Hello dear community,

I mentioned in the previous members' update that we're going to be making changes to decentralise our fundraising process. We need to move away from the structure we currently have, where funds donated by the community all go into one account and are then redistributed directly to families by us. This has worked really well for over a year, but for many reasons, it's becoming unmanageable. From a personal perspective, I need it to change to avoid becoming completely burnt out and useless.

For anyone who's interested in knowing more details about the reasons for this change and the alternatives we've explored, to avoid making this update incredibly long, I've laid everything out here.

So, what happens now? We're eager and excited to take lessons learned from the first 2 years of Coffees for Gaza forward and to continue helping our families as well as we possibly can. So over the next few months we'll be gently transitioning from Open Collective recurring subscriptions to a 'family sponsorship' system.

Subscribers will be matched with one of 25 families who we've been in close contact with for more than 18 months. You'll receive an email with details of your matched family and downloadable resources, along with instructions on how to set up a recurring donation directly to that family's fundraising page.

If you're already subscribed to the Open Collective and would like to continue supporting families in Gaza directly as part of our community, we'd love you to come with us into this new chapter as soon as possible. All you need to do is fill in the short family sponsor form, and we'll be in touch shortly to introduce your matched family.

We're also closing the Open Collective to new subscribers (although you can still make one-off donations for our emergency fund, for the moment.) All new contributors will be directed to the family sponsor form, and updates on our families and community will come through our email newsletter.

What we care most about is making sure the families we support aren't left to deal with the burdens of genocide alone. Our goal is to continue building a supportive, loving and creative community while also fostering strong bonds between contributors and families in Gaza. We're assigning families to sponsors according to their individual unique needs so that we can continue maximising our impact as a community. 

This will be a gentle transition, with our emergency fund remaining available to them until we're sure they will be getting the same financial support from the family sponsor system. The difference for them will be that the income will be regular instead of on-request. Our family contacts are making sure our plans and commitment are communicated to them.

Availability of essentials has improved a little bit in Gaza and prices have come down. We really hope that this is a good time to switch from being emergency-led to a more regular system which will better support both the families and our team. As always, we know our plans and expectations may have to change at a moment's notice according to the whims of the occupying entity. Our families, and the welfare and liberation of all people facing genocide in Gaza, remain our absolute priority.

Love and appreciation to every single one of you, whether you've been with us from the start or just joined our community. Every person makes the burden a bit lighter. Thank you. 

With love and solidarity, 
Billy and the CFG team x