Guidance on search engine optimisation (SEO), otherwise known as making websites easier to find, has been produced for charities by the Internet Advertising Bureau, the trade body for digital marketing. The ‘Search Toolkit for Charities and Public Sector’ includes an Oxfam case study and can be found via For access to the toolkit click here. (From Third Sector, http://www.thirdsector.co.uk/news/1023411/)
Things are moving quickly in the world of social interaction. As an organisation that relies on people in the community, SDVS need to keep up to date and ride the wave of progress, else risking drowning under it.
SCIO Training are testing the waters so to speak (I’ll stop with the ocean related puns now, I promise) with our branching out online; acquiring a Facebook page, Twitter account and Wordpress blog to help get our objectives out to more people than ever, as well as linking up with Stafford Direct’s community participation in the Race Online initiative.
This is partly an experiment too; we’re looking to see exactly how much of a difference an increased online presence will have in our work. In theory, extra publicity will lead into greater uptake of our services: the more that know what we do, the better we can market to potential clients.
One fear is that this is could be offset by the amount of effort per client – the path of least resistance is great if it’s also the most effective path. So we are balancing pros and cons to decide on the most efficient strategy, simultaneously reducing the risk of wasted time.
Working together is the best way forward. Thankfully we’re not going into this alone, with support from Social Media Surgeries and Stafford Direct, ICT Champions and our own people, SCIO Training is confidently breaking new ground in the social theatre.
Once we have established some of the needs of voluntary and community groups, SCIO Training intends to offer training in use of Social Media, both its relevance and how to best use the many tools available. Watch “Headlines” and the SCIO Training mailings/blog for details of these. And, if there’s enough interest, SCIO Training will offer inexpensive help and consultancy on your use of Social Media.
Links
http://stafforddirect.ning.com
http://sciotraining.wordpress.com
http://www.sdvs.org.uk/?q=why-not-social-media
Social media can be useful to your organisation… but how useful? For what? What tangible results are people seeing from it? Created in partnership with the New Organizing Institute, the Decision Guide walks you through a step-by-step process to decide what social media channels make sense for your organisation via a workbook, guide, and the results of more than six months of research. And through the included Consultant Directory, you can find a professional to help define and implement your strategy.
The Decision Guide walks through:
Created in partnership with 
Many thanks to Trellon for their leadership support of the report.
One million and going strong … Here’s your chance to WIN up to £50k worth of Google Adwords Advertising & an iPod Touch
KnowHow NonProfit is the UK’s leading website for non profit people to learn, train and get expert advice on all aspects of working in a non profit organisation. The website is on the verge of achieving their one millionth page view and KnowHow NonProfit are excited to announce the launch of a national competition to celebrate this impressive milestone. click here to enter competition
The two great prizes are:
– an iPod touch (if you enter as an individual) – kindly donated by Tennyson Insurance
- up to an amazing £50,000 worth of Google Adwords Advertising for your website (if you enter as an non-profit organisation, with a Charity number) – kindly arranged by leading search marketing specialists Sitelynx Ltd
All entrants need to do is LOG-IN and guess which day the KnowHow NonProfit website will achieve its one millionth page view?
They must also give the correct answer to the following question: KnowHow NonProfit is affiliated with which academic institution?
To give entrants a helping hand, as of close of play Wednesday 12th August, KnowHow NonProfit had received 927,910 page views since officially launching on April 1st 2009.
The KnowHow NonProfit website is currently getting between 2,000 – 3,000 visitors per day.
All those who guess the correct (or nearest to correct) day that KnowHow NonProfit reaches its one millionth page view AND give the correct answer to the general knowledge question,will go into a prize draw to determine who wins the prizes.
If no one guesses the right day, the winner will be the closest one to it. The competition is open to anyone working or volunteering in the non-profit sector.
Win free help for your organisation’s website, email newsletters, tone of voice or digital strategy in our competition this summer, in partnership with digital content agency Sticky Content.
What’s on offer
For your project, you could choose to ask for help with:
Writing and editing… content for your website
Advice…
Are you eligible?
You can apply to win the free project if…
You also need to be happy for Media Trust and Sticky Content to:
Apply now
Make the case for your project
Just give a few details to apply for free expert help with your web content – it takes around 10 minutes.
Deadline: 15/8/10
More about Sticky Content
More about our training and events
are offering an Advice and Information Management System database (AIMS Free) to all small community groups and third sector organisations across the UK, to help them deliver their services more efficiently and cost effectively in challenging times.
Last year the AIMS Free package was made available to all voluntary and community sector groups and over 700 groups have downloaded the software to-date.
AIMS Free is simple to use and contains everything needed to start capturing details of clients and outcomes. From a survey taken of AIMS Free users 60% of respondents said that they found the package ‘very helpful’, and 100% said that they would recommend it to other potential users.
Neal Heuchan, Senior Officer for the Newcastle City Council Welfare Rights Service, has been using AIMS for over ten years; he said: “It’s a great system, easy to use, helps with the case work, and has really useful reports. It’s halved the time I spent collating information for management reports”.
There is also a paid for version of the AIMS software. Like AIMS Free, this version comes with extensive guides and support materials, but also includes a full support contract, tutorials, and training courses held throughout the year. Details about the package and instructions on how to download and install AIMS Free can be found at www.lasa.org.uk/aims.
2009 was dubbed “the year of Twitter” by the media and Facebook claims 20 million users in the UK. It’s getting hard for even die-hard technophobes to argue that social media is a flash in the pan that won’t impact on the way that we work. Capacitybuilders funds two organisations working at a national level to help support providers in this area.The Marketing and Communication work is led by the Media Trust, and funded through Capacitybuilders’ National Support Service programme. The ICT Champions network is led by the National Association for Voluntary and Community Action (NAVCA), and funded through Capacitybuilders’ National Priorities programme.
Think of the organisation not the tools
“The big issue is that organisations need to understand the tools (like Facebook and Twitter) well enough to make good decisions about the best one to use,” says Julie. “They need to understand their business’s objectives and what the tools can do before they leap in. Step back, understand what the organisation needs then find the tool for the job.”
The result is a practical social media guide to help voluntary sector organisations establish if social media tools might be useful.
Social Media and Charities in 2020.
BrightOne and CharityComms have put together a fascinating report on the possibilities for online “ideas, innovation and inspiration in the next decade”. This Slideshare presentation features input from 20 leading charities exploring the possibilities for online communications in the next 10 years. It also serves as an inspiration and reminder to make the most of the current range of web tools. If you’ve an active interest in developing your online message or even a spare 5 minutes click here to see what the future of charity communications may hold.
Yes, yes, even we know that Iwade is in Kent, not Staffordshire, but here’s an interesting story about what the Kent village did to overcome rural Broadband issues – they obtained a grant to help pay for the extension of fibre from a telephone exchange.
Is this a model that rural Staffordshire could learn from?
Q: How can we find out whether our website is accessible to all users? And what can we do if it isn’t?
A: For most small third sector organisations, it’s enough of a challenge to create and maintain an up-to-date website, even without considering the possibility that they might inadvertently have excluded people with disabilities from accessing the content. If, however, you have reservations about your charity in this respect, you are not alone.
Choose any website at random and the chances are it will present significant barriers to accessibility. Images might be missing the labels that are so vital for blind users. Text might be ‘hard-coded’, preventing any modification of font size or style for greater readability. Navigation might be restricted exclusively to those using a mouse. The pitfalls are numerous.
Accessible websites should have several features. Ideally, they need to have an uncluttered and consistent layout with simple language, and the colour scheme, text size and screen resolution should be easy to change.
You should also look at the main technologies that help users with disabilities, such as screen reading and voice-recognition software, and ensure your website is compatible with them. In addition, look at the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines 2.0. Your website should conform with these. If in doubt, try the free automated assessment offered by our parent organisation, AbilityNet. It’s available at www.abilitynet.org.uk/freeaccessscan.
- Anne Stafford is programme manager at iT4Communities. Send questions to questions@it4communities.org.uk
Stafford Direct – Stafford is Stronger Together – the community website that brings together local Stafford people and organisations is holding an open event about SOCIAL MEDIA at Postgraduate Centre, Stafford Hospital, Weston Road, Stafford.
Connecting Stafford Event comp.doc
Tuesday 27th July from 3pm to 7pm (drop-in session).
Hear Presentation at 3.15 by Will Perrin –From “Talk about local”
Get Free advice from people who know what tools the internet can offer us.
in the next few years everyone will be on line
Why wait – Lets get Stafford talking on line now.
Help make it happen!
You know that SDVS go on about social media all the time and that it’s our intention to convert you all… but we’re pleased to see that we’re not the only ones.
For more details go to the Stafford Direct website: http://stafforddirect.ning.com/ or contact the organiser, Diana Smith diana.m.smith@talk21.com
Charities must make sites more accessible, Institute of Fundraising National Convention is told
Users of charity websites fail to find the information they want on 60 per cent of visits, according to research by consultancy firm Think.
The study, presented at the Institute of Fundraising’s National Convention in London yesterday, also showed that 47 per cent of those who visited the Great Ormond Street Hospital website to make a donation did not complete the process.
Nick Burne, a new media consultant at Think and presenter of the research, said charities must make their websites easier to use for supporters and potential donors.
“Simplifying websites can lead to huge increases in the proportion of visitors to the site that go on to make donations,” he said.
“A lot of people who have a bad user experience of a particular website will never visit that site again.”
For more information about the report click on Think above.
Alcatel-Lucent today announced that NSPCC, the UK’s leading charity specialising in child protection and the prevention of cruelty to children, has widened its reach to thousands more children, young people and adults through a new expanded system of communication channels. Utilising the Alcatel-Lucent Genesys solution, the NSPCC can – for the first time – communicate via email, SMS and web chat to interact with children and young people in need across the UK. In just 10 months, the system has enabled the NSPCC to engage in over 50,000 web interactions and increase the number of phone interactions for its helplines by 24 per cent.
The NSPCC has created an advanced system that routes all interactions, both web and phone based, through one central communications system. The key driver behind the ‘Helplines Development Programme’ was to allow all potential users of the services to communicate via their preferred channel of contact. Many children today are more comfortable using the web, e-mail, SMS, or instant messaging than they are picking up the phone.
"The nature of our work makes us unique, and yet we still have similar business needs like any other contact center: we needed to optimise resources, reduce costs and continually increase service levels, while keeping privacy top of mind — and we’re doing just that," commented Phil Reed, Chief Information Officer, NSPCC. "The Genesys platform provides the reach and the flexibility we needed and enables us to route all calls, e-mails and web interactions on one system to ensure consistency for all users of the service. With an improved infrastructure, we can fully monitor and optimise the service across all channels, making the most of our resources."
As part of the project, the NSPCC has invested heavily in new online tools to make its website a more user friendly place for children and young people – including an integrated chat function that enables website users to connect directly to a counsellor. And because certain users find it easier to express themselves in writing or pictures rather than to talk to a counsellor on the phone, the NSPCC also added interactive white boards, which allow users to write or draw pictures on the virtual board – which the NSPCC has found helps many children express themselves more easily, especially where serious issues are concerned.
"Adding these new functions has enabled more children, young people, and adults to feel comfortable talking to us. For the period of May 2009 to March 2010, we have had 40,500 one-to-one chats between children and counsellors and have answered over 14,000 Personal Inbox messages, an email service which allows users their own private area on the website. We have also seen an increase in the number of boys contacting ChildLine," Phil Reed continued.
By Ben Cook, Third Sector Online, 3 June 2010
Mylastsong.com will include ideas for fundraising at memorial parties
A website that encourages people to leave legacies to charity and use their funerals to raise money for good causes has gone live.
The site, mylastsong.com, includes a section on leaving legacies as well as guidance on preparing wills.
It asks funeral-goers to make donations rather than buying flowers, or to auction the deceased’s possessions at memorial parties.
The site also includes a ‘charity of the month’ page, which gives charities the opportunity to highlight their work and explain why they need donations. The first organisation featured in this section is Diabetes UK.
Visitors to the site get access to a ‘vault’ – a secure online storage facility where they can store their funeral wishes, information needed by their families and executors, their life stories and personal details for future generations to access. Subscriptions to the vault cost £15 per year.
Paul Hensby, founder of the site, used to work for the former lottery distributor, the Community Fund. He said: "The site encourages people to make wills – about 60 to 70 per cent of people die intestate – and to continue their support for charities by leaving legacy donations."
www.calendarcheck.co.uk is a new website designed to help organisers plan their events more effectively and boost fundraising potential by avoiding clashes with other high profile occasions.
Organisers can search for competing charitable events and, having selected the perfect date, can simply upload details of their own event for free. Calendar Check also offers a means of directly communicating with supporters and creating greater awareness for their fundraising efforts.
Billed as the ‘who, what, where and when’ of charity events, more than 20 of the UK’s major charities have already endorsed Calendar Check prior to its launch, including Cancer Research UK, the British Red Cross, NSPCC, Breakthrough Breast Cancer and the Royal National Institute for the Blind.
Nick Wayne from Calendar Check said,
“The whole idea came from the number of times I have attended charitable committee meetings which have ground to a halt because no-one could decide on a date. And even once a date has been agreed, there was no effective way of finding out whether it would be in competition with another event which would dilute the potential uptake of tickets and attendance.
“Naturally the more events there are on the site the more effective and useful the website becomes. That is why we want as many charities as possible to upload their details now before we go fully operational when we launch in May.”
Events can be searched by date range, charity and type both nationally and by region. In addition to helping fix dates and avoid clashes, there are a number of other invaluable benefits the website will soon provide for charities, such as an online directory of services and product suppliers which will be regionalised to tie in with events in particular locations and postcode areas.
Calendar Check has already been welcomed by a large number of leading charities.
West Midlands Faiths Forum’s new and improved, interactive member-focused website www.wmfaithsforum.org.uk has been relaunched
This exciting new development will play a significant role in bridging communication between regional faith communities. The redesigned website offers a fresh new look that technically provides its online visitors with significant enhancements in navigation and easier accessibility for users with disabilities.
West Midlands Faiths Forum’s Interim Co Chair, Harish Dhokia JP says, “Unlimited access to timely, detailed faith based information is becoming more important for our members, faith based organisations and partner agencies. We are dedicated to providing quality information on research policies, opportunities and positive regional and national inter faith news.”
With a modern and clean design, the WMFF website consists of a bright Faith Youth Zone section, a photo gallery and an up to date calendar of events alongside an extensive digital database of inter faith groups from across the region.
The online resource is a reflection of WMFF’s vision of member-centred, high quality inter faith work in the West Midlands. It will be a platform presenting diverse faith perspectives, offering an insight into different religious views and practices, serving as a tool to increase awareness.
Since its inception in 2003, WMFF has experienced exceptional growth in both its policy influence and membership. Today, the new website reflects the dynamism and breadth of WMFF, charting its progress within the region.
Harish Dhokia further says, “The launch of our new website marks a new direction for WMFF – one that will reinforce our position as a key source of faith based information. Our members and their needs are vital to us; this website reflects our commitment to keeping our members and partners up to date with current information that supports their work and goals.”
For more information contact Selina Brown, Executive Communications Officer on:
Telephone: 0121 678 8840 Email: s.brown@wmfaithsforum.org.uk