STICHTING VLUCHTELINGEN AMBASSADEURS

A believe that powerful stories build intercultural bridges

Title Page 1

Table of Contents 2

SVA’s Place in Society 3

Who Are We 4-5

Phase 1: Proof of Concept 6-7

Our Achievements 8

Phase 2: Test for Sustainability 9-12

Funds We Applied For 13

Phase 3: Plan for Growth 14

Current Integration System within The Netherlands (simplified)

INTEGRATIONNGO’s are helping refugees to build a new life in The Netherlands. They provide multiple

services, such as: child entertainment (Vrolijkheid), temporary housing (TakeCareBnB), study

support (UAF), entrepreneurship support (DeliteLabs, Migrant Inc.), programming courses

(Hack Your Future), job search (NewBees), or taking on a new craft (MakersUnite). These

NGO’s do an amazing work helping refugees get started in the Netherlands. And yet, a majority

of refugees still encounter difficulties with integration and adapting to a new culture.

THE PROBLEM SVA sees a great challenge for the Dutch society to deal with diversity when it comes to migrant

groups. The the public opinion polls on migrants are mainly negative, as people from non-

Western countries are considered a threat to Western values and Dutch welfare. Despite the

good work of many NGO’s migrants in The Netherlands often do not feel accepted. Even if they

find a job or a study, many of them feel isolated [survey Stichting Civic]. Their turbulent past

combined with a new society requires a whole new set of values to adapt to. We believe that

having a job, volunteer work or a study program is essential part of participation in The

Netherlands. But integration is a complex process that requires more, it requires more

awareness and knowledge of each others cultural backgrounds and a more inclusive society.

OUR SOLUTIONThe role of the SVA is to help migrants integrate in The Netherlands by building a bridge with

the society that makes it more aware and recognizes the potential of its new citizens.. We

believe that inspiring dialogue can trigger insights on each others’ cultural background and

make it easier to function in an intercultural context. Our organization is driven by a multi-

cultural team, with refugee- and migrant backgrounds. We are a community of people who wish

to share our experience and knowledge on diversity related topics. And, we have created a 3-

year plan in order to properly proof, refine, and scale our concept:

A communication academy for people who wish to inspire society through a message of integration,

perseverance, and respect for others.

SVA’s Place in Society

Who Are We

WE ARE STICHTING VLUCHTELINGEN AMBASSADEURS We are a group of former refugees who have happily settled in The Netherlands. We come from

different backgrounds and corners of the World: Syria, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan,

Egypt, South Sudan, Somalia, Eritrea, Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, Congo, Chili, Venezuela,

Vietnam, Mongolia and ex-Yugoslavia.

WE SHARE OUR STORIES TO BUILD CULTURAL BRIDGES We are busy building bridges between the different cultures through personal interactions and

different types of dialogue, such as: storytelling, public speaking, brainstorming, or debating.

We give guest lectures in which we shine the light over various topics related to refugee

experiences and diversity in The Netherlands. Making the topics accessible by sharing personal

stories and using them to boost any kind of dialogue.

Interactions between people take place on a daily base. However, we deliver one that brings up

quality content and creates a personal bond between the audience and our speakers. That is

why we train them in the art of storytelling, public speaking and facilitation skills. Our goal is to

make them expert communicators that can deliver new insights and open the eyes of their

audience. And, ideally leave everyone with at least one good take home message:

That migrants that feel understood and accepted are here to help build a stronger Dutch society.

We started SVA with the firm believe that a well told story has the power to bring people

together. We set out to experiment with different storytelling formats to, step-by-step, find a

way to raise awareness around diversity and integration in The Netherlands.

AMBASSADOR GUEST LECTURES Our guest lectures are designed to capture the attention and raise questions amongst our

audience. Our speakers, we call them ambassadors, are trained in 'living-documentary' style of

storytelling without harming anyone but inspiring them. We offer schools and universities the

chance to invite one or more of our ambassadors to share their personal journey as a refugee:

their country, how they fled, their experience settling in The Netherlands, and their challenges

on day-to-day life. And, at the end, have a question & answer session to trigger additional

thoughts and discussions.

We adapted these guest lectures to meet the needs of the audience in different age groups

within society. In addition, we offer the option to extend the guest lectures with a workshop

geared toward bringing the participants even closer to the refugee experience through

storytelling exercises, games, and discussions. The guest lectures and workshops are given

either in English or Dutch.

All-in-all, a 1-2 hours glimpse into a refugee’s experience. With the aim to raise awareness of

the importance of integration and tolerance towards diversity in The Netherlands.

Phase 1: Proof the Concept

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE This first year of operations have lead to an organization structure in which the different

actions and responsibilities where picked up by whomever was available to carry them out. A

functional structure that we feel has several improvement points for the upcoming years.

The Board: A 4 member board: Wout de Boer (President), Niels van Driegen (Secretary),

Khawlah Al Muzallam (Treasurer) and Romy Jochems (Advisor)

Management team: The management team is made up of two managing directors: Maja Coric

and Linda Rook. Maja puts her time and effort into training the ambassadors, and assuring a

good quality guest lecture for our clients. While Linda focuses on building partnerships,

administration, and finances.

Ambassadors: There are a total of 85 ambassadors, out of which 20 of them are actively

delivering guest lectures to schools and universities. The remaining 65 ambassadors give guest

lectures less frequently or have stated their interest to be involved, but at the moment there is

a lack of speaking opportunities and trainings to have them all involved.

A SOLID START IN THE FIRST PHASE OF OPERATIONS During the first 2 years of our operations we worked on finding our place and value within

society. Taking a look back we succeeded in:

Delivering 309 guest lectures

Attending a total of 239 events

Reaching 38 cities in The Netherlands

And, built initial bonds with organizations that could lead to fruitful collaborations.

Our Achievements

TIME TO DISCOVER OUR TRUE POTENTIAL

In this second phase we will explore the feasibility of creating a self-sustaining organization. We

will look to innovate our business model in search of new revenue streams, and improving the

way we work to minimize operational costs.

CHALLENGING OUR BUSINESS MODEL We have two key challenges ahead of us; extending the reach of our guest lectures and creating

new revenue streams. We are in the process of extending our training program to include new

skills, with one goal:

Train Ambassador to become Influencers who open doors and inspire others

We have successfully trained a group of ambassadors into storytellers who are able to connect

and communicate with others through their stories. The next step is to widen their range and

increase their visibility by teaching them new skills: Copywriting and Digital Marketing.

Our ambassadors will learn skills that will increase their chance to succeed professionally,

enabling them to build stronger personal brands, and show them how to share their stories across

digital channels going beyond the occasional guest lecture. A step-by-step approach to

transform from ambassador to influencer.

SVA will become an influencer enabler, moving beyond searching for guest lecture opportunities

into offering the knowhow and tools to support ambassadors looking to grow their personal

brand or start their own social enterprises. We will offer quarterly training programs to

improve digital skills and a support service for setting up business administration and

communication channels.

The final goal is to create a new revenue stream in which successful ambassadors pay fees for

business support services. The money will go to maintaining SVA operations and training for the

next wave of ambassadors committed to promoting diversity.

Phase 2: Test for Sustainability

A win-win situation in which we build a community of diverse public speakers, workshop

facilitators, artists, photographers, musicians, poets, writers, or accountants, each experts in

their field and willing to share their story to work together on a common mission:

A community that raises awareness around the potential and importance of integration in The

Netherlands by sharing success stories that inspire others to follow suit.

IMPROVING THE WAY WE WORK By now we have discovered many unforeseen challenges that come up in our day-to-day

activities. And, even though many are caused by a shortage of funds, there are definitely

creative ways we can go about solving them to increase our chance of success in the years to

come.

SIMPLIFY COMMUNICATIONSOur lack of expertise in running an organization lead us to improvise when it came to internal

and external communications. We will solve this by implementing a solid business administration

process, which includes new forms and database templates that will greatly reduce the amount

of time we spend storing, searching and communicating information. And, in addition, prepare

us to take on a larger volume of activities in an effective and efficient way.

Once this process is implemented we will be able to assign tasks to volunteers that wish to

support SVA in other ways than becoming one of the ambassadors.

INCREASE THE INVOLVEMENT OF OUR AMBASSADORSAnother key improvement point is updating our organization design to reduce the amount of

budget needed to maintain a team. A new organization structure that will delegate

responsibilities to those ambassadors that are motivated to do more than facilitate guest

lectures.

The Board: New board members are being selected that adapt to the new organization phase we

are heading into, identify with our core values and are committed to actively represent us

among their professional network.

Managing Director: Downscale from two managing directors to one, reducing the team budget

needs. One dedicated person that focuses solely on strategic and team relations work,

delegating time consuming administrative tasks to the Admin Team, will reduce the

communication complexity.

Admin Team: Two volunteers or interns that wish to join our organization, but do not aspire to

be ambassadors, will takeover the important, time consuming task of keeping ambassador,

client, finance, and sales databases up-to-date. In addition, they will be in charge of

communications around event scheduling and client invoicing.

Ambassador Influencers: We want to train three ambassador influencers, each responsible for

one of the three forms of communication: Storytelling, Workshop Facilitation, Blogging. They

will engage the ambassador pool to train, motivate, and create new engaging content for our

storytelling campaigns.

Ambassador Pool: Our ambassadors will remain the key source of energy, ensuring the durability

and longevity of the organization. A group, guided by the SVA organization, to find the way to

share their story and lean on one another to build intercultural bridges in The Netherlands.

We are applying to 8 funds for financial support towards meeting important milestones we set

for ourselves in the second phase of our organization. Here is the milestone breakdown:

Clarify message €10,000Hours to create powerful videos of our ambassador stories, to communicate the value of their stories more effectively

Target: 10 videos Results: Clarify lecture values

Switch from re-active to pro-active

marketing€10,000

Hours to create and implement a marketing and sales funnel (strategy, content) to increase number of lectures.

Target: 4x guest lectures Result: Financial sustainability

Recruit & train ambassadors

€20,000Hours dedicated to recruit and train more ambassadors to increase the variety of activities they are trained to deliver for example workshops or panel discussions

Target: 2 new revenue streams Result: Team engagement

Amsterdam pilot €15,000Map out organizations to approach in Amsterdam, and test the impact of new activities

Target: 10 trial runs Result: Proof of concept

Launch new activities

€10,000Communicate new available activities to other cities across The Netherlands

Target: 5 cities Result: New revenue stream

Partners initiatives €15,000Work with energetic ambassadors that want to launch their own social initiatives. Supporting them in: branding, marketing, and administration.

Target: Launch 5 initiatives Result: Success stories

Crowdfund to launch Academy

€15,000

Create and execute crowdfunding to setup the Academy: Students that become teachers in order to pass their storytelling, branding, and marketing skills to new ambassadors.

Target: Raise €50,000 Result: 3 teacher academy

TOTAL €95,000

Funds We Applied For

PREPARE FOR GROWTH & MEASURE IMPACT The third phase of our organization will be to consolidate our business model:

FINANCIAL SUSTAINABILITYIn order to create sustainable impact we must first manage to stand on our

own two feet financially. For this we need to raise the level of our services so

that the fees cover our operational costs. In this way we will stop being

dependent on funds.

And, then prepare to scale the impact in three areas:

IMPACT: PARTNER ORGANIZATIONSMotivate and support our ambassadors to setup social initiatives. Measuring

impact as the quantity and quality of successful ambassador initiatives.

IMPACT: YOUTH ENGAGEMENTIntroduce after school storytelling activities for kids. Teaching them valuable

skills, creating impact by raising awareness about the importance of diversity

at a younger age.

IMPACT: THE ACADEMYCreate a top level Communications Academy for all. In which our

ambassadors teach storytelling and personal branding. Measuring impact as

the amount of participants and the success stories they share.

After all, if you are a person looking to become a communication expert, what better way than in

the deep end, surrounded by a diverse group of people:

Enriching one another with different cultural perspectives, creating your own stories to share and raise

awareness around the importance of diversity in The Netherlands.

Phase 3: Impact Growth