Are voluntary organisations relevant in a digital age?
This deliberately provocative question is the title of a seminar I am organising at NCVO’s annual conference on 21 Feb. Debating the question will be Will Davies (formerly head of ippr’s Digital Manifesto programme), Milica Howell (Hansard Society’s e-democracy programme), David Wilcox and Karl Wilding (NCVO’s Head of Research and my boss!)
Of course, I expect all four to answer in the affirmative. The real aim of the session is to explore how VCOs may need to adapt in a digital age. Are organisations aware of how ICT is changing the expectations of individuals (whether as donors, service users or volunteers)? How can organisations take advantage of the new opportunities that ICT offers?
I’ll report back what is discussed, but in the meantime what are your thoughts?
February 8th, 2006 at 3:31 pm
Our experience in this area, both with our own organisation and with helping other developing VCS organisations, is that there are two stages to the process of using ICT effectively:
1) know what is out there and understand what it does (and keep up to date on what’s new)
2) ensure your use/application is drive by what is needed to improve your service/efffectiveness, not because “you think it’s cool” / “you need to”
3) shop around/be savvy: there is much that can be done at minimal cost
or
Cost-effective, user-driven, appropriate solutions.
See http://www.bloc.org.uk/cgi-bin/showbig.cgi?id=65 for more.
February 9th, 2006 at 5:10 pm
In view of the fact that I started the charity in January 1997 in order to equip children’s hospital schools with ICT and educational software, I think it’s more than relevant. The Government does NOTHING to help sick children in hospital or at home, and it’s only because of what our charity does that the teachers receive ICT equipment for the hospital schools and home tuition.
The Government bleats on about ICT across the syllabus, but if it wasn’t for our charity they would have no ICT to use. To make matters worse, I have to pay our thousands of pounds in VAT which I can’t claim back, yet a main-stream school purchasing the same equipment would get their VAT back. It’s a disgrace, and when I retire I don’t think anyone else will take on the task.
February 22nd, 2006 at 8:39 am
Putting a personable face on nonprofits
I joined a fascinating session at today’s NCVO conference examining “Are voluntary organisations relevant in a digital society?” The idea was, of course, that we would all say yes… but … and then go on to examine changes needed