North East charities have been going through a torrid time during the coronavirus outbreak. We spoke to Diane Morton, chair and founder of Wag & Company, a regional charity that is adjusting its business model to secure a future and continue to grow.
Can you explain why you set up Wag and Co?
We knew that the main visiting dog charities were not able to visit people in their own homes. This meant that if you were a dog lover, elderly, with health issues, maybe bereaved and isolated and could no longer have a dog of your own any more, the only way you could have a visit would be in a care or medical establishment of some kind.
While we understood the safeguarding difficulties of visiting people alone in their own homes, they didn’t feel insurmountable and knowing what a difference a friend with a furry friend for a chat and a cuddle can make in just a couple of hours a week, it felt like a problem worth solving.
How was the charity developing before the pandemic?
By the end of this March we had 393 volunteers, we had made over 74,000 friend visits and nearly 3,000 North East people were benefitting. We had 107 1:1 home placements and we were actively visiting 237 care and medical placements with 89 more on our waiting lists.
With 50 applicants in the pipeline we were on target to hit our March 21 target of 500 volunteers making a big dent in our continuously growing waiting lists. This was set to be our best fundraising year with more Wag runners than ever before in the Great North Run, walkers in the Great North Dog Walk and we were set to celebrate our 5th Walk for Wag at the Kielder Waterside, our main fundraising event.
How has COVID-19 impacted on the charity?
Our visiting activities were temporarily suspended in March. Our recruitment activities have slowed down, dog assessments aren’t possible, our fundraising income has pretty much dried up. Our annual Walk for Wag at Kielder on September 19 has just been cancelled.
Everyone has risen to the challenge of virtual befriending rather than physical befriending and we are inspired by the efforts of all our volunteers to keep in touch with their friends. Some are doing shopping, dogs are FaceTiming, regularly phoning, sending cards, books, photos, cakes; trying to make sure that everyone knows we’re thinking about
them and we’ll be back with them just as soon as we can.
What new projects and changes have you made to protect the charity?
We never charge for our services for fear of the most in need missing out, so we rely totally on the generosity of people. To help encourage support, we’ve launched some new digitally enabled ways to do it.
These include a regular giving scheme, Friends of Wag, where individuals, community care or nursing homes and corporates can all contribute. Also, we’ve launched ‘Walk for Wag Anywhere’ instead of our physical walk at Kielder, asking supporters to create their own socially distanced walks on September 19. We’ll all walk for Wag separately but together in spirit, to end loneliness.
We are developing a new online Giving in Memory Tribute ‘Remembering with Love” which we’ll launch in August and an E:shop for September.
Going forwards, what sort of supportdo you need?
We really need our new digitally enabled income generation schemes to succeed. We’re trying to make it really easy for everyone who loves what we do to chip in to help us do it safely and sustainably, from as little as £5 a month. Then we need many more volunteers.
Where do you see the charity in 12 months-time?
Back on track. Visiting again and supporting our elderly friends who have been so badly affected by the isolation required by Covid-19 restrictions. Recovering from the loss of some of our friends during our absence, growing again, and meeting the need. We want 500 visiting Wag teams, half-way to our 2030 target of 1000 to go some way to ending loneliness for older dog lovers in our region.
