'Volunteering is the ultimate exercise in democracy. You vote in elections once a year, but when you volunteer, you vote every day about the kind of community you want to live in." Marjorie Moore 
An article in the Guardian, 'Britain's top 1,000 charities ranked by donations. Who raises the most money?' has once again shown that a few hundred charities account for almost half of the total income of all charities in the UK. The next 4,000 or so largest charities, with incomes of between £1m and £10m a year still represent less than 3% of the total charities. In contrast the majority of charities (54%) are very small, local volunteer-run organisations with less than £10,000 a year coming in. 
More research shows that young homeless people are twice as likely to suffer depression, and more than four times as likely to have been admitted to hospital for a health problem than their non-homeless peers, research has found. 
Confusion, low self esteem, isolation, loneliness, frightened, mental health issues, little or no support, outlook bleak. All of these issues and conditions apply to two very different groups: the young and those who are older people. The UK is one of the world's most developed economies but, as Alexandra Topping reports, nearly 4 million children are living in poverty. What can be done to improve their life chances? Child poverty is a term so often used – frequently by politicians in unmemorable speeches – that there is a risk that it has lost its power to shock. We are told that 30% of children in the UK live in poverty, but what does that mean? For millions of children it means living in inadequate, cramped housing, having a poor diet and living in a family crippled by debt. But it also means having constricted life chances, a limited horizon. A University of York report commissioned by Peabody, which provided the focus of the roundtable discussion, suggested that concern about poverty of opportunity was shared by frontline workers and the parents of children growing up in poverty, but that practical interventions – such as tackling crime and providing decent employment – could make a real difference. More at http://www.york.ac.uk/media/chp/documents/2012/Peabodyfull.pdf 
Online fundraising service JustGiving has now helped individuals raise over £1 billion for charity since it was established in 2001. 
The SOFII collection aims to be the most comprehensive, best organised, and most inspiring collection of fundraising related content from around the world. 
£9.49 per £1.00 invested…a great return for any business (or charity!) Over the last few months there has been discussions and interest about the return on investment made by different types of charity fundraising. Charity fundraisers are being asked to raise more and more money, for lower and lower net costs. 
Pinterest is one of the latest social networking 
It's worth checking the success rate of funding applications, says Caroline Fiennes from Giving Evidence... Via The Fish Firm 
Crowd funding is not new. It has been round since the Victorian times and was called public subscription. However with the advent of Twitter and other forms of Social Media it means that more people can be involved from a much wider area both geographically and culturally . 
This is so important for non profits and charities. I wrote in a previous post how social media gives companies an efficient platform to build brand loyalty and engage consumers on a deeper level. By promoting solid web content such as blogs, e-books, white papers, case studies and videos throughout their social media networks, companies are able to amplify their message, drive web traffic and increase website conversion. 
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Charities could not operate without volunteers! @Ivo.Org 'Latest statistics from the Charity Commission for England and Wales show that 82% of people that worked for charities in the past year were volunteers. The Commission's annual return for 2011 shows that there were a total of 179,719 registered charities in England and Wales. Between them they employed 828,009 paid employees and involved 2,894,340 volunteers which represents 62% of the total workforce. This figure rises to 82% when you include the 941,465 trustees that voluntarily govern charity boards.' 
Many charities are rethinking their financial model and exploring more sustainable options. This is so important for all charities, big or small, to think about ways of increasing their funding streams including community fundraising, individual donors, social media, trusts and businesses. Nowadays you cannot rely on prior funding opportunities as they may dry up! 
The Institute of Fundraising has produced a publication entitled ' Managing Fundraisers: The essential guide to recruiting, developing & retaining fundraising talent'.The guide is designed to provide advice, tools, techniques and templates to implement best practice within your organisation.Structured to offer managers insight into each aspect of the Human Resources cycle, they have sought input from successful organisations, large and small, that have a track record of excellent fundraising. 
As charities begin to realise the potential that new technology can bring to fundraising, a new fundraising role of digital fundraiser is starting to emerge especially in individual giving 
Poll by nfpSynergy finds the least important factors to be celebrity endorsement and television advertising Knowing that a charity maintains high standards in fundraising is the most important factor in generating trust, according to a survey by nfpSynergy.
'Charities are shedding jobs at double the rate of the public sector as many voluntary organisations face deepening financial distress as a result of recession, cuts in government spending and rising costs. The voluntary sector shed 70,000 jobs in the year to September 2011, according to analysis of employment data by the National Council for Voluntary Organisations (NCVO), an umbrella group for the charitable sector.' 'The sector’s woes will deal a blow to David Cameron’s “Big Society” project, which envisaged “a massive transfer of power from Whitehall to local communities” by empowering charities and volunteering.' From FT.com - UK Politics & Policy See more at http://on.ft.com/HD86n9
Mentoring can be a very powerful tool. Brighton-based charity 'A Band of Brothers' brings together youngsters with older men in the community to provide positive role ![What's Working in Digital Non-Profit Fundraising [INFOGRAPHIC] | Charityadviser | Scoop.it](http://img.scoop.it/v6xhSIq-W8oY4eRgo5k5KDl72eJkfbmt4t8yenImKBVaiQDB_Rd1H6kmuBWtceBJ)
On April 5, M+R Strategic Services, a public relations and communications firm working with leading non-profits, and the Nonprofit Technology Network (NTEN), a membership organization of non-profit professionals who use technology for their causes, will release their sixth annual eNonprofit Benchmarks Study of what is working today in online advocacy, fundraising and social networking.
According to the results of the survey, commissioned by the Institute of Fundraising, as many as 43% of people questioned felt they were already giving as much as they could afford, and have cited having a higher income and earning more money as the biggest factor that would encourage them to give more to charity. Via The Fish Firm 
Fantastic tips for what your nonprofit/charity can do to develop a metrics system and become a more data-driven organization. Via Ash Shepherd 
Non Profit Tech 2.0: With smartphones now outselling PCs and tablet sales surpassing even the most conservative of estimates, the majority of your nonprofit’s supporters will likely be browsing your website on mobile devices by 2013 – and unfortunately most nonprofits are not prepared for this dramatic shift in Web communications. That said, the following is a short excerpt from Chapter 9 of Social Media for Social Good: A How-To Guide for Nonprofits. The how-to of launching a mobile website and best practices for mobile design are covered in the book, however, they are also presented and elaborated upon in the upcoming webinar on Mobile Technology and Mobile Fundraising for Nonprofits. 
This piece was written by Chris McConnell for his blog. I thought this article had great information but there's so much it needs to be curated:-)
Excerpt:
There’s so much information online just begging to be curated: news, social media, images, video, websites… the list goes on. Reading great content from my favorite blogs and websites is one of my favorite things but you have to be able to harness it so you have what you need at your fingertips.
Here are some highlights:
**Content gathering and personalized newsfeeds
**trapit **paper.li **curatedby **kurat **scoopit
**iPad Curation
**Flipboard (one of my favorites) **Pulse **News360 **Taptu
**Social Media Curation
**storify **The Tweeted Times **Keepstream **TweetMag **Newsme
**Website Bookmarking and Collection tools
**utopic **zootool **BagTheWeb **Pinboard
Topic Pages
**Alltop **Wavli **In-A-Gist
Curated by Jan Gordon covering "Content Curation, Social Business and Beyond"
Read full article here: [http://bit.ly/xxsN7M] Via janlgordon, Beth Kanter
I have just watched Alex Polizzi – The Fixer, on BBC2, the last episode, working to improve the fortunes of a family trying to make a living out of Denver Mill. They were failing, but were so involved in the day to day business and ignoring the ‘elephant in the room’ that they were on the road to certain failure. |
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