Transition to the War Child Alliance

In 2023 War Child underwent a substantial change in our global set-up - the establishment of the War Child Alliance and a new governing structure.

Why a new Alliance?

The War Child Alliance was established to enhance efficiencies, scale our programmes and evidence-based interventions and have a bigger voice on the international stage - all with the aim to multiply our impact for conflict-affected children. At the heart of the Alliance is a commitment to innovation, collaboration, shared decision-making (moving away from hierarchical models of governance) and reaching more children affected by armed conflict around the globe.

This change significantly impacted War Child Holland throughout 2023, leading to a major restructure that affected staff positions. This adjustment was deemed essential in order to achieve our goal: “No child should be part of war. Ever.”

What will it look like?

As of 1 January 2024, War Child Holland became War Child Netherlands (while remaining registered as Stichting War Child).  The core activity of War Child Netherlands is to raise funds both in the public and private domain. As a fundraising member within the Alliance, we are an autonomous organisation, primarily responsible for fundraising in the Dutch (home) market. The same applies for the other fundraising members: War Child UK, War Child Sweden, War Child Germany and Children in Conflict (US).

All programme and support functions have been brought together, under a new legal entity called Stichting War Child Alliance (WCAF).

The WCAF is responsible for programme implementation, in conflict-affected countries but also the work of strategic teams including Research & Development, Scaling, Communications and Advocacy. WCAF will manage all country and regional offices and has regional and global support functions to operate its projects and programmes. The newly established WCAF is a legal entity registered in the Netherlands with its own CEO and Supervisory Board.

War Child Netherlands

As of 1 January, the Managing Director of War Child Netherlands is Ernst Suur. War Child Netherlands also has a new Supervisory Board.

The organisation consists of four departments: Institutional Funding and National Programmes, Public Fundraising, Communications & Advocacy and Operations.

In comparison to War Child Holland, the staffing has decreased for War Child Netherlands from 111 full-time equivalent employees (FTE) to 53 FTE. The nature and extent of the changes in the structure, core activities and staffing of War Child Netherlands will have an impact on our financial figures in 2024.

Following the green light for the formation of the War Child Alliance, 2023 saw the organisation kick-start a number of transition projects:

• War Child Alliance set-up

A legal entity was created and registered with the relevant authorities. In addition, the appointment of Supervisory Board members and the statutory director (CEO) were formalised.

The Board consists of representatives from the fundraising entities and independent members. Reflecting our commitment to the localisation agenda, it was agreed that fundraising members will not have a majority of votes in the Board. An Alliance Agreement was signed by all members of the alliance which forms the legal basis for the integration of our programme activities into one single organisation.

Furthermore, we ensured that the new legal entity would be able to operate (systems, procedures, administrative preparations) from the go-live date - 1 January 2024.

• Staff selection and appointment processes

Based on the principle of equal opportunities for all War Child employees, an approach for staff transition was developed. Job descriptions for positions in the new structure were finalised and staff were selected and appointed. This process started with the selection of the CEO and senior management followed by staff selection and appointment in the second half of the year.

• System transition

Across the course of the year, our IT teams prepared for aligning the systems in use across the various War Child entities. Financial accounting software and collaboration tools were the key priorities. This process has continued into 2024 seeing the systems implemented in a phased manner.

• Aligning policies and procedures

Alignment was a recurring theme throughout 2023. We aligned our policies and procedures for the War Child Alliance Foundation - in areas including child safeguarding, annual planning and reporting and institutional fundraising - and we agreed a set of policies and procedures for the whole War Child family.

• Communications

A communications project prepared the external messaging in relation to our transition to the War Child Alliance. This included boilerplate and Q&A texts for conversations with partners as well as a press release and news item for the international website.

• Merging our operations in DRC

War Child has country offices in 14 conflict-affected countries. These were registrations of either War Child Netherlands or War Child UK. In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) both War Child UK and War Child Netherlands had an office. In 2023, these operations were merged into one single programme office.