plenaries, networking, and inspirational speakers. It was an amazing opportunity to connect with fundraisers from all over the world. The conversations that were had, the ideas that were shared and discussed, and the connections that were made were powerful and inspirational.

Highlights included an intensive 3-hour training session on the most up-to-date methods for measuring outputs, outcomes, impact, impact goals – the lessons of which we hope to soon put into practice at Goodwill Caravan. Other sessions had plenty of opportunities to look more closely at what we do, how we need to do it, and what changes we need to make to do better and accelerate our impact.

The closing plenary was especially striking, with keynote speakers Natasha Sindeeva and Vera Krichevskaya who founded the independent Russian media platform TV Rain. They had worked on TV Rain for 12 years speaking truth to power before the Russian government shut down their operations. Suddenly they became refugees running to the border from one of the most hated countries in the world… Russia. Natasha spoke about having to suddenly escape without visas without papers and without access to online banking, bringing home the point that anyone can be a refugee.

The closing plenary was especially striking, with keynote speakers Natasha Sindeeva and Vera Krichevskaya who founded the independent Russian media platform TV Rain. They had worked on TV Rain for 12 years speaking truth to power before the Russian government shut down their operations. Suddenly they became refugees running to the border from one of the most hated countries in the world… Russia. Natasha spoke about having to suddenly escape without visas without papers and without access to online banking, bringing home the point that anyone can be a refugee.

The GWC team left the conference recharged and inspired by the many people who hold the same core values to shape the future together. Thank you to all the speakers and participants who so generously offered their knowledge, insights, and hours of preparation that went into their sessions. Special thanks also to the many amazing volunteers. They did an incredible job at creating a friendly and highly engaging environment!

Finally, the GWC team in London also had the honour to attend the ‘Data to Disrupt Trafficking Awards 2022 powered by Amazon Web Services (AWS) and hosted by the amazing Stop the Traffic UK team on October 27. We have written about GWC’s partnership activities with Stop the Traffik in previous blog posts, and we were humbled to be nominees in the ‘Collaborative Disruptors’ category, recognising disruption of trafficking through multi-stakeholder partnerships and collaboration. Congratulations to all those who received awards! As stated by Ruth Dearnley, the amazing the CEO of Stop the Traffik, in her concluding remarks, everyone who fights human trafficking and the exploitation of vulnerable people in any way is part of our global fight against human trafficking and is a true disrupter.