Top tips for charity communications

I recently went to the Directory of Social Change’s Charity Communications training day, and good value it was too. I attended some very good seminars by ngo media and virtual construction (set up by a very nice chap called Matt Haworth I used to work with in Manchester!).  The sessions were practical, encouraged networking and were definitely thought provoking, I recommend DSC training days very much.

My top tips from the day are:

1. Always ask for something – whether it’s just a signature or a donation, it never hurts to ask but do try to offer something for free in return!
2. Keep active – good for SEO and client relationships and trust. Keep your content fresh.
3. Personalise – when sending communications make sure it’s from a real person that your clients or supporters can interact with should they wish to.
4. Plan - communications plans do take a LONG time! Never underestimate how many people will want to give you their input, and how hard it will be to get the input from the people you need it from!
5. Evaluate - always try and track your communications, who they reach, who reads your stuff and what kind of impact it’s having on your business.

Transparency Rules OK

It’s not going to be an astounding revelation to any of us but Nielsen’s latest Global Online Consumer Survey shows that word of mouth is the most powerful form of communication when it comes to getting people to trust your brand. No fanfares there.

What I think is interesting is the second highest result in this league table of “trusted sources” – ‘Consumer opinions posted online’. The opinions of strangers posted on online forums and review sites are now incredibly powerful portals for gaining consumer trust, and there’s not a thing the brands can do about it! Although I do wonder if this will provoke some corporations into trying to infiltrate the message boards… My advice? Focus on good CRM and values that you believe in and stick to and let the quality of your product shine through, and this fits perfectly well with cultural organisations too. The consumer (audience) is king!

Musings on the LSO Digital Symposium

I’ve just got back from the LSO “All Change?” Digital Symposium. Both Anwen and I were in attendance and I think our feelings about the day are about the same – lovely to network and join in the debate as always but we really need to move on this conversation now and talk about the impacts, actions and responses of digital development. One thought from the day stood out for me in particular:

Government should have led the way in testing and researching digital content and social media, much as they tested new school learning frameworks in laboratory conditions in the 50s and 60s, we should expect them to finance and develop models for the public to engage with online media, test them, refine them and release this information to publicly funded organisations.
Although I think it might have been an interesting approach, my argument with this is that approaches to interactive social media (by which I mean not videos or podcasts, but a platform that genuinely allows the audience to participate) should be unique to each organisation due to online content’s very nature of transparency and openness.

Hmm, I could have phrased that better, but it’s been a long week!

You can view comments from the day at twitter.com/AllChange_LSO. Were you there? What did you make of the day? And can you refine my response above?!

The Postcodes Project

The other day Hannah was helping me update our database; what fun doing returns from a big mailing, but so important – how annoying is it to be sent two copies of the same thing, and how useless to your organisatsion to send information to the wrong address! It’s important for us to log the borough of companies we’re communicating with for reporting purposes and I do notice that this isn’t always recorded.  So I showed Hannah a tool which can help identify this. In fact I was a bit taken aback to find that I was the only person in the AL team who seems to be using The Museum of London’s Postcodes Project to do this!

If you select the “Places” tab from the menu on this minisite, you can view boroughs by postcode. It’s not fool proof, as some postcodes cross more than one borough, but it is incredibly useful; especially when you’re needing to report on this sort of thing for your funders! There are lots of other fun tools to utilise too, such as themed tours and an oppportunity for you to submit your own stories about your area.

Free recession-busting podcasts from industry leaders

KnowHow NonProfit have uploaded to their website a series of free podcasts collected from leaders in the Third Sector at the 2009 ACEVO (Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations) CEO Summit, which this year was entitled Leading change: steering your organisations through the recession and beyond.

Subjects under discussion include:

Three secret weapons for getting through the recession

Being accountable: ‘The Obligation of Leadership’

The financial impact of the recession on the third sector

The recession as an opportunity to grow

Leading the future: driving and leading innovation

• Three secret weapons for getting through the recession
• Being accountable: ‘The Obligation of Leadership’
• The financial impact of the recession on the third sector
• The recession as an opportunity to grow
• Leading the future: driving and leading innovation

Visit the KnowHow NonProfit webiste here to listen to the podcasts.

The Fundraising Programme from DSC and IOF

The Fundraising Programme is a partnership between the Directory of Social Change and the Institute of Fundraising to provide in their words “the highest standards of fundraising training”. They have a range of programmes, each tailored to people at all stages in a career in development.

You can also work towards The Institute of Fundraising’s Certificate in Fundraising Management, the UK’s professional qualification for fundraisers, which is recognised across Europe as a leading fundraising qualification.

For full details of theprogramme and all available courses visit the DSC’s website here.

The Fundraising Programme is a partnership between the Directory of Social Change and the Institute of Fundraising to provide in their words “the highest standards of fundraising training”. They have a range of programmes, each tailored to people at all stages in a career in development.

You can also work towards The Institute of Fundraising’s Certificate in Fundraising Management, the UK’s professional qualification for fundraisers, which is recognised across Europe as a leading fundraising qualification.

For full details of the programme and all available courses visit the DSC’s website here.

AL on Twitter!

As you may have noticed, there’s a new feature on our blog – a tweet feed. Yup, we’re on Twitter. Follow us for quick news, insights, thoughts and signpoisting to some great resources by the whole AL team. And please do direct us to good people to follow! Follow us at www.twitter.com/audienceslondon.

Digital bums on seats?

One of my favourite reads recently, a quote from Hannah Nicklin’s blog, a fellow delegate at Shift Happens this week:

A theatre company operating now, with no involvement in social media, is like a painter having no involvement with the colour blue. ‘But how does this translate to bums on seats’

In fact this is taken a little out of context with the rest of the post, so forgive me. The eloquent painter sentence is Hannah’s own view, where as the ‘bums on seats’ comment is the phrase she’s arguing should be abolished when it comes to discussing social media. An excellent blog post, do have a read.

Oh, and I posted a (rather long) comment in reply which you can read here, defending the people who want to know the ROI of social media at the moment. Although I’m one who doesn’t need the numbers, I’m sold, I understand why some do, and I think it’s ok to ask.

Shift Happens 2.0 feedback, the landscape is changing…

If you haven’t heard of Shift Happens by now, where have you been?! Or maybe you’re not as much of a digital nerd as me… But that’s ok, it’s not just for the geeks out there.

Shift Happens 2.0 took place at York Theatre Royal on the 29th and 30th June this year. I was there on behalf of AL and it was a great event to be part of. The highlights for me included:

• Charles Leadbetter’s talk on his latest thoughts, “The Art of With”. Read the full essay here
• DK’s dynamic and encouraging session on engaging though social networks and new trends
• Andy Hobsbawm’s introduction to DoTheGreenThing – entertaining, inspiring and educational
• C&T’s approach to involving young people in the arts, online media and social issues
• Bill Thompson’s philospohical views on where we’ve come from and where we’re going in a digital future
• And of course, networking with lovely clients and collegues – never a dull moment!

For more info about the day and the participants, you can check out the Ning network here and the outline of the day on Pilot Theatre’s website here. On both you’ll find feedback from delegates, podcasts of the presentations and contacts to network with. Go explore! Always happy to share my thoughts further of course…

Free labour = survive the recession?

In the charitable sector we to tend to be a little more aware than other sectors of the power of working with volunteers. This week the commercial sector seem to have taken it in a a whole new direction, with BA aksing their staff to work for free. Not quite the same thing chaps…

As reported in the Third Sector this week, skilled professional volunteers could be a vital tool in supporting organisations struggling in the current financial climate. This point was raised by the presenter Jon Snow, at the Charity Trustee Networks annual lecture. As fantastic as it sounds, he did manage to clearly and concisely explain:

He [Snow] said people in his newsroom would not be receptive to charity appeals for volunteers to hand out soup, but would be willing to lend help with web design and communications.

How are you tapping into this unclaimed resource? Please do share your experiences.