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1. Latest News
2. Projects of the Month
3. Making A Difference - Feedback
4. Background to the Opportunities
5. A Word About Your Initial Meeting With The Charity
6. Final Thoughts
iT4C has created a new Remote Volunteering search category in the Volunteer Opportunities section on our website. Select 'Remote' from the 'area' drop-down list and projects suitable for remote volunteering will be displayed.
Remote volunteering can pose new challenges but can also be every bit as rewarding and successful as local volunteering. If you have enjoyed working remotely, please do send us your feedback to share with potential remote volunteers. If you'd like to participate in developing guidelines or transferable projects for remote working, please email us. Here are some comments from rural organisations about the benefits of remote volunteering:
We have been delighted with the iT4Communities project. We live in a very remote area, hundreds of miles from any of the volunteers, yet have managed to benefit from the project via e-mail and telephone communication with the volunteers. Our volunteer, who built us a wonderful website, plans to come on holiday to our area next week and will even spend a day with us . . . We were pleased to be able to carry out the projects at our own pace doing as much of them ourselves as we could and having continuous support from the volunteers.
Gairloch & Loch Ewe Action Forum/Website by Tim Ellis
The new website is most professional and has significantly enhanced the profile of our organisation on the internet. Most of the communication occurred via email, and Edward carried out the work on a remote basis from his PC at home/work. An immense amount of time was put in by Edward, and his commitment was second to none at all times. The project ran extremely smoothly thanks to Edward's commitment and professionalism.
National Phobics Society/Website by Edward Jung
Open source solutions are becoming increasingly attractive not only in the corporate world, but also to governmental organisations and to the voluntary sector. The greatest barrier for small-to-medium organisations has been that the TCO may turn out to be little or no cheaper than that of proprietary OS and software. NOSI have published a useful online primer to help non-profit organisations evaluate, cost, and implement open source projects which provides really useful guidance for anyone interested in developing open source within the voluntary sector. This could be invaluable to volunteers keen to develop open source projects with charities. Download a copy of the NOSI Open source Primer here.
New Award Scheme for Outstanding Management of Volunteers is being run by Camden Volunteer Bureau. Candidate organisations have to be nominated by volunteers themselves so if you've been brilliantly managed by a Camden voluntary organisation, now is the time to reward good practice! Nominations to: Nigel Newton-Sawyer at Camden Volunteer Bureau
And a big thanks to all our volunteers for the support you've delivered to voluntary organisations, and do check out their appreciative comments in this newsletter. But don't forget to keep us informed - remember feedback is crucial to developing iT4C as a responsive resource for you and for the communities you've served so successfully, as well as for building capacity to meet fresh challenges.
Next newsletter will be published sometime in June.
Project of the Month: HIV charity needs help with scripting and reporting in FileMaker Pro database with a view to longer-term development of the database and, ideally, skills transfer to move towards self-reliance.
The Little Bit Different Project of the Month: London-based advocacy organisation is looking for volunteers to help develop policies for email and internet use for a scheme to promote "surfing" among older people. They also need "young guns" to run "taster" sessions and for mentoring. They would like a website for the scheme as well as some ad hoc technical support. Plenty to choose from!
Snappy (quick) project of the month: South Manchester students seek IT professionals to demystify the IT profession and explain real life in IT (gently). The college needs various speakers ad hoc on an ongoing basis.
More projects and project details at: www.iT4Communities.org.uk
Please note that some projects which do not appear in the remote section of iT4C's opportunities might still be feasible as remote projects, so why not browse projects from other regions as well as your local area. It never hurts to ask!
3. Making a Difference - Feedback from a recent project:
Please would you thank everyone who has made it possible for you to give me this IT help. I would never have been able to access 1 to 1 lessons any other way and receive such brilliant tuition . . . Jenny's flexibility and knowledge combined with a good dose of humour and patience have meant that our member of staff and volunteer are far more confident at exploring possibilities and at problem-solving, and have even occasionally taught the rest of us a thing or two!
- Myra Davis, Northern Refugee Centre/Training by Jenny Cole
We have had telephone conversations with these charities (or the brokers providing the opportunities), and have filtered out any requests that were clearly inappropriate for volunteers. In the Volunteer Opportunities section we have included information about the type of charity, the location (or suitability for remote working) and a summary of the request for IT advice/assistance. If you are interested in volunteering for a particular opportunity, please click on the Volunteer button adjacent to the details of each opportunity. This does not commit you to the project at this stage but will enable us to send you further information.
Opportunities are categorised by location (London, North West, North East, West Midlands, East Midlands, SouthEast, SouthWest, Scotland, Wales). We're working on better ways of representing the projects/locations but all feedback is welcome. Apologies in advance if we've offended anyone's geography. Please bear in mind that I'm not a geography guru and what you think is East Midlands might have been added to West Midlands. It's worth looking at other areas near you.
We've also classified projects by skill type, e.g. website, database, strategy. This does mean that some projects don't fit easily into categories so if you're a multi-tasking kind of volunteer or have special talents, check out the ALL category and find those hidden gems.
We will respond to offers to volunteer on a first come, first served basis and we will try to respond to all of you as soon as possible but this may take a few days depending on the number of responses and other activities. Your patience is appreciated. In some cases, we may provide multiple volunteer details for a particular project. We will also let you know if your opportunity has already been taken (assuming we've been told). We will deal with offers to volunteer as quickly as we can but we cannot guarantee to respond to all applications immediately.
Projects will remain listed until someone confirms acceptance. In some cases, volunteers have expressed interest but a project has not, for whatever reason, been confirmed. If you contact a charity about a project and they tell you it's no longer available, please let us know (sometimes they don't).
If there isn't an opportunity near to you, please bear with us. More charities and projects are registered each week. If you have any specific questions, please email Paula at info@iT4Communities.org.uk
At your first meeting with the charity you will need to check out a number of issues:
Getting this stuff right at the outset is worth the time spent and makes sure that you can then concentrate on delivering a great project
iT4Communities is a project to help the IT industry and IT professionals help communities. It depends largely on you as individuals and employees to deliver the expertise. We're here to provide the web-based resource and answer questions. We will try to provide you with introductions to charities and work with you as a group to develop best practice. You are the ones with the skills to change the lives of individuals, groups, to make a difference in your local community. If you have any suggestions about iT4Communities and/or this newsletter do get in touch, we want to hear from you.
Simon.
Simon Davey
National Director, iT4Communities
e: simon@iT4Communities.org.uk
w: www.iT4Communities.org.uk
IT 4 Communities is an initiative
to encourage companies and individuals with professional IT skills to volunteer
these skills for the benefit of the community, and is supported by a partnership
of key IT sector organisations.
We aim to achieve a significant and sustainable increase in the number of companies and IT professionals volunteering their skills in their local communities, and to maximise the effectiveness of this volunteering input in building the capacity of local charities and community groups.