After a much-needed slow down over the festive season, our team is ramping up some exciting plans for Little Sparklers for 2020!

We have reached over $21,500 in our start-up fundraising campaign which is phenomenal and has meant that we are signed up to commence our website build with Joyful next month and we are aiming to have our fabulous platform up and offering quality, evidence-based and practical resources by mid-2020!

Our team is working hard to ensure we have the vision, future planning and groundwork needed to make the most of the professional support while we build our site.
We have assembled a writing and editing team for our new content stream that will ensure only top quality resources will be on our platform.

We see our site being the base from which we will build our standing for Little Sparklers.
It is also going to be our training platform for our volunteers.

Speaking of our volunteers, our team of peer-support moderators and admins for The Beyond Sleep Training Project has just expanded again and it is truly amazing to watch the support, mentoring and commitment given so freely by the existing people and the new faces.
It should be noted, that despite every one of our volunteers working around their own young families, the group was open and offering support around the clock during the festive period which is so stressful for many.
They are so dedicated to our community and they warm our hearts with their efforts every day (and night).
The group turned 3 years old this month and we now have 89,500+ members with us projected to reach 100k around April.

In other Little Sparklers news, we have some exciting research opportunities we are planning to partner in as well as some potential collaboration and corporate partnerships in the pipeline that we are working hard to bring to fruition.

Our grants team is honing their writing skills and we are hoping to get some rungs on the ladder in this area of funding this year.
Thanks to some of our generous supporters, we are also now signed up to two workplace giving platforms- Good2Give and Benevity which means that each donation made is matched by the donor’s employer, how awesome is that!

It’s important that we keep highlighting that none of our work comes for free (even if the service we offer is free of charge) ... everything has a cost. Including the costs to ensure that your donations are handled in an appropriate manner and though we strive to keep costs to a minimum and the overheads may not be particularly heartwarming or attractive to donors, they are 100% necessary.
Just as an example of this, we’ve recently had to cancel plans for a big fundraising event because right now, we cannot afford the thousands of dollars extra we needed to cover the increased insurance policies we needed. That’s the reality of a not-for-profit as with any business.

Meanwhile, we keep on slogging to bring the very real need for change in the way families are supported brought to the attention of those who need to hear it.
We continue to educate on the biological norms of our species, the value in nurturing our young ones and their families and the need for support to be able to do so in a sustainable and healthy manner for everyone.

We thank everyone for their ongoing support as we get Little Sparklers up and moving. The momentum is building and the tenacious team we have here is pushing hard to keep it on the up and up throughout 2020.

Keen to support our work? Donate here - https://www.littlesparklers.org/Appeal/little-sparklers-start-up-appeal

*All donations over $2 are tax-deductible for Australian tax residents