Duncan and I have admitted to each other time and time again that we are not very good at celebrating our successes. We don’t often pause, reflect on our work and pat ourselves on the backs for a job well done. Sometimes we high five, but most of the time we’re quick to say “That’s done. What’s next?” and move on without acknowledgment.
Our family of three in Ubud, Bali.
We became parents a year ago and have now become particularly bad at pausing. All the forewarnings we received from practiced parents turned out to be true. With a little human who needs us constantly, we have less time for ourselves, less time for reflection and less time to just breath!
The end of June marked the end of the Financial Year and CoH had a fantastic twelve months! At the same time, we celebrated our daughter’s first birthday. When these two very significant, but very different, milestones coincided a few weeks ago we took a breath. We reflected.
We felt proud.
Aura’s first birthday.
The arrival of our baby girl last June brought Duncan and me immense happiness. It also brought us sleepless nights, self-doubt and nappy changes. We went through the steep learning curve that every new parent has to go through, all the while keeping our ‘other baby’ (COH) thriving. To say we have had our hands full would be an understatement. Yet, in the same year that we became parents, we managed to have our best year ever at COH.
What does “our best year ever” mean? In terms of measurable results, it means we raised the most money in a year than we have in the past. $425,000 for children’s education. It means that we are building four brand new schools in rural Cambodia and distributing over 100 scholarships in Northern Bali. It means we’re continuing to support Child-Friendly Schools and STEM education in Cambodia.
The students and teachers of O’Romdeng Primary School say “Thank You!” O’Romdeng Primary School is the first of many new schools builds Classroom of Hope is funding in partnership with Child’s Dream. Photo by Geoff Bartlett.
Of course, we didn’t do this on our own. Incredible fundraisers have pulled off unbelievable things for Classroom of Hope this year (like The Bali Hope Ultra and the Ben Stocks Team in Perth…but that’s a whole other blog post) and we’ve formed new partnerships and had some new and wonderful volunteers join our team. As more people are coming to us, wanting to help, Duncan and I are learning to work smarter, to loosen our tight grasp on the COH reins and empower others to get involved.
Michelle, one of the 2018 Bali Hope Ultra runners, poses with the students of Tigawasa, Bali. These students will receive scholarships through our partner Bali Children Foundation, funded by the Bali Hope Ultra Marathon 2018. Photo by Shayna Pitch.
In many ways, becoming parents has been a catalyst to this new, expansive growth. We don’t have the time we used to have. We can’t do it all, and we no longer want to. We’ve come to understand the expression “it takes a village to raise a child” and we see now more than ever that it takes a team to grow an organisation.
In a world where success is often attributed to reaching goals and quantifiable results, of course, we feel proud when we see the numbers. But honestly, it is this subtler, less quantifiable outcome that has us smiling on the inside. People are raising their hands to join us. It’s the most humbling, exciting feeling! We are growing, not just in funds raised, but in community and in reach. To us, that’s the real indicator of success. That’s something to feel proud of.
We wrote this post some time ago and we’re finally ready to share it. Why are the messages below so hard for us to share? There may be many reasons, but to be honest, when we get to the core of each reason, the underlying emotion is fear.
You see, we literally eat, sleep, breath, walk, talk, jump, skip, everything Classroom of Hope (CoH). Classroom of Hope is our work, our purpose, and our creative, compassionate brain child. It’s also our livelihood. It’s understandable that we are emotionally invested in our baby, right?
The truth is though; Classroom of Hope really isn’t a baby anymore. We turned 4 in October 2016. It feels like we skipped the toddler phase completely and all of a sudden our baby has its own identity, ready to learn and give to the world in a way that we were not able to before. We’re growing and as we grow we need to keep adapting.
For the first 3 years working in Classroom of Hope, we didn’t receive salaries. We worked our day jobs and committed our evenings and weekends to running our organisation. We were also incredibly blessed with other volunteers who raised their hands to help us build websites, take photos, brainstorm new campaign ideas, provide office space. You name it. With no operational budget, we played the charity card as often as we could while we got CoH off the ground.
Of course, we knew these were temporary measures. Working multiple jobs was burning us out and Classroom of Hope wasn’t getting all of our love and energy. We had a decision to make: minimise CoH’s impact and give up the dream OR follow the dream, grow and create more impact.
We chose the dream. We grew!
Growth for CoH implied three major shifts:
1) We needed to be full time in our organisation
2) We needed to get paid (unfortunately, we can’t pay our bills with positive vibes and good intentions)
3) We needed investors
One of our major challenges was in the numbers. In order for CoH to have two full-time staff (on a modest salary) and an operational budget, while still sending over 85% of donations to the field we would need to be bringing in over half a million dollars in donations per year.
We weren’t. If we had taken large sums of money from our donations at the time to help with operational costs, our projects would have suffered. It was time to get creative.
**Disclaimer: We know that non-profits need to spend OPEX and CAPEX in order to scale just like every other business and each non-profit has to figure out the best way to cover their operating costs while doing the incredible (usually complicated) work that they do to create impact. Watch this TED talk by Dan Pallotta**
From the start of our Classroom of Hope journey, we have hugely admired a charity in America called Charity: Water. One of the numerous things we love about the way they work is their 100% model. Charity: Water is able to send 100% of public donations to fund clean water projects because they have private investors covering everything else.
“Brilliant,” we thought. “We have to try this in Australia”. We envisioned two bank accounts: One to fund education projects and the other to cover operations. With this new model in mind, we began our search for an Angel Investor who understands this business model.
We pitched this idea 32 times to various corporate businesses and philanthropists in Australia hoping one of them would want to become our Angel. Each time we got the same response. “We love this idea. Great concept. But we would rather donate to projects directly. Good luck”.
We thought we would have to rethink the model, but we realised, after some hair pulling brainstorms, we just had to flip it.
Instead of seeking one Angel investor to cover our operational costs, we could ask multiple people (everyday individuals), who believe in the work we do to invest in us through monthly micro-donations. These investors would be our Wise Owls. We knew we wouldn’t be able to offer stock options, but we would treat them like shareholders with a common indicator of Social Return on Investment (SROI) based on the number of children who receive access to quality education.
This idea caught on.
By the end of 2015, (after we’d raised well over $400,000 since inception) we received our very first CoH paycheque (hallelujah).
For the past 16 months, we’ve been surviving on investments from Wise Owls combined with a percentage from donations. Our salaries are $18,200 a year each. That’s $1,516.67 each per month.
To be clear, we didn’t start on this non-profit journey for the buckaroonies.
But the reality was that on these salaries we couldn’t keep up with the cost of rent, food, transport etc. in Perth, Australia. So we sold our beloved Jetson (our car), put most of our life in boxes, packed our bags, said goodbye to delicious $5 flat whites and moved to Ubud, Bali.
We made some sacrifices, yes, but this move was a conscious, positive choice. We love living in Bali. Our cost of living has gone down dramatically and we live a good, quiet life doing the work we love for a cause we truly believe in.
Since being full time more funds are coming through the door, we are gaining more brand awareness and our business model is gaining traction. All of this means we help more kids gain access to quality education.
Our Wise Owls have taken us in the direction of becoming a sustainable organisation. This model is working. But we still need to grow, we still have work to do and we still need more Wise Owls.
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it's the only thing that ever has."
- Margaret Mead
As we stand now, we have 167 Wise Owls. 167 incredible, like minded people who believe in us and who give what they can to support us. With their support we’ve been able to pay ourselves but we have not been able to secure our operational budget or enact the 100% model.
It’s been a journey with winding roads and giant boulders. We have no regrets and with faith and focus we carry on our mission.
“There is no greater thing you can do with your life and your work than follow your passions – in a way that serves the world and you.”
- Sir Richard Branson
Our Wise Owls mission is to reach 1000 members who can invest a minimum of $9 per month in CoH operations. For all you numbers people out there: our goal is to reach a grand total of $108,000 per year to cover two full-time staff salaries (37K each) and all our other operating costs (34K) for us to become a lean, well balanced, medium sized charity. When we reach this goal, we will enact the 100% model and send 100% of online public donations to fund education projects in South-East Asia, Indonesia and Rwanda.
That’s our life as an open book. With all our cards on the table, we can feel the fear creep in.
But we quickly snap out of that zone. We flip it. Our work has nothing to do with fear. In fact, it is all about love and hope. It’s about incredible kids across the globe who need access to quality education. It’s about the 263 million children who aren’t in school. Our vision is massive. It needs to be! We are doing our part to end the global education crisis by 2030 (See UN Global Goals) We’d like to eventually do ourselves out of a job. But for now, there is still a job to do. And we need your help. It truly is about changing the world.
Watch our Wise Owls video to get the visual story of our journey towards purpose.
Remember the school blueprint plans we shared with you in August?
Since then, 25 local workers have been building Gitumba Primary School.
Take a look at what they’ve done!
The school is expected to be complete early 2017.
Which means that when Theresie Mukankusi’s kindergarten class is ready for primary school next year they won’t have to journey to the next village to get there.
It also means that students like Marcelline, who currently walk the long journey to school, won’t have to anymore. They will have access to quality education in their own village.
Thank you to all those who made this project possible!
We’d like to send out a very special thank you to our field photographer Geoff Bartlett. Geoff was in Rwanda for alternative work but he made a special trip to Gitumba to capture all these beautiful photos and report on the progress.
Question: How would your life be different if you were illiterate?
Wait. Stop. Think about it.
You probably wouldn’t be able to do your job. Good luck following tonight’s dinner recipe. Forget about that email you need to send your mom about rescheduling your coffee date. No more bedtime stories.
Your life would be totally different. You’d be a different person, right?
This post isn’t about a guilt trip. We don’t want to get you down. It’s just nice to take a moment to reflect, to appreciate how reading and writing has shaped you into the person you are and shaped the life you live.
Illiteracy is a bigger issue than a lack of reading skills. It is a predictor of poverty, illness, and disempowerment. If all students in low-income countries left school with basic reading skills, 171 million people could be lifted out of poverty. This is equal to a 12% cut in global poverty.
We are officially 4 weeks into our #BagWalkers campaign with 4 weeks left to go. 36 #BagWalkers have been walking, running, cycling, playing soccer, travelling, camping, exploring,hiking, fishing, DJing, teaching yoga, dancing, golfing and playing music with their bags. These bags are living the dream! Check out some of the wild and wonderful adventures they’ve been going on.
Kate Simpson fishing with #Bag13 in Denmark, Western Australia.Jimmy Clothier after running 21km in the Darlington Half Marathon with #Bag32Megan Grossi taking in the Toronto skyline with #Bag36
Jan Courtin in beautiful Vancouver with #Bag28
David Smith rode his bike with #Bag35 for 30km from Claremont to Burns Beach.
Sam Maher busked around Perth playing a rare and unique instrument called a hangdrum with #Bag27
Our #BagWalkers are inspiring and surprising us daily with their passion, creativity and sheer determination to raise the funds needed to build this school for the children of Gitumba. We are just under half way to our goal of raising $80,000. With 4 weeks left of the #BagWalkers campaign we know we can reach our target. Keep up the posts, passion and perseverance #BagWalkers!
On this lovely Tuesday morning, we’d like to leave you with this hilarious and inspiring video put together by #BagWalker Derek Grossi. He’s trekking 40km with this bag wearing whatever his highest donator tells him to wear…we are eagerly awaiting how this turns out! Stay tuned.
Today is an uncommon day. It is a Leap Day and that’s not going to happen again for another 4 years. How special! So, instead of letting this extra day pass us by we are taking advantage of our bonus 24 hours to reflect and to share some updates!
Exactly 3 months ago we leaped (pun obviously and shamelessly intended) into our dream. It was on that day that Duncan and I went full time into Classroom of Hope, full time into our passion and full time into bringing education to children in developing countries.
We were over the moon to embark on this journey and everyday we learn, we grow and we love what we do more and more.With full and grateful hearts we’d like to tell you about the last 3 months.
Back to where it all began.
Over the years Cambodia has become a home and our local NGO partners have become family. We arrived in Cambodia on the 29th of November to spend 3 weeks checking out impact and researching future projects (exciting details to come!). We’re supporting 15 schools in the province of Kampong Cham which were all officially Child-Friendly and complete in July 2015 (yay!). This trip however, was about visiting our other 7 schools in the province of Battambang which are set to be complete by October 2016 (Yay! Again.).
We were on cloud-nine touring the schools, seeing their progress and catching up with our dear friend Racky, who is the inspiration behind Classroom of Hope and the founder of Children’s Action for Development (CAD).
Duncan (CEO/Funder of CoH) and Racky (Founder Children’s Action for Development)
The CAD team took us to visit all 7 schools in the Battambang region. We soaked up all the beautiful rural-Cambodian landscapes as we clocked 160km on our motorbike, carrying our camera gear so we could report on the impact at each school.
Our founding partner Navitas supports these 7 schools in Battambang. Check out the impact video we made for them.
Whenever we see the impact that education makes in lives of the children we support, we get totally pumped to keep on going! It inspires us more than anything.
We were ecstatic after visiting Cambodia and all the wonderful kids. Since our trip we’ve been focused on fundraising for more projects so we can impact the lives of more children through quality education.
#BagWalkers Walk Again!
Last year, our #BagWalkers walked for girls’ education and raised over $32,000 to provide scholarships to girls in rural Cambodia. We were blown away by the support we had for this campaign and by the love and dedication of our amazing #Bagwalkers. So, we’re going for #BagWalkers round two!
For the last few months we’ve been planning our next #BagWalkers Campaign which launches March 7th. This year #Bagwalkers are walking for the children of Gitumba, Rwanda who currently walk 5 hours a day to get to and from school. Crazy right? We think so too, so we’re going to build them a school. Wanna help? Send us an e-mail at bagwalkers@classroomofhope.org. We’d love to have you on the team!
We are extremely happy to announce this year’s bags have been created and designed by Freeset and Liminal Apparel – a fair trade social enterprise that only uses sustainable or organic materials and reinvest all profits into the communities that produce their products.
Impact in Rwanda
Our first bit of impact is coming through from our Schools for Excellence project in Rwanda where our local partner African Evangelistic Enterprise (AEE) has built 8 toilets for boys and girls and a water facility at Nyamatete Primary School. Classroom of Hope volunteers Geoff and Sheryl Bartlett have been in Rwanda, working with our local partner to gather content, data and stories from the field. Check out these beautiful new toilets!
Photo by Geoff Bartlett http://geoffbartlett.photoshelter.com/
100Women Grant
Last week Classroom of Hope was incredibly humbled and honoured to receive a grant from 100 Women. This grant will support our STEM4Women project to empower 10 young women to undertake Science, Technology, Engineering and Math studies in 2-year tertiary-vocational degrees. Personal development training and career counselling will also be provided to ensure high employment rates upon graduation. We’re so excited to follow their stories and tell you all about it!
Leaps and Bounds
So there it is folks! That’s what Classroom of Hope has been up to. We know we still have lots to do, but we’re stoked about the impact and progress we’ve made so far. We’re also incredibly grateful for all of our amazing supporters and donors who make everything we do possible! Thank you for believing is us and our mission.
