News

A message from VFFF re. COVID-19

The Board and Team at VFFF hope this message finds you and your families well. It is rare that an everyday pleasantry carries quite so much weight. We fully appreciate the stresses that you are under in response to the extraordinary global situation we face together as a result of COVID 19.

VFFF continues to work with our stakeholders, delivery partners, grant recipients and members of the not-for-profit and philanthropic sector to assist communities to overcome the significant challenges that will occur during an as yet unknown time frame.

We have enacted a plan to safeguard our team and the core functionality of the Foundation. We have IT capabilities that allow us to work remotely and stay in touch using a variety of communication methods. For now we will not conduct site visits or travel, and we will hold meetings using phone and videoconferencing. We shall provide updates to these logistics as the situation evolves.

VFFF’s mission is to seek opportunities to benefit and care for Australians and all our country. We do this through our delivery partners and grantees and we will always work in every way that assist them to best meet their objectives. We will now be extra flexible around timings, deliverables and reporting. We will communicate proactively with our current grantees and encourage them to keep in touch. We will meet all funding commitments, and our granting continues.

We are working to find the right balance between supporting our existing grantees and welcoming new enquiries, as we consider the best role we can play at this time. This may mean we have reduced capacity to progress new enquiries as we consider how to best support our current grantees through unforeseen challenges.

Finally, it is times like these where we are best able to support each other through acts of kindness and increased communication. We will learn a lot about different ways of working alongside each other and our communities.

The Fairfax Family, VFFF Board and Team wish you the very best as we take care, stay safe and support each other in these difficult times.

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