It's been a big year for Mums & Co on the awards front. With a nomination as a finalist in the Social Media Marketing Institute Awards #SMMA2020 and taking out a Bronze Stevie Award!

The Stevie Award

Mums & Co is thrilled to announce that we were recognised for social media innovation for our Mums & CoVID-19 Taskforce by being awarded a Bronze Stevie Award!

The award was recognising the best use of social media for COVID-19 related information and was given as a result of the development of our AI-driven chatbot giving Australian small business owning mother's access to anytime, anywhere business content and resources, to help them through the crisis. 

The Stevie Awards are International Business Awards for Women in Business. 

Both award nominations are significant recognition for the hard work we did to support our community through the COVID-19 crisis. Mums & Co was one of the first businesswomen’s communities to respond by bringing together 18 experts to help 300 Australian female founders, sole traders, freelancers and small business owning mums – the group that was hit the hardest by what they’re now calling the COVID ‘pink recession’.

“This award win and finalist position is significant recognition for the hard work we did to support our community through the COVID-19 crisis. Mums & Co was one of the first businesswomen’s communities to respond by bringing together 18 experts to help 300 Australian female founders, sole traders, freelancers and small business owning mums – the group that was hit the hardest by what they’re now calling the COVID ‘pink recession’.

Mums & Co’s purpose is to harmonise #mumbition, livelihood and wellbeing. With COVID and the pink recession hitting our business owning mums harder than most, we knew that it was a huge opportunity to do something practical and show how deeply we care about our community. We are just so delighted Mums & Co has achieved this global recognition." Mums & Co Co-Founder Carrie Kwan

As a team that has been working exclusively remotely for the last seven months, this achievement is testament to the success of remote work, proving that you can still deliver a major initiative, win a global award and be nominated for an Australian award all working in a distributed team!

The Social Media Marketing Award

Later on that week the Mums & Co team - all in spirit and in person represented by Co Founder and Managing Director Carrie Kwan, newest member of the team and Chief of Staff Sarah Nelson and Digital Brand Advisor Aoife O’Connell gathered in Sydney in person (the excitement!) on Thursday evening 9 October for the Social Media Marketing Award Ceremony.

Mums & Co took the #SMMA2020 theme of “Hollywood at Home” seriously getting all glammed up for the night and ventured out to the private dining room of the Charing Cross Hotel in Waverley. After seven months of hibernating, working from home the team made the most of the opportunity of catching up (i.e chatted, laughed, challenged, guided and thanked) almost non stop from 6pm - 11:15pm - which is a big night out for us mamas! Conversation covered travelling, work, business, life, love, marriage, babies and feminism. We ate pumpkin arancini, tuna crudo, salt and pepper squid, asparagus gnocchi, barramundi on wild rice and a salad, shared the banoffee pudding and chocolate mousse desert, and, of course, enjoyed a bottle of champagne!  This year's awards night was virtual so the team chose the Charing Cross Hotel with a fabulous and suitably art deco private dining room which tied in with the Hollywood theme.

We loved being together again, on behalf of the whole team and growing national movement of business owning mums. It reminded us of just how much we are grateful for working with these awesome, talented, kind, powerful people and appreciating the laughs, honesty and celebrating.

We learned that you can do anything with remote, physically distributed teams. But also that occasionally it is very special to have a milestone occasion to look forward to coming together in person  to share learnings and celebrate success. We learned that kind and smart women helping other kind and smart women can do anything!

Congratulations to all #SMMA2020 and the winners, especially our supporter IAG, who took out the main prize in our category.

Thanks go to

‍
To the Stevie Award and Social Media Marketing Institute organisers, judges and finalists. 

Thank you for the ongoing support of IAG, Australia’s largest general insurer a company that has a strong focus on providing flexibility for working parents and making the world a safer place.

Thank you to our chatbot creator - Aoife O’Connell from Yarnly.AI for building the tech and submitting the awards. Thank you to Angela Kim, Women in AI for introducing us to Aoife! If you're’ reading this and have questions on how to submit an award or build a chatbot or what AI even means, both Aoife and Angela are available for 30 minute 1:1 expert sessions for members of Mums & Co members - sign up and book here!‍

Thank you to you! The 300 Australian female founders, sole traders, freelancers and small business owning mums for accessing and utilising all resources provided by the Mums & CoVID19 Taskforce.

Thank you to the Charing Cross Hotel for generously extending the private dining room enabling us to watch the livestream awards, glass of champagne in hand!

And finally a very big and special thanks to our & Co - the village behind making a night out happen! To our partners, husbands, hairdressers, dry cleaners and families for loaning earrings, cooking dinner and letting us be the glam squad and celebrate our success.

More on the Mums & COVID-19 Taskforce and award winning chatbot

The Mums & COVID-19 taskforce included 18 experts across a range of industries who dropped everything to donate their time to assist Mums & Co’s community of business mums to navigate the immediate challenges of operating a business and managing family commitments during COVID-19.  

The taskforce experts created a suite of 15 free webinars, insight articles with immediately actionable advice, dedicated 1:1 sessions and group ‘office hours’ advice sessions and a specially created AI driven chatbot.

All of this was underpinned by ongoing complimentary access to Mums & Co Membership and benefits (valid to end Financial Year 30 June 2020) to help women navigate everything from home-schooling while running a business from home, to understanding the employer obligations and legalities around JobKeeper. 

To see the Mums & Co Covid19 campaign, click here.

‍

We’re here to support you and we’re stronger together. Join the Mums & Co movement here and get your business exposure in our Member Directory. Join us here.