Stichting Babyspullen supports parents who are having financial difficulties. They donate baby starter packs to these families. These starter packs contain many of the essentials a child needs in their first two years, including clothing, bottles, diapers, hot water bottles, and care products. One of the core principles of the foundation is that every child deserves a fair start”.
Stichting Babyspullen was established 12.5 years ago and currently works with hundreds of volunteers. The volunteers collect items, sort them out and perform work at the foundation’s sorting and distribution centres. The primary goal of Stichting Babyspullen is poverty alleviation, but there is also a large focus on sustainability by re-using baby clothes and other items. Participation is also an important goal for the organisation: some of their volunteers have a distance to the labour market and through this work they get an opportunity to contribute their skills to an important cause.
“Pro Bono Connect was the ideal entry point for us to get our legal questions answered.”
Stichting Babyspullen is mainly run by volunteers. That is why it was important for the organisation to further develop themselves. One of their employees told us the following: “We have been working hard to professionalise our workflows. We started working on improving our HR department, having contracts checked periodically and safeguard certain processes within the organisation. This also led to a lot of legal issues and questions. Thanks to our large network of volunteers, we were put in touch with Pro Bono Connect. Pro Bono Connect was the ideal entry point for us to get our legal questions answered. At the time, I had drawn up a list of fifteen legal questions that we needed to work on. These questions were then distributed to a partnerfirm of Pro Bono Connect as a ‘package deal’ and the majority of our list has now been completed.”
To this day, Stichting Babyspullen continues to make use of pro bono assistance: “I really enjoyed the collaboration with Pro Bono Connect. What I like about the pro bono assistance is that the partner firms have legal expertise in many different areas. This way we gained access to specialist legal expertise that is up to date and accurate. Aside from this, the lawyers responded quickly: I spoke to them within a week after being matched by Pro Bono Connect and they started working on our case immediately. I specifically appreciate that the lawyers incorporated our perspective on issues very well. We wanted our employment contract to be formulated in a more friendly manner, not with too many complex legal terms, which the lawyers executed really well.”
“Receiving specialist legal help can strengthen a foundation.”
The employee of Stichting Babyspullen indicated that pro bono help can effectively support the work of social organizations: “Receiving specialist legal help can strengthen a foundation and thereby guarantee the continuity of the organisation. It offers a form of stability to have a specialist look in to our processes and receive an explanation of the consequences.”