Sadly, Starfish has been seriously coronered by the global pandemic. For the moment, the organisation has been placed into an hibernation-like state awaiting a possible return.
The impacts of Covid-19 on Starfish’s work program were severe.
By late March 2020, more than 80% of Starfish’s forward work had been either postponed indefinitely or cancelled outright. As an enterprise-based charity with freelance contractors, not employees, Starfish was not eligible for any of the government assistance that was available.
From April to September 2020, Starfish reset and pared back its operations to just three projects, so as to match its workload with the remaining capacity and resources.
Unfortunately, there was further wave of impacts which played out during this time, the affect of which was to undermine the financial viability of even these projects.
As a result, all of Starfish’s sustainability initiatives and professional services have been discontinued. The Starfish Associates program has also been suspended.
Thankfully, Starfish remains still a going concern and has sufficient reserves to cover it’s fixed overheads for several years to come. The Board intend to initiate a new strategic planning process once a forward view of the situation becomes clearer, which they anticipate will be mid-to-late 2021 at the earliest.
Starfish’s Board will continue to consider any new sustainability initiative on a case-by-case basis, to ensure that Starfish has the required capacity and resources before committing to any new project. All regulatory and compliance requirements will continue to be satisfied during this time.
