By ­Meghan Jones

This past July, our Management Team and Founders had the opportunity to meet (together and in-person, finally!) and dive deeply into the direction that Child’s Dream is headed, going into its next decade of existence. Part of this discussion included a reflection on Child’s Dream’s values and culture. As our organisation grows and as the world changes, an opportunity to reflect, adjust and realign our values and culture with our new structure as an organisation was a powerful and important step that needed to be taken.

After much discussion and consideration, the team agreed on the following organisational core values: accountability, effectiveness and efficiency, fairness and impartiality, learning and improving, respect, teamwork and trustworthiness. Additionally, they defined our organisation’s culture in a few clear and deliberate statements: We inspire each other; we are committed to maintaining a culture that is friendly, caring, supportive, empathetic, appreciative and encouraging, based on mutual trust, respect and understanding for one another; we enjoy and believe in what we do; while we care for one another, we also strive to bring high standards of professionalism and objectivity to our work; and we take personal pride and ownership in what we do and are fully aware that our work is interconnected and we are all role models for each other.

Our values will be incorporated into all aspects of our work, from our decision-making processes to all that we do with our stakeholders. Our culture statement provides a clear idea of who we are, how we engage with each other and how we relate to our work. We are proud of all we have accomplished over the past 20 years, and confident in the direction that we will head in the future, guided by our values and our culture as an organisation.