Working from home has been a concept that has been implemented everywhere in the world the past year. We all started the year 2020 as usual, going to the office, going to school or to your co-working space in town. And suddenly a worldwide pandemic caused everyone to stay at home. It is probably the most popular hashtag of the year; #stayhome.
But what did it mean for us at Volunteer Programs Forever? How did we work from home and what did we do?

Everyone who knows us, knows that we always did quite the opposite from staying at home. At our pilot project in Bali, we went to the school everyday, we visited local families, community members and government officials. We were always on the road, actually never at home.
For VP Forever we traveled around the world. Our founder Kimberley spent a good part of 2019 traveling for the organization. From Belgium where she did fundraising activities to Mexico to explore new program activities. 

And then COVID-19 hit Bali, just like the rest of the world. And we were stuck. International borders closed and the government advice was: STAY HOME! 

After a bit of adjustment in our home office, we actually started to enjoy working from home. The past years a lot of work has been put on the shelves due to full schedules and activities. Long due work on our website, our branding, our fundraising efforts and legal issues; finally there was some time to address this. On our own pace, in our own home office.

So what have we been doing?

For the past seven years, the main focus for us was our pilot project in Bali, Volunteer Programs Bali. So much, that actually not a lot of people realized that VP Bali is part of a bigger, international, organization. VP Forever did not have a very detailed website or social media channels. We haven’t done any professional fundraising and even though we were always legally 100% correct, we still had some details to work out such as annual reports and tax exempt statuses in other countries.
Since we started working from home, we have achieved a lot! 

Our Forever Community

We already had a worldwide community of volunteers for many years. But when we could no longer welcome anyone here in Bali, we thought to create a way for people to be involved and be part of our organization, but on remote, as traveling was not possible. We expanded our Forever Community and we worked with so many amazing individuals who helped us with the development and design of our website and social media channels. We created GIFS, t-shirts, PDF materials and new blog posts with skilled contributors from all over the world. We launched our Fundraiser Friends platform, where everyone can start a personal fundraiser in a fun and exciting way. We virtually met with so many people and we got inspired by the feeling of being united, especially during challenging times. 

Rebranding

Thanks to our Forever Community of contributors we got in touch with a Russian branding agency. They offered to help us with a total rebranding project. For both VP Forever, as for VP Bali and for our new projects, we rebranded everything. New logos, new taglines, colors and design. We are so happy with the results, it reflects perfectly on who we are and what we stand for. And the fact that it has been made possible by a business collaboration makes us even more proud!

Legal entities

VP Forever is a private foundation registered in Belgium with international projects. One of these projects is our pilot project Volunteer Programs Bali, which will soon be the first Forever Learning Center of VP Forever. It is also a local registered foundation with a local Balinese board. We have a partnership with the King Baudouin Foundation in the United States and we are currently in the process of starting our own non profit organization in the USA as well.  We received the ANBI status in The Netherlands, which gives Dutch donors the opportunity to get their tax refunds as well.We started the process of starting an UK charity which will be open and operating early 2021.

We could not have done everything we have done without the support of our Forever Community. Everyone who donated their time, skills, money or passion made such a big impact.
We can’t wait for new projects to start in 2021 and to expand this community even more.

Although we have gotten used to working from home and we actually started to like it, we also can’t wait for travel restrictions to be lifted so we can achieve even more with our projects around the world. 

Do you want to follow us behind the scenes? Make sure to follow our social media channels!