Message from the Board: Learnings from the 2022 & Priorities for 2023
We’re marking one year and one month since Russia’s brutal full-scale attack on Ukraine. Looking back to where we were one year ago with Nova Ukraine: our operations have grown exponentially over the course of weeks, if not days. Our primary goal was to help as many people in Ukraine as possible, as quickly as possible, knowing that we were saving lives.
We had hundreds of volunteers willing to help, but we knew that sheer will was not enough. Achieving our goals required strong organization and operational discipline. With Nova Ukraine’s roots being in Silicon Valley, we turned to technology to help organize our work. Our IT volunteers quickly onboarded us on a modern tech stack, including Google Workspace, Slack, Asana, Confluence and a number of other tools.
Read the full report here.
We made a decision to invest time in adopting Salesforce for our grant processing and donor operations. This investment paid off many times and was one of the key factors for us to sustain through the massive growth. We became much more professional in our operations, established budgets and policies, and turned from being purely reactive to planning ahead.
To ensure our finances were spotless, we hired a professional finance team and switched to effective and well-controlled financial instruments. We also hired a Global General Manager and General Manager in Ukraine to run our global and Ukrainian operations. We built a strong organizational structure and solid
onboarding process, with background checks for new team members, ensuring the safety and security of our team and operations.
None of this happened overnight, and we had to build out our processes while trying to deliver aid to Ukrainians in the critical conditions of war. We made mistakes. We fixed them. We moved on to become
stronger and more mature. I am proud to see the impact the Nova Ukraine team already had, and I want to thank every volunteer, employee, contractor, donor, and supporter for walking this path with us and having trust in us.
As we move forward, we remain optimistic about the future ahead. We are committed to helping Ukraine win and supporting Ukraine to become a strong, flourishing nation with an empowered civil society. We believe that our efforts will have a significant impact, and we are grateful for your ongoing support.
Ostap Korkuna
Co-chairman, on behalf of the Nova Ukraine Board of Directors