Archive for the ‘digital’ Category
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Digital things that will rock your charity’s world in 2011
I’ve been catching up on various predictions for the charity sector in 2011 and thought I’d add a few of my own – all free to use, of course, in line with the current need for austerity, but genuinely valuable to organisations big and small.
1. Skype mobile video calling
As a former web content manager, I know that I would’ve cut off my own arm with a pen-knife to get hold of some decent video content from “the field” within a week of something happening. Now, Skype’s iphone app means that people can call your desk-top for free from anywhere in the world – and you can record the call and publish it to YouTube (or your site, or somewhere else) almost instantly.To me, this is so exciting that I felt a bit sick when I heard about it, and not just due to Christmas over-indulgence. It has the potential to open up a new world of virtual field-trips, video messages for donors, video blogs, instant vox-pops, citizen journalism… and it’s cheap.
Though there are some interesting projects going on in schools, I reckon the true potential of Skype to facilitate low-commitment, high-impact volunteering opportunities has yet to be fully explored and this app opens up even more possibilities.
2. Posterous
Do you know how to send an email? Yes? Then you can have a blog. For free. Without having to learn anything. Result!Posterous is the computerphobe’s dream. You literally send it an email, with a subject line and (if you like) a photo attached. You don’t need to remember a password to post by email – it will recognise your email address and do all of the hard work for you.
3. Simple CRB
This is still in development, but if they can pull it off (and I think they will), this might be a real, not-just-talk-but-action step forward in the quest to cut paperwork, free up time and still keep people safe. Imagine!
Simple CRB aims to develop a cheaper, quicker and more effective CRB service for charities and voluntary organisations. It will be run on a not-for-profit basis.
Sounds too good to be true? Help to make it happen by giving your views about how much the current system costs you in time and money and how you’d like to see it improved by filling in a short survey (guaranteed to be simpler than filling in a CRB form).
4. Ecomodo
Need stuff or a venue but got no money? Borrow it instead. I think 2011 will be the year when we all realise how much stuff there is festering in cupboards that could be put to good use. Apparently, electric drills only get used for 12-15 minutes in their lifetime, but 50% of homes have them – by pooling our resources, we can all reduce waste and make money go further.Ecomodo helps you to lend out the stuff you don’t want, and borrow the stuff you do. You can also set up private lending circles so, for example, your volunteers could share equipment or your supporters could share fundraising resources – I mean, how many sets of bingo balls can the world possibly need? Best of all, it’s a chance to meet new people and help them out – and anyone who volunteers knows how good that feels.
5. Monitoring & evaluation 2.0: quick, long-term and mobile
OK, so this doesn’t exactly exist yet, but surely it must be on its way, and if not, I’ll have to make it myself. Surely 2011 is the year when use digital technology to get rid of boring things like monitoring paperwork.Here is the story so far. In 2010, Mappiness proved how mobile phones can be used to map individual’s well-being over time, and new thinking about the promotion of national well-being inspired everyone from our friends Justin and Paul to the Prime Minister.
Meanwhile, research published by v, NatCen and Birkbeck made the case for more research on the long-term impact of volunteering, and v tested the effectiveness of sending surveys directly to participants, rather than expecting project workers to collect and compile data.
It seems to me that if you mashed all of these ideas together, you could cut paperwork and get better, more interesting and more relevant data about the impact of volunteering programmes – not just at the end of a project but over time. And if participants could see value from providing this data too, like they do in the Mappiness app or the million Facebook quizzes my niece spams me with on a regular basis, you’d be onto a winner. In fact, if I get a minute, I think I’ll make this my project of 2011.
Over to you
So there you have it – my tips for 2011, and I didn’t even use it as an excuse to plug vinspired (which, since you ask, is free to use and here to stay). Now it’s your turn – tell me what I missed!
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Do Something, technology and social activism: a Q&A with Melanie Stevenson
We recently had the pleasure of meeting Melanie Stevenson, responsible for business development for premier US charity Do Something, whilst on her sabbatical, visiting London. With the largest national database of volunteer opportunities for teens, Do Something have been a truly instrumental force in helping change the face of social activism in the USA, inspiring millions of young people to engage with and take an active role within their communities.We caught up with Melanie to find out more about her role at Do Something alongside global attitudes towards social activism amongst young people…
It’s clear from the popularity of Do Something that young people in America are very socially conscious and proactive when it comes to volunteering. Have you seen any particular trends emerge over recent years? If so, to what extend do you feel trends have been influenced by wider political and social changes?
You’re right, teens in America are passionate about giving back. 1.2 Million of them will take action through DoSomething.org’s programs this year. Next year, we anticipate 2 Million Do’ers to activate through our programs.Some trends we’ve noticed are:
- Customisation – This is the ‘Starbucks generation’ (think grande java chip frappucino with whip no drizzle). Young people today expect volunteer opportunities to fit their personalities and lifestyles. Whether they have a minute or a year, whether they care about global human rights or the environment, they should have opportunities to give back. It’s our job to make it easy to find them.
- Self-Starting – Young people are more likely than ever to see a problem, plan a project, and take action. They’re opting for direct activation over traditional “volunteerism” which is a more scheduled and structured experience. A few tips and resources help them get started, but they’re truly becoming “social entrepreneurs”.
- Social Shopping – Not only does a brand have to be cool and functional to win a young person’s heart – it has to have heart itself. 89% of young people today will switch brand loyalty based on cause association. Where they spend their money is part of how they live responsibly.
Young people today grew up online, where they can find exactly what they’re looking for whenever they want. In an instant they can create a customized pair of sneakers, find any “how to” guide you can imagine, and dig up dirt about a store at their local mall. These trends are direct responses to the power of online.
You mention ‘the power of online’ – to what extent do you feel developments in technology and social media have aided awareness of volunteering and social causes? Are there any particular technological developments or innovative social media campaigns that have inspired you?
Developments in technology have absolutely magnified the power of volunteering and social good. The single best way for a young person to find out about something is from a friend. And social media has turned that peer-to-peer conversation into a public forum!One of our most exciting social media programs was a recent campaign called Make Art. Save Art.
Art is being cut from US schools every day. We asked young people to create and share works of art as advocacy messages for arts education. The designs were shared over 350,000 times on Facebook and Twitter, and posted over 1,000 times on senators’ Facebook fan pages!The technology we’re most focused on here at DoSomething.org is mobile. The average teen sends over 100 text messages per day with a 100% open rate! It’s their preferred method of communication and their phones are by their side at all times. We’re working actively to deliver our programs more and more via mobile, and reward young people for their participation.
You’ve had the opportunity to travel and meet other youth volunteering agencies around the world. Have opinions towards volunteering and social activism differed? Have any particular organisations or individual stories inspired you?
My recent travel to Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, and England were such an inspiration! Each country has a unique perspective on the world of social activism. History, culture, politics, economy and even geography all play into how passionate the population is about social change, and how willing or able they are to take action. Everyone I met inspired me and challenged my perspective in some way. I was particularly inspired by the way the v20 are at the core of everything v does. We have an incredible Youth Advisory Council at DoSomething.org, but it challenged me to think of even more ways to collaborate with them and celebrate their accomplishments. -
Is it time for charities to forget advertising and provide useful services instead?
I recently sat on a panel alongside Scott Burnett of LoveLife, South Africa’s largest HIV initiative for young people. We were there to talk about digital innovation in international youth service programmes, and I found myself in the surprising position of being massively impressed by a WAP site called MYMsta.OK, stay with me here… WAP is the ideal way to reach young people in South Africa, where only around 10% of the population has access to the internet, but 75% of young people have a cell phone. What’s more, instant messaging via a mobile-based social network can massively undercut the cost of text messaging, giving it instant appeal for the youth market.
MYMsta (“Make-Your-Move-sta” – named by the youth so you’re not supposed to get it) is a mobile social network with a difference, seeking to connect the youth to their peers, but also to deliver positive health messages to its users. In short, why pay to advertise on other people’s communication channels if you can deliver a service yourself, and in doing so win the loyalty of your target audience by saving them money? And what better place to offer sexual health advice on demand than on a mobile phone, where dates are arranged and hearts broken?
Here in the UK, the popularity of Blyk shows that many young people are prepared to accept advertising messages on their mobile in exchange for a free mobile contract, but while there are a few apps using the “provide useful unrelated service in order to deliver important messages” logic (MacMillan’s find a coffee shop app, for example), I’m not aware of charities embracing the concept in a big way. (If you are, I’d love to hear about it.)
I’m hugely excited by the prospect of a social network service, which genuinely benefits the target audience, run by a charity whose mission is to help ensure a generation of complete, creative and connected youth who have the tools to stay HIV free. So I’ll be watching their progress with interest, and just a little bit of jealousy.
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Orange bids to bring mobile volunteering to the UK
Since vinspired.com 2.0 was a mere glint in an eye, the digital team at v has been keen to bring the service direct to mobiles. Already, around 2% of our traffic comes from mobiles, and recent IAB research shows that 44% of 16-24 year olds have checked their social media profiles through their phones. As most volunteering still happens in the real world, rather than online, it makes sense to give young people the chance to record their volunteering while they’re doing it, to inspire others and to get recognition for what they do. I recently registered as an iPhone developer, and plans for our first app are well underway.
We’ve also explored the concept of micro-volunteering as a way to encourage people to take their first steps towards giving their time, inspired by campaigning communities such as Oxfam’s Protect the Human, which promotes actions according to time taken. vinspired’s Festive Favours Advent Calendar featured quick and easy ways to show a bit of festive spirit, and we’ve been excitedly watching the evolution of The Extraordinaries micro-volunteering network, especially during the Haiti crisis.
The future’s mobile…
So, when Orange launched a mobile volunteering community, we jumped straight in. The company caused waves in the UK when they teamed up with Rockcorps to launch incentives for volunteers, a controversial move which has successfully delivered volunteering messages to large audiences through high-profile ad campaigns.
The problem with Orange Rockcorps, of course, is that it has limited scale – you can only fit so many people into one venue, and without “owning” further volunteering programmes, or a menu of opportunities, its expensive and difficult to extend the volunteering offer. So (in addition to the obvious product placement) it makes sense for them to create a mobile app to inspire their community of customers to work together to do good. Together with T-Mobile, they say they’ll have more customers than there are people in Canada – so it’s fair to say that a little time from just a percentage of them could go a long way.
The Orange mobile volunteering site
So what’s in it for charities?
Well, Orange is promising to add the best 10 ideas for mobile volunteering to its app, and to market this to its customers. So if you’ve got a task that could be light work with many hands, submit your idea on their community.
The question for me has been: are charities geared up to crowd-source exciting projects? While Orange have the marketing power to take the idea to a large number of people, it will be the tasks themselves which define its stickiness. Thankfully, initial signs are positive, and community members are rising to the challenge of pitching ideas to the public vote. Popular ideas already on the community include donating photos for charities to use on their websites (we’re sure lots of organisations using vinspired would love that service), mapping homeless people’s locations so that charities can offer help, and identifying sites in need of Guerilla Gardening makeovers.
Orange don’t currently seem keen to use mobiles to promote real-world volunteering in their own app, but they are also promising to promote 10 “apps for good” created by charities or social entrepreneurs. So if you’ve got an app that deserves some attention, let them know – or just get involved by voting for your favourite ideas on the Orange Mobile Volunteering site.
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Big shame for big society – behind the scenes of the vschools website
This weekend, reports in the national press mentioned the vschools website being shelved in a “big blow to big society”, so I thought it would be useful to give an insight into what the vschools site is.
The vschools site already exists, has been tested with pupils and schools, and hundreds of schools are ready to sign up. It’s just been sitting on a development server, waiting for a decision for the Department for Education – and sadly, they have decided to scrap the Youth Community Action programme, of which vschools was a part.
Here’s the story so far…
Back in December last year, we were asked to look at how we could build on the success of vinspired.com and the vinspired awards to create a safe, secure and engaging volunteering platform for 14-16 year olds in every maintained school in England.
Luckily we had a solid platform to (literally) build on: vinspired.com, a social platform connecting volunteers aged 16-25 with voluntary organisations who need their help. Building on top of this platform meant:
a) younger volunteers could move their accounts to vinspired at age 16, taking with them a record of their volunteering history
b) voluntary organisations could offer opportunities to the younger audience without doubling up on work
c) making the most of functionality we already had, and importantly
d) we could actually deliver an awesome website in a very short timescale without cancelling Christmas. (Just.)
Creating private spaces for schools & students
Using rapid, Agile development, we extended the vinspired platform, and designed and built private “walled gardens” for schools. This would ensure that pupils could share their photos, comments and achievements with others in their school, without sharing personal details or plans with the wider internet community. Schools could publish their own opportunities, and keep a record of the achievements of pupils at their school in one, easy to use dashboard. Pupils could view opportunities within the school and others in their local communities, offered by approved providers recruited by the vschools advisers.
Image: Logged in view of a school's profile. Please note this is only example content on a test server and does not reflect any relationship with the school, or real volunteering opportunities.
Schools were also given public web pages, where they could showcase their achievements (without identifying individual pupils) and share best practice.
Awards for all
Next up, we extended the age range for vinspired awards, so that pupils could get recognition for their efforts. To do this, we integrated the awards system into both vinspired and vschools user profiles, making it easy for young people to record the skills they learned and the impact they had on their communities. Both sites benefited from this one piece of work.
Image: Early designs for the vinspired awards integration
The next challenge was to work out how to create accounts for hundreds of thousands of pupils without creating loads of admin for staff. Synchronising with existing databases proved controversial in terms of data ownership. Allowing unchecked registrations provoked security concerns, and worries about how the right pupils would end up in the right walled garden. We eventually settled on a token system – school staff could generate unique codes allowing pupils to sign up within a limited time-frame. Each code linked them to the correct school.
Image: vschools service map
Buy-in from pupils, teachers and local authorities
We had, given the time-scales, planned to conduct user testing on the live site, as we had complete control over who could access each secure area, and a team of vschools advisers with contacts in schools who were keen to get involved. However, we were then required to conduct user testing prior to launching the site, so I visited Salford and Milton Keynes to run user testing sessions with pupils and teachers. The feedback was hugely encouraging, helping us to spot bugs but also confirming that the site could work for young people, and I’m grateful to all those who helped with this process.
Since then, a team of over 90 vschools staff have been showing the test site to schools and local authorities, whilst waiting for the green light to launch the site. Figures to end of June (July’s figures come later this week) show 1278 interested schools, with over 500 ready to sign up. Anecdotal evidence from vschools advisers suggest many schools committed to the project prior to the end of term.
So, for now the vschools site remains left on the shelf, but I am hopeful that we may yet find a like minded sponsor to help us realise the potential and share the vision.
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Volunteers can make a difference to digital exclusion
Today saw the launch of Race Online’s Manifesto for a Networked Nation, which recognises that the 10 million UK adults who have never used the internet are missing out in all areas of life. Several of the recommendations are aimed at the voluntary sector, as these are nicely summarised on the NCVO blog, so I won’t go into it here.
Instead, I’m going to tell you about a bloke called Darren who I met at Sidekick Studios recently. Darren runs EcoComputer Systems, a South London-based Social Enterprise that recycles computers and uses them to do good – whether it’s helping socially isolated elderly people to get online, or selling them and using the money to fund training courses for unemployed people and low-income families.
There are lots of reasons to like the EcoComputers model – it’s recycling, it does good and it makes sense for businesses or charities who would otherwise have to pay someone to take their old stuff away. But what really chimed for me was the attitude towards their volunteers. They see the value in investing in volunteers’ skills & personal development – for example, giving them a refurbished PC to use at home, so they can develop skills which they can then share with the elderly, or supporting their volunteers in setting up a community radio station broadcasting from the shop.
There’s something really nice about this “pass it on” approach to sharing skills, whether it’s training volunteers from scratch, or teaming up skilled digital media volunteers with voluntary organisations in need of help, as the Media Trust has done through the Community Voices project. I’m sure there are hundreds of examples out there, and many more in development – I’d love to hear more about them.
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Infocow: a site for young people made by young people
This morning, I went along to the ICA for the launch of Infocow, a really social site connecting young people (aged 14-19) to useful and reliable information and services on line.
Infocow came out of a three-year Futurelabs project called Greater Expectations, which was funded by BECTA. The project aimed to use digital technology to equip young people with the information and contacts they need to take control of their lives.
I was really excited to see that it doesn’t shy away from integrating with social networks and encouraging young people to make informed decisions about their privacy – refreshing as so many opt for the “pretend the rest of the internet isn’t happening” approach when it comes to under 16s. We all know that young people’s engagement online is hugely influenced by recommendations and online sharing, so features like Facebook Connect make sense for this audience.
The other thing that really stood out was the involvement of young volunteers, as well as teachers and other stakeholders, throughout the development – a process which is outlined in the research report. The brand, the name (love the logic), the social features and the simple, easy sign-up all seem to have been built with the end user in mind, rather than predetermined objectives or monitoring requirements.
From what I’ve seen and heard today, it seems that this site is an example of how genuinely involving the target audience right the way through can deliver great results – not to mention offer the opportunity to film a Windows 7 spoof, which I’m hoping to see on YouTube soon…
Decide for yourself at www.infocow.org.uk.
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Digital volunteers help Haiti
Back in June, we blogged about micro-volunteering project The Extraordinaries. In the wake of the Haiti disaster, the site is now catering to the huge numbers of people inspired to help by offering volunteers a real opportunity to make a difference to the relief effort.A new Haiti support page is harnessing the power of the crowd to help locate and identify missing persons. Volunteers can give just a few minutes of their time to sort and tag disaster images, and match sorted images with the faces of missing persons. The goal is to help desperate families find their loved ones.
Meanwhile, Crisis Camp Haiti kicks off in London tomorrow (Thursday 21 January). Crisis Commons facilitates partnerships and maintains a network of technology volunteers to respond to specific needs. The goal of the London session is to establish Crisis Commons London and a series of Crisis Camp events in London in support of Haiti, where both technical and non-technical people working together on tasks as diverse as coding apps, mapping work and translation.
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Cybermentors virtual volunteers take on the bullies
CyberMentors, the online peer mentoring scheme run by BeatBullying, is in the headlines today after its hard-hitting new advert was banned from TV for being “too brutal for younger audiences”.
But it is CyberMentors’ ability to forge partnerships with social networks that really stands out for me. YouTube is featuring CyberMentors on its front page all day today. And back in November, Bebo became the first social networking site to install a CEOP “report” button on the profiles of its 8 million users, featuring a link to the CyberMentors site.
By using social networks to offer reach out to young people in the very spaces where they might be bullied, CyberMentors helped over 176,000 young people with bullying and cyberbullying since its launch in March last year.
Lots of young people who’ve had horrible experiences are motivated to help others in the same situation. What’s great about CyberMentors is that it genuinely helps them to do that.
Young people, aged 11-25, are trained as CyberMentors, in schools and online, so that they can offer support to their peers. They’re also supported by trained counsellors, available online if needed, so site visitors always get the appropriate level of help, and younger volunteers are not in danger of having to deal with issues they’re not able to manage.
This video shows how using her experience of bullying to help others helped CyberMentors volunteer Georgia get her confidence back.
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Crowd-sourcing funding for voluntary projects
I’ve just discovered Kickstarter, a US-based website which allows budding entrepreneurs to crowd-source the money they need to bring their ideas to life. A service designer I know called it “my favourite website of all time”, and I can see where he’s coming from.
Project creators can offer products, services or other benefits (“rewards”) to inspire people to support their project: A hot-air balloon ride to the first person to pledge $300, an invitation to the BBQ for anyone who pledges more than $5. It’s up to each project creator to sculpt their own offers to inspire people to invest.
From crocheted yurts to plans to write everyone in the world a letter, the site is packed with weird and wonderful ideas, but it’s the voluntary projects which really got me thinking – such as this appeal to save a local community garden. Could it be that by stepping away from the format of traditional funding applications, we could actually inspire more creative volunteering opportunities? The very act of selling a simple idea, rather than a huge project plan, seems like a more natural way to test out your idea on the general public. Winning public support could inspire courage to test the boundaries and be really innovative.
I’m a big fan of Junction 49 and its commitment to supporting young volunteers in working together to bring their ideas to life, as well as v‘s vcashpoint project. I’d love to see what would happen if we could add crowd-sourced funding into the mix. Something tells me that these young volunteers could teach hardened fundraisers a few tricks, and inspire new creative approaches to promoting charitable giving.
I love the idea of voluntary projects having a whole group of supporters, right from the start, who care enough about a project to dig into their pockets to help make it happen. As Kickstart says, a large group of people can be a tremendous source of money and encouragement.
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