Dear friends and colleagues,
The DAI Board met at a special board meeting on March 25/26, 2022 as we saw the need for a thorough internal review of our services. This was brought about by the identified strained resources we have, to support the current operations.
We certainly appreciate the unusual world we are living in at the moment and DAI, like many other Not For Profit and Charitable organisations are competing for volunteers and funding to remain viable and sustainable.
We assure you that the DAI Mission and Values were at the forefront of our thinking; and we value the volunteers and supporters around the world who continue to support us; thank you.
This media release is to advise you that following the review, the Board has made the very difficult, but necessary decision to reduce the current services provided by DAI until further review. Our hope, is that we can build up our volunteer base once again and continue to provide amazing resources to ensure “Nothing about us, without us.”
The priority of the special board meeting was to discuss the following two options about the services, sustainability, and future of DAI.
OPTION 1:
- Wind up the affairs of DAI, and
- Cancel charity status and disperse funds.
OPTION 2:
- Revert to peer-to-peer support groups only,
- Drop all other work, including e-newsletters, webinars, cafe le brain, and brain health hub meetings,
- Replace newsletters with more activity on social media, and
- Stop or scale back blog posts.
Following this meeting, the board has unanimously made the following decisions.
Effective immediately, DAI will continue to provide the following services:
- Free membership for people living with any type of dementia.
- Weekly Peer-to-peer support groups for DAI members (no cost to members).
- Provide member and data base communications via regular blogs on the website, rather than through e-news using MailChimp.
- Retain its charitable 501c3 status in the USA to allow for donations to continue.
- Retain its registered accountant to perform the annual financial reporting and required IRS related paperwork.
- Retain the award-winning DAI YouTube channel.
- Retain the DAI website, which is currently being updated.
- Retain the DAI branded Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter social media pages.
- Finally, the Environmental Design Special Interest Group (ED-SiG) will continue to be led by Emily Ong, from Singapore
Effective immediately, DAI is suspending the following services until further notice:
- Monthly “Meeting Of the Minds” Webinars.
- Monthly Cafe Le Brain.
- Twice monthly Brain Health Hub Zoom Meetings.
- Annual World Rocks Against Dementia (WRAD) event.
We looked at a number of ways to work ‘smarter’ so we can continue to provide the same level of communications, but in a different way and came up with these options.
To reduce costs, DAI will cease the monthly newsletter and other mailings, which will be replaced entirely by blogs on the DAI website to communicate to everyone, including members. We hope increased activity on DAI social media will help fill any potential communication gaps.
Please note therefore, that all future official e-news and other communications will be through the website as a blog, which will mean you need to subscribe to them to receive our news and other communications.
The global human rights work we currently do will continue, although DAI will need to fund an external partner or expert for this work to continue. Kate Swaffer will continue in her role as interim human rights advisor until the AGM in June 2022, while the board decides on its long-term future direction. DAI will also retain its ECOSOC status at the United Nations, and Observer status with the International Disability Alliance.
Detailed below is a brief explanation of why DAI has been forced to face these changes, due primarily to the following set of unique and difficult challenges.
- DAI members who all live with dementia are often willing to volunteer, but also have significant time constraints as they are also tackle tackling the daily challenges of living with dementia.
- Significant demand on volunteers around the world.
- DAI has been asked and had the opportunity many times over the last 8 years to support researchers, individuals, and organisations with their grant applications; we are working on being appropriately included in the work and funded in the projects.
Since mid 2015, DAI has depended on strategic partners and donations to fund its operations; before that, board members self funded it.
We are very grateful that in mid 2015, ADI became DAI’s first strategic partner. In November 2018, Dementia Australia became a major donor; the following year, DA became our second strategic partner.
It takes time to build up strategic partners and donors to remain sustainable in our current format, and to have paid staff and financial resources that can be used to hire additional staff to support our organisation.
Unfortunately, the lack of adequate funding has always been a major issue limiting available technologies, marketing materials and staffing.
The board sincerely hopes that these changes are temporary, and that some of our services will be reactivated in the future.
DAI continues to be an amazing, life-giving organisation that provides a steppingstone for people more newly diagnosed with dementia to 'get back to living', which is truly powerful work, and we will continue to do this.
We thank you in anticipation of your support us as we streamline our operations to ensure our core activity continues, which is to ensure peer to peer member support is always sustainable.
Finally, we will send another email later this week, with a more detailed explanation of why these changes have had to be made at this time.
“Nothing about us, without us.”
Yours sincerely,
Cheryl and Alister
Cheryl Day/Alister Robertson
Acting Chair/Chair (on leave)
On behalf of the Board of Directors
Dementia Alliance International