Charities Newsletter
Issue 3

We are pleased to announce the first of  iT4Communities Annual Conference and Awards which will be held on the 14th November 2006 at the BCS London headquarters. This conference is designed to promote the valued role volunteer IT Professionals are playing in supporting charities and voluntary sector groups. The conference will offer volunteers and charities an opportunity to network, share knowledge and experiences.

The awards will cover the following categories:

Awards Categories

1 - Best IT Volunteer
We are looking for charities to nominate the IT volunteer that has really made a difference to your organisation. As well as summarising the project undertaken you will need to provide evidence of your volunteer’s

• Commitment of time to the project,
• Reliability and technical competence
• Communication skills- being able to explain technical issues to the staff in the charity
• Sustainability - providing charity staff with skills to keep things going once the project had been completed

2 - Best IT Volunteering Project - impact on organisations
This will be awarded jointly to a volunteer and a charity who have worked together on a successful project. If you have been involved in a good project – don’t be shy – do nominate yourselves. The key issue is impact – the project itself could be a very simple project technically but which made a real difference to the way in which a charity functions). As well as summarising the project undertaken you will need to provide evidence of

• The way in which both parties managed the working relationship and ensured that the project management kept things on course.
• Quantified evidence of improved "business" performance by the charity as a result of the project
• Sustainability – evidence of how the charity was enabled to keep things going once the project had been completed

3 - Best IT Volunteering Project - innovation
This will be awarded jointly to a volunteer and a charity who have worked together on a successful innovative project. If you have been involved in a project that broke some new ground – don’t be shy – do nominate yourselves. The key issue for this issue is innovation – doing something that was a little bit out of the ordinary and not just being different for the sake of it but also making a difference to the way in which a charity functions). As well as summarising the project undertaken you will need to provide evidence of

• What was innovative about the project?
• Reusability of the innovation – can this be applied in other situations / other charities
• Quantified evidence of improved "business" performance by the charity as a result of the project
• Sustainability – evidence of how the charity was enabled to keep things going once the project had been completed

4 - Best Charity for IT Volunteering
We are looking for volunteers to nominate the charities that were a real pleasure to work for – the organisation that made you feel welcome, provided timely responses to all your enquiries for information and really appreciated the work you delivered. As well as summarising the project undertaken you will need to provide evidence of

• The Charity’s clarity about their requirements / expectations
• Their management and motivation of the volunteer
• Their management of the relationship during the delivery of the project – providing information etc.
• Their enthusiastic taking up of the ongoing maintenance activities once the project had been delivered

5 - Best Accessible IT Volunteering Project
This will be awarded jointly to a volunteer and a charity who have worked together on a successful project which used IT to have a direct positive impact for people with disabilities. This could be a project providing IT skills training for people with disabilities or alternatively something along the lines of building an accessible website which meant the people with disabilities can access information.  If you have been involved in a project that delivered this kind of impact – don’t be shy – do nominate yourselves. As well as summarising the project undertaken you will need to provide evidence of

• Analysis of requirements – what was the IT issue relating to people with disabilities and how did you address this
• Managing volunteer / charity relationship
• Impact of project for people with disabilities (could be staff and / or clients of the organisation)
• Sustainability – evidence of how the charity was enabled to keep things going once the project had been completed

We would like you to take full part by nominating volunteers who have helped your organisation with IT issues. If you are not too sure, just get in touch with us. Instructions on how to nominate and register for the conference will be circulated in the next 4 weeks. In the meantime, if you would like to talk to us do get in touch with us: info@iT4Communities.org.uk