03/11/2026
When two staff members from Give a Child a Family (GCF) joined the DGMT Innovation Fellowship in 2020, the organisation was already questioning how it could respond to a changing child protection sector and prepare for its future. Their Innovation Question asked: “How do we create ‘agile’ leadership and adaptable structures in order to meet the needs of our organisation and the sector within which it operates in the future?” This article draws on a conversation with Monica Woodhouse, GCF’s founder and former Executive Director.
The question became particularly relevant as GCF navigated the disruption of COVID 19 alongside a longer term transformation of its approach to caring for children. The organisation was moving away from residential care towards family and community based care, a shift that required more than changes to programmes. It also called for staff to rethink their roles, leadership to work differently and the organisation to develop its ability to respond to uncertainty.
GCF’s experience offers an important lesson about organisational innovation: sustaining change requires more than introducing new ideas. It requires creating the conditions for people to understand change, participate in it and continue adapting as circumstances evolve.
Preparing for change
The foundations for GCF’s transformation were laid before the Fellowship began. In its 2018 strategic planning, the organisation had started questioning established approaches to child protection and residential care, asking whether existing systems were meeting children’s needs and whether more sustainable alternatives could help children grow up in safe, secure and loving families.
For Monica Woodhouse, preparing the organisation for the future also meant preparing its people. As she considered the organisation’s leadership transition, she wanted to create opportunities for younger people and younger voices while ensuring that GCF could continue its work and uphold its values.
The Fellows’ Innovation Question reflected these wider concerns. Rather than focusing solely on developing a new programme, their work explored how the organisation could become more adaptable in the way it led, communicated and worked together.
Despite the disruption caused by COVID 19, Monica and the executive leadership team created opportunities for the Fellows to share their learning, facilitate discussions and engage with staff. They held discussions and interviews, explored the organisation’s work and brought fresh perspectives to the challenges GCF was navigating.
Monica recalls that these engagements provided a welcome opportunity for learning during an uncertain period. They also gave staff opportunities to discuss what was changing and how they could respond. As she explained, the Fellows’ work “helped with the adaptation of the situation we were in at the time.”
The Fellowship was therefore taking place alongside a wider organisational transformation. GCF had already begun questioning its established approaches, while the Fellows’ involvement helped reinforce the importance of learning, communication and openness to change.
Making adaptability part of everyday work
For GCF, agile leadership did not mean introducing a new formal management structure. It meant changing the organisational culture and creating more opportunities for staff to participate in the transformation.
The organisation introduced regular opportunities for communication, reflection and shared learning. Weekly staff meetings provided space to discuss changes and raise questions. Team building and practical activities helped staff explore adaptability, teamwork and shared responsibility. Staff also participated in webinars facilitated by a funder, which focused on organisational change and navigating uncertainty.
One activity invited staff to paint pictures representing the work they did in their respective departments. This gave them an opportunity to reflect on their responsibilities, recognise the value of their contributions and consider how their work connected to GCF’s broader vision.
These activities were part of a deliberate effort to help staff understand not only what was changing, but why the changes were necessary and how they could contribute. As Monica explained, leadership could not simply drive change and communicate decisions downwards. Staff needed to be part of the journey.
“You cannot successfully transform an organisation without investing in the transformation of its people,” she reflected.
This approach was particularly important as GCF reconsidered its model of care. Moving away from residential care towards family and community based alternatives required staff to rethink established practices and understand their responsibilities within a different approach to supporting children and families.
Leadership, in this context, became less about directing change from the top and more about building trust, communicating openly and enabling people to participate in the organisation’s future. The aim was not simply to change how GCF worked, but also how its people understood their roles and responsibilities within the wider child protection system.
Responding to uncertainty
COVID 19 tested GCF’s ability to adapt, the restrictions disrupted its usual ways of working with communities, while families faced growing needs for information and practical support.
In response, GCF developed a social relief programme and Help Desk with contributions from its innovation team, senior management and IT. Working with COVID Collect, the organisation assessed people’s needs against household criteria. Partnerships with Shoprite and Boxer enabled beneficiaries to receive voucher numbers and collect food themselves.
The response assisted approximately 1,300 people. It also reflected GCF’s commitment to dignity by allowing people to collect what they needed themselves.
The Help Desk received a runner up prize from Nedbank and continued beyond the immediate pandemic response. Over time, it developed into a broader service through which community members could seek assistance, navigate systems, access services and address practical challenges affecting their families. It has continued to respond to different circumstances, including civil unrest, looting, natural disasters and the ongoing difficulties faced by vulnerable families.
The Help Desk is an example of GCF adapting its work in response to changing circumstances. It emerged from the organisation’s wider response to COVID 19 and community needs, rather than as a standalone project created by the Fellows. Their contribution formed part of a broader period of organisational learning, communication and adjustment.
The Fellows’ own development also demonstrated the importance of creating opportunities for people to grow into leadership. Monica recalls how one of the Fellows, became increasingly confident in working independently in communities, teaching children about personal safety and child protection, and speaking publicly about keeping children safe during a local radio interview.
For Monica, this was a particularly visible example of personal and professional growth. By giving the Fellow opportunities to take responsibility and represent the organisation, GCF saw her develop greater confidence in her own leadership abilities.
Her experience illustrates how organisational adaptability also depends on investing in people. When staff are trusted with responsibility and supported to develop their skills, they can contribute in new ways to the organisation’s work and its relationships with communities.
What happens when the people leave?
Both Fellows eventually left GCF, but Monica says their departure did not bring an end to the organisation’s learning or its willingness to adapt. She attributes this continuity partly to the fact that staff had been included in the process and kept informed about what was happening. An important question for any organisational innovation is whether it can continue when the people who helped develop or champion it move on, did the innovation process stay with all who were a part of it? Did they adopt it and how do you do that ?
“We had brought them[all staff] into all of this,” Monica explained.
The organisation’s approach had created opportunities for learning and participation beyond the Fellows themselves. Communication continued, staff remained involved in organisational processes, and the Help Desk continued to develop in response to community needs.
This suggests that sustaining innovation is not simply a matter of retaining a particular idea or individual. It also depends on whether an organisation builds shared understanding and creates opportunities for people to continue contributing as circumstances change.
GCF’s experience also shows that the process of adapting does not end when a particular challenge has passed. Its transition towards family and community-based care continued beyond the Fellowship, requiring changes to how the organisation understood care, supported families and positioned itself within the wider child protection system.
The Fellowship did not initiate this transformation on its own. GCF had been laying the groundwork through strategic planning and organisational learning as well as a culture of the organisation where this can be easier before the Fellows arrived. However, Monica believes their involvement reinforced the leadership development, learning and openness to change that helped the organisation navigate this period.
An ongoing practice of change
The organisation continued to experience significant changes after the pandemic. Monica recalls the riots and looting that affected the area in 2021, followed by floods that created further challenges. GCF also continued its transformation of care, eventually stopping admissions of children to its centre and developing emergency family based care.
These changes required the organisation to keep reconsidering how it worked and how it could respond to changing needs. They were not simply a continuation of the circumstances that existed when the Fellows joined the Fellowship. Rather, they reflected a longer process of questioning established approaches and adapting the organisation’s work to its evolving context.
For Monica, the experience of innovation during the Fellowship period had a lasting influence on how GCF approached change.
“The innovation was created by being willing to change and look at new ways of doing things, and it has had a definite ripple effect over the years,” she said.
Her understanding of innovation is closely connected to adaptability. Rather than treating innovation as a single intervention that remains unchanged, she describes it as an ongoing willingness to reconsider existing approaches and respond differently when circumstances require it.
She also cautions against rejecting an idea simply because something similar has been attempted before.
“It doesn't matter if you tried it 10 years ago, try it again. Because it might now be the right time to try it.”
For Monica, the circumstances in which an idea is introduced also matters. An approach that did not work previously may become useful when conditions change, or a different person may find another way of applying it. This willingness to revisit ideas is particularly relevant for organisations working in complex environments, where needs and circumstances can change in ways that are difficult to predict.
Leadership is adaptability
GCF’s experience suggests that sustaining innovation is not necessarily about preserving one idea in exactly the form in which it was first developed. It is about creating an organisation that can continue learning, involve its people in finding solutions and adapt those solutions as its circumstances change.
The Fellows were given opportunities to explore new approaches and share their learning, while staff were brought into the wider process of organisational change. When the Fellows left, GCF continued to work through new challenges, adapt existing approaches and develop new ones. Its experience demonstrates how individual learning can contribute to a wider organisational process when it is supported by communication, staff participation and a willingness to question established practices.
The Fellowship was one part of that wider journey. Its significance lay not only in the learning of the two Fellows, but also in how their involvement complemented an organisational transformation that had already begun and continued long after their participation.
Returning to the original Innovation Question, GCF’s experience suggests that agile leadership and adaptable structures are not necessarily created through formal restructuring alone. They can also develop through an organisational culture that encourages people to learn together, take responsibility, share ideas and respond to uncertainty.
For Monica, the principle is straightforward: “For me leadership is about adaptability.”
At GCF, this meant recognising that transformation had to involve the people responsible for carrying it forward. The organisation’s experience shows that while programmes, structures and individuals may change, a shared willingness to question established approaches, learn together and respond to emerging needs can help innovation continue over time.
