Funding and Information Day – Cardigan Centre, Leeds 24 November

24th November 2009, from 9am to 1pm

Cardigan Centre (Cardigan Road, Leeds LS6 1LJ)

The Funding Fair and Information event is a great opportunity for community groups, small charities and social enterprises and other organisations from the Voluntary, Community and Faith sector to meet key funders of local projects and organisations providing infrastructure support.

For more information contact Siobhan Humphries on siobhan@leedscommunityfoundation.org.uk / 0113 242 2426

 

Considering self employment? Drop in session at West Leeds Enterprise Centre.

Drop in Session on Friday 27th November

West Leeds Enterprise Centre has arranged a drop in service for those who are considering working for themselves. It will include information, support with mentoring, business advice and networking.

For more details Contact ann@barca-leeds.org

 

New voluntary sector database for Leeds based organisations – Connect Leeds

Connect Leeds – Join the database

Leeds Voice and Voluntary Action-Leeds are well on the way with their joint project: Connect Leeds.

The custom-made database is nearly complete and now we need the help of YOU, the Third Sector in Leeds, to help make this database work.

Submit your details today to help better connect, serve and support the Third Sector in Leeds.

Day 8 – Social Media and VCOs #socialmediavco – Facebook 2

See Background, Introduction the rest of the story here.

Yesterday I started to look at Facebook as a means of helping my organisation to connect with our current and prospective clients. And I certainly had an interesting time.

Setting up Facebook for personal use is relatively straightforward, however I wanted to look specifically at its use for organisations so I was interested in the Groups and Pages parts of Facebook and what that could do for me. Also I was very keen to know how Facebook linked up with other social media tools as it was extremely important to me that I did not have to spend ages visiting all the various tools that I used as this would just take too much time out of my day – something that is very important for all VCOs who are always pushed for time.

Invitation to the launch of the Microsoft Britain Works NGO Programme

Date: Monday 7th December 2009.
Venue: The Rubens Hotel, 39 Buckingham Palace Road, London, SW1W 0PS. (map)
Time: 9.30am to 3.00pm.
Register: click on this link
Cost: FREE! Refreshments and lunch will be provided.
Attendees: UK Registered charities only.

Capacitybuilders Capital Investment Programme – more funding available

The Capital Investment Programme was launched in 2008 to support improvements and development of local third sector resources centres with an initial investment of £5m allocated by Capacitybuilders.

Thanks to an additional £2m of capital investment from the Office of the Third Sector, more frontline third sector organisations are set to benefit from improved facilities at local resource centres across England.

Temporary Vacancy for Altogether Better Programme Strategy

The Altogether Better Programme has created an exciting new temporary post which will provide an opportunity to contribute to the health inequalities agenda at regional and national level.

Alex Sobel contintues his mission to purchase exclusively from social enterprises. Go Alex.

I’ve been intrigued by Alex Sobel’s mission to purchase exclusively from social enterprises for 30 days. His most recent posting has been around entertainment and it was both exciting and a bit sad. I was delighted to hear about the social enterprises that he visited, not having known about some of them. The sad part was that there was so little choice when it came to cinemas, though actually I confess to being a bit surprised that he was even able to find one!

Social Media and the voluntary sector – #socialmediavco – Facebook intro

See Background, Introduction the rest of the story here.

So far I have delved into blogs and Twitter. Hopefully this has given you some ideas as to how these types of social media might be able to help you. Today I will start to look at probably the biggest and most used form of social media at the moment – Facebook.

Grants of up to £6,000 available to support inter faith activity within local communities.

Faiths in Action, a £4m grant programme, opened a second round of funding on 12 November. Faith, inter faith, voluntary and community organisations and groups in England can come forward and apply for a grant of up to £6000.

Can you predict the future of fundraising? Here is your chance.

Fundraisers are being offered the chance to predict the future on a new website called Fundraising Scenarios.

Created by the Management Centre consultancy, it allows fundraisers and sector experts to put forward their ideas about how fundraising will look in 2020.

Institute of Fundraising set to revise code on telephone fundraising

The Institute of Fundraising’s code of practice on telephone fundraising does not comply fully with the law and is likely to be revised, Third Sector has learned.

“How the region works” – Regional Forum Information Session 2nd Dec.

* Do you understand how governance structures work at the regional

level?

* Where does the voluntary and community sector fit in?

* What does the Regional Forum do?

 

To help de-mystify the region and the new governance arrangements,

explain the jargon and clarify how it all works, the Regional Forum has

organised an Information Session for 2nd December 2009.

 

Come to this session at the Regional Forum to help de-mystify the region

and the new governance arrangements, explain the jargon and clarify how

it all works.

Venue: Regional Forum, Leeds

Time: 1.30pm – 4.00pm

For more information or to book your place:

mailto:ian.gardner@regionalforum.org.uk or phone (0113 394 2300) Ian

Gardner.

 

Other dates: Thursday 9th February 2010 10.00am – 12.30pm

Thursday 22nd April 2010 1.30pm – 4.00pm

 

Free public wi-fi scheme for Swindon.

A major Wiltshire town is to become the first in the UK to offer free public wireless internet access to its entire population, it was claimed.

Day 6 – Social Media and the voluntary sector #socialmediavco Twitter part 3

See Background, Introduction the rest of the story here.

Yesterday I covered how I use Twitter to help me to achieve my goals. Today I’ll be exploring how other people use Twitter. This will be based partly on my experience and what I see and partly on the many research articles that are out there.

From that I will then look at considerations for you (and your organisation)

more Facebook status updates are posted than tweets by a long long way #socialmediavco

Dan Natriss makes the following interesting comment on social media on a techcrunch post.

Twitter is relatively popular in the UK, in London especially and also popular with celebrities, though of course it’s small-fry compared to Facebook which is easily the dominating social utility here, and just like on the web in general, more Facebook status updates are posted than tweets by a long long way.

I’ll be exploring Facebook as part of #socialmediavco shortly.

Day 5 – Social Media and VCO experiment #socialmediavco. Twitter – how I use it.

See Background, Introduction the rest of the story here.

Yesterday I looked at a brief introduction to Twitter. As with my introduction to blogs my aim here is not to teach you how to use Twitter but to look at how I can use it to help me to achieve my goals, how other people are using it and, most importantly, how you might be able to use it to help you.

First Steps to Sustainability – free workshops for voluntary sector. York, Wakefield, Sheffield.

Fit4funding and Charity Bank are running the last 2 of their free workshops “First steps to sustainability”, aimed at voluntary and community groups and social enterprises throughout Yorkshire and the Humber. The workshop looks at a diverse range of funding sources from grants to contracts, from individual giving to trading and considers the pro’s and cons of each.

Tendering Opportunities: Events in the Humber Sub-region

Three events taking place across the Humber sub-region providing information for third sector organisations interested in securing public sector contracts.

For more information, please contact Chris Mason at 01469 572313 ext 26 or email: mailto:chris@cert-ltd.co.uk

Click here for a pdf flier providing full details

 

Social media webinar for faith based organisations. 18th Nov.

In a recent blog post about the impact of social media on the nonprofit sector, Holly wrote, “Social media is about relationships. At its core, nonprofit work is also about relationships. We can use these tools to build real relationships in a way that broadcast tools like email, direct mail, and advertising do not.”

If you work with a faith-based organization, you’d probably agree that building relationships is at the heart of what you do. Used properly, social media would seem a natural fit for religious communities, but they’re often challenged in embracing technology change. We’ll be addressing this issue at our upcoming webinar, “Social Media for Faith-based Communities”.

Day 4 – Social media VCO experiment #socialmediavco – Twitter intro

For background, intro and the story so far see http://yhictchampion.wordpress.com/category/socialmediavco/

So far I have taken a relatively brief look at blogs, but with a small amount of effort I have made significant progress. Since starting to put a focus on the blog I have quadrupled the number of visitors in a short space of time with last week’s stats showing 1,121. I aim to continue increasing that by making sure I am reaching the people to whom my blog is relevant. To do this I will need to use other forms of social media. Starting with Twitter.

reBlog from labnol: Track Your RSS Feed Clicks with Google Analytics

I found this fascinating quote today:

If you are using FeedBurner to syndicate the RSS feeds of your blog, you can now easily track all the incoming traffic from feed clicks through Google Analytics.labnol, Track Your RSS Feed Clicks with Google Analytics, Nov 2009

You should read the whole article.

Day 3 Part 2 – Social Media and VCOs #socialmediavco – More blogging stuff.

To get the background, introduction and to follow the whole experiment go here http://yhictchampion.wordpress.com/category/socialmediavco/

Following on from this mornings explorations.

Claire Rollinson’s blog at NCVO – Really useful ICT related stuff for VCOs

I’ve been reading Claire Rollinson’s blog at the NCVO.

Definitely one for the list. Nice one Claire.

http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/networking-discussions/blogs/142

Free IT & volunteer evening – 17 November, London

There are a few places left on next Tuesday’s event in London, so please excuse the late notice and if you are available we would very much like to see you. (There will be two further events early in 2010).

Day 3 – Social Media VCO experiment #socialmediavco Blogs, blogs and more blogs!

Today I am keeping with the blog theme and looking at how I can attract people to my blog who I don’t know and who don’t know me or the organisation.

Funding workshop. Dewsbury. 20th November

‘Communities Together’ ideas and funding workshop on Friday 20th November from 10 am until 12 pm, at the Howland Centre, School Street, Dewsbury WF13 1LD.

Funding Fair. Cardigan Centre. Leeds 24th November

The next funding fair will be held at the Cardigan Centre on 24th November from 9:30 – 1:00 please circulate this information to groups you work with.

Wi-Fi hotspot usage grows by 50%

The number of Wi-Fi hotspot users has increased by almost 50 per cent over the past 12 months to 1.2 billion, according to new research by In-Stat marketing released today.

The firm said that after a period of little growth, the hotspot market is experiencing a resurgence, with usage increasing among both business users and consumers.

No great surprise. These days I expect to find a free Wi-Fi connection at cafes – indeed I often choose those cafes that have this. Simon

Day 2 – Social Media VCO experiment #socialmediavco

Day 2 – Social Media VCO experiment #socialmediavco

Background, Introducation, Day 1

For the next few days I will be exploring how to get the most out of my blog and from that, how you might be able to use a blog effectively to achieve your goals. Check out my goals in the Introduction.

To help me to do this I did a search on Google which brought up some interesting results, one of which was Mashable – a social media site. They had a number of suggestions which I am going to explore. Today it will be around Content and Communication.

How to write email subject lines and tweets that work

Subject lines in emails are ‘headlines’ – in fact if you use Twitter, then every ‘Tweet’ you write is effectively a headline. You have 140 characters or less to interest your followers to click on that link.

Some of the most successful direct marketers in the world, who have made their life (and lots of money) from direct marketing such as David Ogilvy, Drayton Bird, John Caples, and the man who has been credited with creating ‘modern day advertising’ back in 1892 Claude C Hopkins, all stand by the same ‘rule of thumb’ when it comes to writing headlines.

Age UK is the new name for Age Concern and Help the Aged.

Age UK will be the new name of the charity formed by the merger between Age Concern and Help the Aged.

Social Investment Business Workshops – Modernisation Fund

The Social Investment Business is running two workshops this month to give organisations a last chance to find out more and apply for The Modernisation Fund – investments should ideally be agreed by the end of December 2009.

Find out more about whether you might be eligible for a Modernisation Fund investment, hear about how working collaboratively could help your organisation prosper and speak to an advisor about your application:

- 16 November, 2009 – Leeds – Tiger 11, Hillside, Beeston Road, LS11 8ND

- 18 November, 2009 – Luton – The Auction House, Crescent Road, LU2 0AH

Find out more: www.socialinvestmentbusiness.org/mf12

 

Social Media surgery in Leeds a great success.

Well the social media surgery in Leeds yesterday evening was great. I met up with people who I knew but had never met before (fellow Twitterers) and realised some of the great benefits of Twitter – networking, relationship building, sharing.

Many thanks to all involved. In particular thanks to Kate Brown who helped me to explore how social media may be useful for my organisation as well as how it may be useful for other VCOs in the region.

Hopefully there will be more of these.

Day 1 of the Social Media VCO experiment #socialmediavco

Welcome to Day 1 of #socialmediavco, the experiment to see how social media might help the smaller voluntary and community organisations (VCOs).

Read the Background and the Introduction.

We’re starting off by exploring Blogs. So what is a blog and how can it be of use to a VCO?

New ICT Security Guide for voluntary sector by Lasa

Lasa have published an excellent ICT Security Guide for voluntary sector organisations. Everything you need to know to keep your computers and your organisation secure.

Check it out here

Job Opportunity – Sheffield Young Carers Project – Fundraiser

Sheffield Young Carers Project

Fundraising Officer – 14 – 17.5 hours per week

Salary £20,000 – £24,000 (Pro Rata) starting salary depends on previous experience.

Job Opportunity – Leeds Voice – BME Network

LEEDS VOICE – BME NETWORK

BME NETWORK OFFICER (to March 2011) SO1 Pts 29 – 31 £24,646 – £26,272

&

DEVELOPMENT WORKER (to March 2010) SO1 Pt 29 £24,646

Leeds Voice is looking to appoint two members of staff to take forward work with Black and Minority Ethnic voluntary and community organisations.