How to useNew Media

CONTENTS

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Foreword by Caroline Diehl – Chief Executive of Media Trust

Foreword by Matthew Legg – ICT Hub Chief Commissioning Editor

Chapter One – New Media explained

Chapter Two – Social Networking

Chapter Three – Blogs

Chapter Four – Forums

Chapter Five – Flickr

Chapter Six – Interviews in the digital age

Chapter Seven – Wikis

Chapter Eight – Online shopping cart

Chapter Nine – Social Bookmarking

Chapter Ten – Fundraising videos

Chapter Eleven – Legacy donations online

Chapter Twelve – Twitter and mobile communications

Chapter Thirteen – About Media Trust and Capacitybuilders

Glossary

Credits

FOREWORD

by Caroline Diehl, Chief Executive ofMedia Trust

Media Trust is a dynamic and innovative charitythat brings together the media industry andcharities. We work to build effective voluntary andcommunity sector communications through a rangeof partnerships, projects and services includingmedia training, film and TV production, our digitalTV station Community Channel, CommunityNewswire, Media Matching and Youth Mentoring.

Media Trust worked in partnership with the ICTHub to deliver a number of key objectives. Theseincluded the development of an online adviceservice, and an online discussion forum to ensurevoluntary and charity organisations have access toa range of new media advice, training and supportservices. This ‘How to use new media’ guide is fullof practical advice and voluntary sector successstories resulting from this work.

Tapping into the potential of Web 2.0 can feelquite daunting at first. After all who hasn’t feltnervous about blogging for the first time? With thisin mind we’ve put together this booklet (alsoavailable online of course!) to share with you someof the valuable advice and stories which haveemerged over the course of the project.

We hope that you find it useful and inspiring, andplease do keep sharing your experiences with us.Take time to visit Media Trust’s website where wecan potentially help by linking you with a skilledand passionate volunteer advisor, who, in turn,could introduce you to the brave new world ofblogging, podcasting and twittering!

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For more information please visit:

www.mediatrust.org

Many thanks

Caroline DiehlChief ExecutiveMedia Trust

carolined@mediatrust.org

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FOREWORD

Matt Legg ICT Commissioning andCorporate Development Manager

As technology advances ever faster, we are offeredan increasing number of new and exciting ways forthe voluntary and community sector to reach newaudiences – to communicate, advocate, lobby andprovide services in innovative ways. In addition wework increasingly in an environment where ICT ischanging many aspects of our society, from how weconduct business and consume services to how wespend our leisure time.

The ICT Hub is delighted to have supported thispublication working in partnership with the MediaTrust. Following on from the hugely successful ‘NewMedia Case Studies’ publication also produced inpartnership with the Media Trust, this publicationbuilds upon these case studies providing furtherhighlights of exemplary practice in how the voluntaryand community sector is benefiting from new mediatechnology.

We hope this publication will inspire you to thinkabout how you could use ICT to either do thingsbetter or do better things, and demonstrates justhow powerful technology could be in helping yourorganisation.

I hope you will find this insight into new mediauseful and the case studies as inspiring as I have.

Matt LeggICT Commissioning and Corporate DevelopmentManager

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CHAPTER 1

New Media explained

So you have all heard about...

‘New Media’. They get all excited about gleamingtechnology and clever gizmos. They talk inacronyms and begin sentences with: “ Did youknow you can...”

The rest of us just want to get on withcampaigning, fundraising or service delivery. Wewant to tell stories about the people we work with,the communities we’re in and the issues we’repassionate about. We want to find and talk topeople who can help us get change, deliverservices or make a difference

Well this book tries to bridge the gap. It’s abouttelling stories and having conversations. And itsabout a new space where you can do that... it justhappens that that space is on a computer.

Frankly I don’t like computers. They always gowrong. They hide my work in some side pocketwhere I can’t get at it. They refuse to acknowledgethat the printer is there, right next to the desk. No Idon;t like computers... but I love what they can do.I can see my photos as soon as I’ve taken them. Ican make films and write stories and post them forthe world to see. I can contact friends, colleaguesand comrades. I can find information and makeconnections with ideas and people.

This book is about that potential. ‘New Media’ isjust a label. Like ‘Web 2.0’ or ‘The Live Web’ – it’sjust a name that people give for the new space, adifferent sort of Internet.

Back in the ol’ days, the Web was like TV. Big

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companies broadcasted channels at us and madeus come to sites or ‘portals’ to get the informationand content they saw fit to let us have. This wastheir space and we were guests.

Now we have something different. We havemillions of people around the world creating theirown media, telling their own stories. They makefilms and music, they write stories and reports.They take photos and have discussions. They writebut they also read. They find others who sharesimilar interests and passions and haveconversations just like at a party.

This is the biggest party you’ll ever be invited to.There are groups talking about your issues. Thereare people exchanging ideas or chatting about newways of doing things or sources of funding. Thereare people collecting money or getting signatureson petitions. There are others organising eventsand actions. Your friends (and opponents) arethere. Your clients and stakeholders are there.They’re telling their stories, coming up with ideasand questions. They’re getting involved in theconversations.

You can stand in a corner of the party hoping thatpeople will come over and listen to you. You canhave your website and hope people will visit. Oryou can get out into the party and mingle, join inthe conversations and tell your stories and listen toothers.

In many ways there is nothing ‘New’ about thismedia. It’s as old as humanity itself because it’sabout storytelling, chatting and connecting withpeople. It just happens to work via a computer

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keyboard and screen. This book will show you thatthe technologies are now accessible, easy andfree. You can concentrate on using them to dowhat you do anyway – having conversations,forming relationships and telling stories.

CHAPTER 2

Social networks

IMAGINE

First coffee of the morning and Jon checked hisemail. There had been a flurry of activity on the siteover night. More people had signed the petition andsaid they would be attending the march. The groupthat had sprung up around the event was busy withdiscussion about how to carry on after the day itself.It all seemed to be progressing well. Sam inNewcastle and Helen in Adelaide seemed to beco-ordinating the activity very well. Jon wondered ifhe’d ever meet them in the real world, as he postedan encouraging message on their pages. While onthe site he noticed a new face, Su was introducingherself. She was a new teacher in Liverpool andwas wondering if she could help with the march, butalso if she could use it as a theme for her class towork on this term. Jon left her message and told herabout Mike... he seemed to have established himselfas the first port of call for the teachers who weregetting involved.

Social Networks are in some ways the most chaoticand difficult to grasp parts of the Live Web... andtherein lies their potential. Sites like Facebook,MySpace and Bebo allow users to create their ownpages. Some like MySpace and Bebo allow anyoneonline to see the personal sites; others likeFacebook only allow qualified members to view thepages.

These networks are built around the idea of ‘friends’.Your page is a place where your friends (real orvirtual) can connect with you and you with them.You can exchange messages, play games, swapmusic and videos etc. Pages on social networks arepart self-expression and part bulletin board forconversations. And that’s where they start to get

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interesting, social networking sites such asFacebook or YouTube can help you reach thousandsat the click of a button.

Different social networks have different atmospheresand different communities. Bebo tends to be foryounger teens, MySpace has a lot of musicians andwannabee artists while Facebook is increasinglypopular with young adult professionals. There areeven networks such as Linkedin that cater for thebusiness networking market. What happens whenpeople of similar ages and cultures get together onthese networks is that they find common interestsand make new ‘friends’ who share an interest in aparticular film director or band or social issue. Thesocial networks encourage their members to formgroups around these common interests and oftenprovide tools for them to do so. These can includeapplications like calendars or alerts to help organiseor online polls and recommendation tools to getother people interested.

People who spend a lot of time on social networkshave lots of connections and are involved in lots ofonline activities. A typical user might be a memberof a number of groups, be in messaging contactwith real world and virtual friends and be regularlyposting words, pictures and links to their socialnetwork Blog. Social networks are a little like partieswith conversations starting and stopping,relationships created and ideas and storiesexchanged. This is potentially very powerful for acampaigner or fundraiser looking to make newcontacts or increase interest in their cause. Thesenetworks are social; their users pride themselves onconnections, friends and conversations.Consequently they are particularly useful spaces tospread ideas or generate enthusiasm.

You can of course join any or all of these networksas an individual or an organisation. Be preparedhowever to invest quite a bit of time. Others on the

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networks will find you and your interests and inviteyou to become friends. Of course this is great interms of making contacts and possibly widening theorganisations reach but maintaining active socialnetwork presences can be intensive.

The other way in which you can make use of socialnetworks is to make use of the ‘power of crowds’.Chances are that someone in your organisation oryour family already has a social network page. Aspart of the community they are in an ideal place tobecome the ambassador for your organisation andits issue. You could ask them to include a badge ontheir page that says that they support you. Theycould write on their Blog about your issue or theycould raise a question and ask people to vote on it.If they were really keen they could start (or join) agroup. These could be short-lived; maybe leading upto a march or event, or longer-term; raisingawareness, discussing or campaigning. Chancesare these social networkers will be ‘digital natives’and so will also be using YouTube and Flickr etc sothey will be able to bring other media together. Afinal advantage of using these ambassadors is thatthey will know how to ‘speak’ and interact in thesespaces. They will be able to exploit the networkpotential to the full. Facebook for example is perfectfor the armchair activist. With Facebook you canencourage people to raise money or heightenawareness without them even having to leave thecomfort of their own home.

One thing to note about the Live Web in generaland social networks in particular is that thesespaces and the relationships they generate areunpredictable. You may start a conversation off but,like in the real world, you have no say in where thatgoes or what others do with the idea. Again this canbe very powerful. Supporters may take an issue andcreate a whole new fundraising idea that catches onand brings in all sorts of new supporters. Great! Butthey might also take an issue and change the focus

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or even the point. You can of course disassociateyour organisation from that shift but theconversation will continue. One advantage of tryingto build a network of social network ambassadors isthat they can help to keep the conversation going inthe direction you want it to.

PROS and CONS

pros

1. Free.2. The biggest party you’ll ever be invited to. ThereMUST be people who can help you out there.

3. Passionate and active community of users, manyof whom are politically and socially active.

4. Can take on a creative life of its own.5. Very high-profile at the moment... lot of potentialmedia coverage.

cons

1. Can be intimidating for first timer.2. Can be time consuming. If you’re playing there,set yourself targets and time limits and let yournetworks know.

3. Can be fickle. What is fashionable to talk abouttoday may not be tomorrow.

4. Difficult to get tone of voice right.5. Impossible to control.

GETTING STARTED

1. Visit sites that don’t require registration to view(most except Facebook) and look at the sorts ofconversations online. Search for relevant groupsand postings.

2. Find out if any of your supporters (or theirchildren!) are already involved. Ask for theiradvice or enlist as ambassadors.

3. Decide which networks to sign up to.4. Set clear aims and time limits e.g. get signaturesfor an online petition, recruit for event, get ideasfor new schools pack.

5. Create an account on your chosen networks.

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Make sure the name is relevant and attractive.6. Look for groups on the network you can joinbefore starting a new one.

7. Regularly review what your presence on thenetworks is achieving.

TOP TIPS

1. Have clear aims and time limits. Evaluateregularly.

2. Make use of ‘digital natives’ to be yourambassadors. Be sure to support them.

3. Don’t try and be something you’re not. Be humanand use your real tone of voice.

4. Don’t worry if your space is not all about work.People might connect with you because of yourlove of knitting and then get involved incampaigning on climate change.

5. Find ways to integrate the online and offlineworlds. Invite your ‘friends’ to your events orarrange to meet on the march.

6. Connect your social network page to your otherLive Web work e.g. your photos on Flickr, yourfavourite videos on YouTube etc.

CASE STUDY

The Mersey Basin Campaign

(www.merseybasin.org.uk) is an environmentalorganisation based in the North West of England.One of its key aims to get people involved inprotecting their area and take an active part in itsdevelopment. The Campaign has it own Blog(http://merseybasin.typepad.co.uk/) and as a way ofgetting new material, it came up with the idea ofgetting some colleagues who were taking part in theMongol Rally (London – Ulan Bator) in a ‘green’ carto take a Mersey Basin carved wooden salmon.

The idea at the start was that they’d deliver the fishalong with a solar panel and laptop, to a localschool in the Gobi desert. But the Live Web took

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over. The fish ended up being passed to somebackpackers, who took it to China. The backpackersthen established a Facebook group to chart thefish’s journey, and she’s now on her third ‘guardian’,somewhere in Burma – (www.travellingfishy.com /http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=10061625194).

It hadn’t been the Mersey Basin Campaign’s idea touse Facebook, there supporters had done itthemselves. As Kate Fox, the Campaign’s NewMedia Manager says: “we’d fought shy of ‘doing’Facebook, but it happened organically, giving us achance to post information and get our stories outto a whole new audience.”

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CHAPTER 3

Bloggs

IMAGINE

She had just come back from meeting the classworking on the project. She was so excited she hadto tell her colleagues. After a discussion over coffee,she sat down at her computer and wrote a quickparagraph on her blog: “... and the best bit was whenJohn said that he hadn’t thought of it that way before.”She posted her story and went back to work. After afew phone calls finalising details for Saturday, sheposted the venue and times on her blog. As she didso she noticed that someone from another mentalhealth charity, this time in Newcastle, had left acomment asking how she had got the kids so fired upand telling her about a new fund that was opening inthe North East, would she be interested in doing ajoint bid? And there was also a comment from Johnsaying that he’d posted a link on his Bebo page.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em blogs are everywhere.Politicians have them. Celebrities have them. Eventhe bosses of big corporate companies boast abouttheir online journals. For some they are self-indulgent ramblings about what you had for tea. Forothers they are a sign that the power of publishingand media has been taken out of the hands of BigMedia and now everyone has a voice. The truth is,they’re both.

A blog is an online diary that can be easily updatedas frequently as needs be. Whilst the maincommentary is from one editorial source anyonereading can comment on the content. And thebeauty of blogs is that they are easy to set up, editand keep up to date. A blog (‘web log’) tells anonline narrative and can be used to highlight anyparticular issues or events.

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It allows you to publish quickly online, post andanswer comments and upload photos. What it doesabove all is create a relationship with your users asyou can address them informally and keep them upto date with what is going on, what you areplanning and what is coming up, just as you mightchat with your friends. This is why it has commonlybeen used as an online diary; however there areways that you can make this work for you andyour charity.

That’s about it really. You can add a calendar sothat readers can track back through recent posts, asearch box etc but essentially it’s a personal pageor journal.

The real magic though comes in that all the postson the blog have a button that readers can click andthen comment on the story. Those comments arethen added to the posting. Postings can have asmany comments as you like. They can all be fromdifferent people or they might be a backwards andforwards discussion with someone asking the authora question, getting a response and ending up in aconversation.

Critics are right. Some blogs are boring accounts ofthe everyday. Yes there are some blogs that wemight find very distasteful, (Remember the Girl witha one track mind?) and even dangerous (herrelationships and career were damaged after thetrue identity of this saucy anonymous blogger wasrevealed). But there are many that consist of usefulinformation and links the author has found. Othersare more journalistic with news and views fromcommunities. Still others are simply passionatearguments or accounts. And then there are somethat are just stories of real life.

There are two ways in which you could begin toengage with the world of blogs. Firstly you couldjust read them. Find ones that are relevant to your

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work, issue, community etc. and then read. To findrelevant blogs, use a search engine likewww.technorati.com. When you have found ablogger that’s useful, look at the links she includeson her site, that’ll point you towards others. Youmight find information, news or a new perspective.You might find someone who you can work with. Ifyou find something good, leave a comment. Thatnew relationship might lead somewhere.

Secondly you could launch your own (see Box onsetting-up). Don’t worry; this is not like setting up awebsite. Think of it as opening a notebook. At onelevel, blogs are a very efficient way of distributinginformation. If you have some news or informationsupporters, stakeholders and even the media, postit on your blog. Your supporters, members andjournalists can subscribe to your Blog and get theinformation as soon as you write it. No need tosend out printed press releases or spend ages bythe Fax machine.

But blogs are more than newswires. They are story-telling spaces. You can use them to show why youare doing what you are doing and allow others tocontact you. Just start writing – short pieces, longpieces whatever. Talk about the family you just met.Tell the story of your office or the last councilmeeting. Tell your readers why that parkland isimportant. The key thing is to sound like you’re areal person and like the issue you’re involved in isimportant. Don’t try and write like a reporter or aspin doctor – write like a human. Don’t write afunding proposal or an annual report, tell stories.Don’t feel as though you have to write a lot or evenevery day. Maybe tell your readers that’ll you beadding a new story every Friday afternoon.Remember you’re talking with people not at them.

Finally think of your blog as your part of aconversation. If you find an interesting or evenannoying posting on someone else’s blog, write a

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response on your blog. Link to their entry bycopying the web address of their posting into yourstory. Your Blog will then automatically add yourstory to theirs as a comment.

As your blog gets going, maybe one entry is thestory of a project you’ve been working on with aschool and the next is information about an event ornews of a funding success. People who read orsubscribe to your blog keep up-to-date with yournews and also why that news is important.

Amnesty does a very good job of combiningpersonal information with tit bits about theorganisation and news about human rights.However there are links across the web on howbest to blog. Just a take a look at some of the belowand get blogging! If you really want to take yourinterest in blogging further The Rough Guidespublish a great introduction to blogging.

PROS and CONS

pros:

1. Free.2. Easy to use – no need to know about webprogramming or get techies involved.

2. Easy to subscribe to – keep in constant touchwith supporters.

4. Interactive – people can start conversations withyou.

5. Accessible – being mainly text-based, Blogs arevery easy for people using screen-readers.

cons:

1. Can be difficult to remember how to write like areal person and not sound like a PR person.

2. Can be addictive – set yourself set times toupdate.

3. Conversations can be time consuming – setyourself times to answer comments and makesure it’s clear on the Blog.

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4. Some of your supporters might not have Internetaccess so keep in contact in other ways.

GET STARTED

1. Go to wordpress www.wordpress.com, blogger,www.blogger.com or typepad, www.typepad.comand set up a free account.

2. Give your Blog a name that’s relevant andattractive e.g. saveourpond.wordpress.com.

3. Put a link on your existing site to your new Blog.Also add the address to your letterhead andemail signature.

4. Write a story about a real experience that sumsup what your campaign or service is all about.

5. Visit www.technorati.com and search for yourissue or area of work. Read a few of the Blogsand then write a response on your Blog.

6. Work out and publish a schedule that tells yourreaders when you will be adding stories andwhen you will be responding.

TIPS

1. Think small – short and often. Think of it askeeping in contact with friends.

2. Think human – tell stories and talk like a realperson who’s passionate about what they do.

3. Be honest – admit when you’ve got it wrong ordon’t know.

4. Develop your own editorial style; the beauty ofblogging lies in its informal nature.

5. Link – point your readers to other interestingBloggers or sources of information. The moreyou link to other blogs and the more they linkback to you, the more people will find you online.

6. Post regularly– No matter how well written yourblog is, readers wont return if they see that it isnot being updated.

7. Tell everyone about your Blog.

CASE STUDY

Simon Blake is the CEO of Brook the sexual healthcharity for young people. The Charity already had a

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successful website but Simon decided to launch ablog so he could talk directly to supporters, partnersand anyone interested in issues around sexualhealth. Called ‘Talking of Sex’, his blog athttp://brookcentres.blogspot.com/ gives him aspace to talk about the organisation (his story of theannual party gives you a picture of the team and thepeople they work with); the people he meets as wellas his opinions and perspectives on the importantissues his organisation is dealing with.

His blog is more than a platform for Simon to soundoff. People leave comments about their experiencesor their own ideas. Simon says that sometimes hewonders whether his blog is making any differenceand then he finds people saying: “Oh you’re the onethat blogs.” “It can be quite overwhelmingsometimes,” he says. “blogging makes you reflect onyour work. It keeps me connected.”

Simon had been worried about broachingcontroversial issues but found that blogging was anideal way of establishing his organisation’s position:“blogging helps me be a bit bolder in what I sayabout our issues. We’ve found it’s completely safeto do it, indeed its impossible not to.”

LINKS

www.technorati.com – a blog search enginewww.bloglines.com – a site that lets you subscribeto lots of blogs and have all their posts broughttogether in one place www.feedburner.com – aservice that helps you publish your blog as a feed(see the chapter on feeds) or as an email list. It alsotracks the number of readers. Handbook forbloggers and ‘cyber dissidents’ from Reporterswithout borders:

http://www.rsf.org/rubrique.php3?id_rubrique=542www.squarespace.comhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blogging

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CHAPTER 4

Forums

IMAGINE

Brenda is two months into receiving treatment forbreast cancer. Once she got over the shock anddisbelief of her diagnosis. Brenda begun herresearch, after some depressing search results,she stumbled across a page on the site of aleading breast cancer charity. Here she foundongoing conversations that she identified with,between participants suffering and in remissionfrom breast cancer. Through this forum Brendareceived advice, from the qualified nurses that actas moderators, on how to combat some of theside effects of chemotherapy. She also findscomfort in offering words of support to newlydiagnosed women.

Forums allow discussion between users. Once setup they can be cheap to run, encourage theexchange of ideas and build up a community.Scope has set up one for its users,http://www.scope.org.uk/forum/index.php that doesjust that.

Scope is the charity for people with cerebral palsy.It concerns itself with research and treatment forsufferers as well as support groups, advice servicesand awareness campaigns. For a charity such asthis it is therefore important to be in touch with itsmembers and give a voice to those who need to beheard. By offering an online forum, sufferers andcarers can get together and exchange ideas,support or just chat about what’s on their minds.And they do. With over 15,000 registered users,Scope certainly has a thriving forum that helpsbreak down the barriers between the online worldand the real issues that people face.

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What are forums?

Forums are online web pages allowing anyone topost messages and respond. They allow people totalk about anything – sharing whatever is on theirmind. There are essentially two types of forum – pre-and post-moderated. A pre-mod forum is where allposts are checked by the organisation or moderatorbefore they go live. This means that it is up to you,as the owner of the forum, to make sure that nothinginflammatory or slanderous or any randomadvertising can be sent live. This is the model thatScope has used. It’s a good one, but it does meanthat you will have to ensure that there is someoneavailable to check all posts before they are sent livefor everyone to read on the big bad cyberweb. Thisalso means that people posting won’t necessarilyknow when their posts go live.

A post-mod forum means that users can postdirectly on to the live site. This makes for a muchmore dynamic relationship with your users, but thecons are that you are not always aware of what isbeing posted.

Alex White, web content manager at Scope, saysthat for them, the key feature was not allowing usersto exchange contact details, so they opted for a pre-mod board.

Having taken some advice from NCH, Alex wasconcerned with users leaving themselves vulnerableto unsavoury predators. Whist many users claimedthey felt they didn’t want protecting, he took theview that it was better to look after all users andensure that all posts were vetted before going live.

They have since had the odd complaint when usershave posted email addresses that have beendeleted by the hosts. The rest of the message willthen be posted live with a note remind users that ithas been pre-moderated. Though this is not always

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popular Alex points out: “we do it for a very goodreason”. i.e.: making sure that no one can give theirpersonal details to the wrong person.

How to set one up.

The main thing to consider is whether you are goingto create your own forum from scratch or whetheryou are going to use off-the-peg software. There is alot of free software and a lot of different options outthere. Just type ‘software forums’ into Google andyou’ll be immediately overwhelmed.

A typical forum will allow users to create their ownuser name (user contact details, such as email, willnormally be collated into a database, but thesewon’t usually appear on the board itself). Standardfeatures will show when a message was posted (bydate and sometimes by time), allow users torespond to them, and set up a themed discussionso it is easy to follow an online chat, see how manytimes a posting has been viewed and search on thesystem for a keyword or name.

How to direct users to your

organisation’s forum

You will need to ensure there is a tab or a link inthe main navigation to the forum. To encourageusers to actively contribute, try highlighting some ofthe more interesting discussions that are happeningon your home page.

You know how frustrating it is when you aresearching for contact details on an organisation’sweb site, but to no avail? Well, bear this in mindwhen you are setting up your forum. Though mostpeople will want to exchange information online youmight find that there are some who actually want toget in direct contact with you. In their introductionto the forum Scope offer a phone number and anemail address for people to contact them directly.This means that if a visitor to the forum sees

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something that bothers them in the posts – maybean inaccuracy that someone else has posted – theycan contact the charity directly.

Points of view

The main thing to bear in mind when hosting aforum is that the people who contribute to theforums are expressing THEIR own views – notthose of your organisation.

It is worth making this clear on your pages and, asmentioned above, also letting people know how tocontact you if they have a complaint or query aboutthe forum or what is posted on the pages. Be sureto have someone answering those incoming emailsthough!

Hosting forums

Hosting is an essential part of managing a forum.You can, of course, set up a forum and let it take itsown course. However, like any community, it will runbetter if it has a guide. On the internet these onlineguides take the form of hosts – they can help seedinformation, answer queries that users post, makesure that no slander takes place (I have seen someparticularly flaming discussions take place betweensome normally calm, placid and friendly bookreaders) and to occasionally step in and calm thecyber flames. Just as at a party, a good host, neverdominates the forum, but initiates conversations andensures everything runs smoothly. Your role is animportant one, like the host of a party, to protectyour members or guests contact details. A goodhost should never be too liberal with the guests’contact details!

You should think about giving yourself a name suchas ‘webmaster/webmistress/host/forum host’ etc.,so that people know that you are representing yourcharity. You might also want to set up a ‘thread’ – ordiscussion area just for announcements from yourorganisation. Scope has established a category

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called ‘forum news’ for this purpose.

To help build up the community feel, you might alsowant to make sure that you welcome all new visitorsto the site. People respond better when they know ifthere is a friendly helping hand around.

Scope has invested time and resource intromoderating their forum space.Alex White, points out that all the Scope hosts havebackgrounds in nursing, social work or telephonecounselling so they are well-trained in the field ofadvising people. This means that if members postmessages asking about a detailed case, a Scoperesponse worker will either post a general messageon the board in response or might suggestcontacting them on confidential phone line. Thisprovides a slick dual support service to its members.Regional response workers might take this one stepfurther and may offer home visits if they feel this isrequired. The combination of well-trained hosts,telephone support and outreach work means thatthey are able to offer a personal response to theirusers. And yet they can also reach many users atonce. For example, they recently found that oneperson posted a message on the board askingabout special shoes for disabled children. A hostreplied with information about which shoes may helpand the posting had over 2000 views; proving howthe forum can act as a useful resource for more thanjust the person who posts.

Unfortunately, Spammers are hard to avoid in forumspaces. Whilst Scope gets over 20 genuinemessages a day, they also get 50-60 spammessages. You’ll find you might want to make surethat the tidying up becomes part of your dailyroutine in checking the messages. This is also anessential for social networking sites.

Very occasionally, says Alex, someone can becomepersistently abusive and the hosts will delete their

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message. The reason behind deleting a message isalways explained and if it’s just a general spammer,they won’t return but occasionally a user mightapologise for their language used, rewrite theirmessage and repost. The other issue you need beaware of is libel. You don’t need to be legallytrained, just watch out for postings criticisingproducts or people.

Options

There will be many potential options regarding thestyle and format of the forum. One of which will be ifyour forum reveals a posters’ online history to otherusers. Scope allows you to click on a user’s nameand see how many posts they have made and whentheir last posting was. This may seem intrusive but itall helps build up a community.

You will have to decide whether you want a forumthat people will have to log in and register with orone onto which one could post directly. Askingpeople to log in may seem like unnecessary orrestrictive but it means that you can build up yourown database of users and monitor where theycome from. It also means that you can be sure thateveryone who signs up to your forum is legitimate,has read the rules and is not trying to sign up foradvertising purposes! The last thing you want is yourwebsite being hijacked by a Viagra salesman.Onething to make sure you have clearly highlighted,though, is a guide to the rules for posting.

What to avoid

The trap that many organisations seem to fall into isfailing to allocate enough resources to their forums.The set-up costs can vary, but it is worth allocatingsome funds to make sure that the forums are well-staffed and maintained. This will depend on the levelof service you want to offer of course, but Scopehave seven full time members of staff who take it inturns to moderate their forums, and there issomeone allocated to do this each day.

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CHAPTER 5

Flickr

IMAGINE

The Council was due to make its decision about thewaste ground tomorrow. Councillor Smith sat by hiscomputer and looked at the site. He was used tothe group’s rhetoric now but there was somethingdifferent on the site. There was a photo of theground and a link that said: “more”. Councillor Smithclicked on the link and suddenly his screen wasfilled with pictures. There were ones of childrenplaying, football teams, and a group of Scoutsbuilding a den from trees. There were pictures ofkite flyers and dog walkers, old ladies with a flask oftea on a bench, cyclists, and walkers. There werepictures by amateur photographers of the wasteground at sunset. There were out-of-focus cameraphone self-portraits. What was more these picturesall shared a common title: ‘Save AmbridgeCommon’ and they had attracted comments fromwell beyond Ambridge. People in surroundingvillages left best wishes. People from around theworld were asking to be kept in touch on the fate ofthe waste ground. Councillor Smith turned hisattention to the proposal to be voted on tomorrow.He was no longer facing a couple of activists... hewas facing a community.

Photographs have always been a powerful means ofcommunication but until recently, frankly they’d beena pain to handle online. You had to organise them,find storage space and arrange them on yourwebpages. And if you wanted to make use ofsomeone else’s pictures you had to link to them orask for copies that you could add to your ‘gallery’.Not now though. Online photo-sharing sites meanyou can manage your own photo library but alsoconnect with other people’s libraries to tell yourstories in new ways.

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The leading photo-sharing site is Flickr(www.flickr.com). . Flickr calls itself ‘the best onlinephoto management and sharing application in theworld’.

In short, a free account at Flickr lets you upload yourdigital photographs, from your computer, by email ordirect from your mobile phone. It is used by amateurand professional photographers alike as well asindividuals and organisations. You can add titles,descriptions and keywords or tags. You can arrangethem into sets or albums and set the copyright oneach image. You can specify that all images are yourcopyright and people can’t use them or you can usewhat is called a “Creative Commons’ licence whichmeans that people are free to use your work fornon-commercial purposes as long as they give you acredit. This is potentially useful because you mightfind your pictures taking your story or messagearound the world.

Flickr provides you with100mb of free web space,all at the click of a button. Along with this, you canadd up to 300 contacts (other Flickr members) and75 tags for your photos. Whilst using 75 word tagsfor your photos isn’t advisable, do make sure thatyou list the main search terms for your charity sothat your photos can be found. Four or five tags arenormally enough.

When your Flickr gallery is up and running, you canthen use a simple piece of code to ‘embed’ thepictures on your site. Visitors to your site will seeyour images but you don’t have to worry abouthosting or arranging them. You can have a gallery onyour site run for free by Flickr.Flickr is not a substitute for a full website for yourcharity, but what it does is offer an easy point ofaccess to collate your photos and to encourageuser submissions. Just as the Children in Need2007 website encouraged users to submit theirvideos via YouTube, you might want to encourage

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your users to submit their photos of a particularevent via Flickr from your website. So you’ll need tomake sure there is a clear link and clear instructionsfrom your own site.

So far so good but Flickr is based on sharing – andlike all the Live Web sites and services,conversations. You can add keywords or tags toyour Flickr photos so that people searching on thesite for “Ambridge” will find your pictures and yourcampaign or organisation. If you include other tagssuch as “park”, “playground” etc, people, who arepossibly also interested in play etc, will find yourwork. Similarly, you might find them by searching for“play” or “park”. A new connection is made and youmight be able to work together.

Another key aspect of Flickr is that visitors can leavecomments. You can set it up so Flickr let’s you knowwhen someone has left a comment on one of yourpictures. Someone leaving a comment is someonetalking to you, expressing an interest in what you aredoing. If you respond, maybe it’s the start of a newrelationship which might be a fundraising orcampaigning relationship. It might be a potentialpartner... who knows. And of course you can leavecomments on other photos and open a dialoguethat way too.

Every other Flickr user is potentially one of yourContacts. Once you start adding people as yourcontacts their photos get aggregated for you on aseparate page which you can view. So the realpower of Flickr comes in groups. In our imaginaryexample, the Save Ambridge Common group’sphotos were part of a larger network of imagestaken by the local ramblers, dog walkers, kite flyersand kids. They were all linked together by commontags but they were also part of a Flickr Group.Anyone can start a group and then encourageothers to post their photos to that Group. Not onlydo you get lots of interesting images but you get

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people feeling as though they are part of a groupwhether that is a campaign or a fundraising group.They own it. They have a stake in it.

More and more people are taking pictures. Theavailability of cheap digital cameras and in particularthe ubiquity of mobile phone cameras mean thatpeople are documenting their lives like never before.Many of your supporters will be taking photos.They’ll be taking them at your events but they mayalso be taking pictures that are about your issue.Many will be taking their photos on their mobilephones and sharing them with friends and family. Ifyou brought them together on Flickr together withimages you’ve taken, pictures of your fundraisinggarden party or the lobby of parliament, you have adocumentary built (and owned) by the peopleinvolved. And to the outsider, your organisationlooks as though it is at the heart of a vibrantcommunity of people passionate about an issue oridea.

PROS and CONS

pros:

1. Free2. Easy to use – Flickr gives you free tools toupload and resize your images.

3. Easy to set up Groups to link people together.4. Easy to embed images on your site – you canembed one picture or a whole album.

5. Reach – your photos will be seen by morepeople on Flickr then on your site.

cons:

1. You can’t control what other photographers do –they might use you tag on images you don’t like.

2. Groups can get very big and might drift off thefocus you set. Be very clear on the Group page.

3. Although you are only legally responsible for theimages that you own, you might have a

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professional responsibility to ensure that yournetwork of photographers are aware of issuesaround Internet safety and copyright.

GET STARTED

1. Go to www.flickr.com and set up a free account.2. Think of a name for the Flickr page that’s relevantand attractive. It might be your organisation or itmight be the issue. Put a link to your homepageon your Flickr profile.

3. Upload, describe and tag some photos. Think oftags that people might search for and includeyour organisation’s name.

4. Create a Flickr ‘badge’ and embed it on yoursite.

5. Start a Flickr group around your issue.6. Encourage supporters to upload relevant photosto the group. Use your Blog as well as offline.communications.

7. Search on Flickr for other groups andphotographers taking pictures that are relevant.Leave some comments and invitations to joinyour Group.

8. Build Flickr into your planning: “How are wegoing to cover the Marathon this year?”

TIPS

1. Get as many photographers ‘covering’ your storyas possible.

2. Don’t look for ‘great photographs’. Look forpassionate pictures, ones that tell a story even ifit is a bit out of focus.

3. Think of a set of tags that every photographerknows to add to any of their pictures.

4. Be aware of the privacy of any of the people inyour images. As their image will be available toall (you can however set privacy levels for Flickr)you may not want to name them to protect theiridentity.

5. Publicise your album and group. Link to it from allyour other Live Web spaces.

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CASE STUDY

Sobell House is an Oxford based hospice(www.sobellhospiceoxford.org).It uses Flickr to host all of its photos[http://www.flickr.com/people/sobellhospiceoxford/].

“It’s so much easier than the running battles withdesigners or having to administer them,” saysfundraiser Kevin Game. Sobell House encouragesits supporters to upload their photos and link theminto the charity’s images. Sobell House has foundthat people contact the charity after finding imageson the site. Some ask if they can use the imagesand some just want to know more.

Kevin is exploring the possibilities of using the siteto make contacts outside the charity world. “Flickrbuilds a community of photo users,” he says. As anexample, the local Harley Davidson group attendeda fundraising walk and took photos which are part ofthe Sobell House album of the event. Kevin isadding the tag “Harley Davidson” so that any otherbikers looking for picture of their beloved bikes willfind his images and his organisation. Maybe thosebikers are also looking for a charity to support.

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IMAGINE

Completely by chance Mike meets a well knownsoapstar at his wife’s company gala event. Mike wasseated next to the soapstar and they got to talkingabout the premature babies charity that Mikevolunteers for in his spare time. It turns out thatprematurity was a cause close to the celeb’s heartas her sister had recently had a seriously prematureson. Mike was surprised when he put in hiscustomary follow up call a few days later, the starenthusiastically agreed to not only donate butbecome an ambassador for the prematurity charity,appear at a few of their upcoming events and betterstill become somewhat of a spokesperson,promoting their work to the media and recordinginterviews and testimonials.Rather than the tired old method of printing thestar’s testimonial, Mike begun to consider moreinteresting ways they could use the heartfelt wordsof their newfound celebrity stakeholder. Why notcreate an online gallery with audio and video storiesfrom their supporters, and not just their famoussupporters; any of their donors or volunteers

Loveearth is an innovative organisation engagingwith their target audiences; taking us to the edge ofthe world and retaining their interest with celebritiesgiving their heartfelt accounts of their passion forthe planet. All visitors to the site need to do is clickon a link to hear, for example, Will Young talk abouthis love for Africa.

What this design award nominated site is doing isputting up audio ‘postcards’ from users, celebritiesand nature ‘heroes’. The latter includes wildlifecameramen and women as well as natural historyfilm-makers and producers. These audio pieces

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CHAPTER 6

Interviews in the digital age

involve such varied people as musicians, presentersand directors all talking about what inspires themmost on this wild and exciting planet that we live on.This in turn encourages visitors to the site to thinkabout what is around them and even send in theirown postcards. On these pages:http://www.loveearth.com/uk/postcards/galleries/celebritieshttp://www.loveearth.com/uk/postcards/view/b9f53f8f-6e5c-4601-aa41-dad4c6692401Will Young talks about his affinity with the Africancontinent, and the wide open skies and landscapeof the iconic Serengeti… The audio file isaccompanied by a still shot of him on locationhelping to situate the audio and give some vibrancyto the page.

What this content means is that visitors to the sitecan listen to personal stories, bringing both the siteand the campaign alive. It adds texture to the site.Whilst Loveearth is primarily a commercial site fromBBC Worldwide, it does have charitable partnersand is raising awareness for good causes.

With partners such as the World Wildlife Fund, theinternational environmental charity, EarthWatch,EWB – a Botswana based NGO, focusing ontracking and looking after elephants – Loveearth hasmanaged to get audio commentaries from peoplesuch as Will Young, Graham Norton and JackOsborne. Whilst you might not have the power orthe contacts that the BBC brings to attract bignames, there are still plenty of things you can do…

Firstly never underestimate how willing people are tosupport your charity if you ask. Why not approachlocal celebrities, dignitaries, or people in thelimelight you know of who tend to support charitiessuch as yours. You never know, they may wellrecord a testimony for your site, though you’llprobably have to be flexible with your deadlines inorder to fit in with them.

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Its best if you keep the audio recording to no longerthan two minutes long. As with most things on theweb, people tend to get distracted fairly quickly sodon’t make it much longer than that. It will also helpyou to secure your interviewee if they know that theydon’t have to talk for too long! And try to give theinterviewee some guidance as to what you wantthem to talk about in that time. Structured questionscan sometimes work well.

You’ll need to record your interview or feature in adigital format compatible with the most commonuploading tools. A minidisk recorder (with areasonably good microphone) will usually suffice,though data tape can be even better. You may needto invest a little in some cheap editing software tocut out the ‘umms…‘ and errs…‘. However manycomputers (mainly macs) come with such freeediting software like Garageband, or Audacity. On aPC the best option is usually Adobe Audition(though this isn’t free). With a very basic level of skillyou can cut and edit your celebrity chat/feature andsave it as an mp3, a Windows media file or even aRealmedia file.

When you’ve mastered the art of spicing up yoursite with sound clips you could then perhaps moveup to basic video clips! Again, with a cheap digitalcamera and some editing software (once more,Macs come with an inbuilt editing suite that’s veryeasy to master) you could be uploading yourfootage to one of the many web 2.0 video sharingsites such as YouTube. Once up there you canembed the clips on your site with a tiny bit ofembedded code…

Often it’s good to give all three options to allow asmany different users with as many different types ofcomputer to access the audio stream. Also peoplemay wish to save the audio for later to listen to ontheir mp3 players or iPods. Why not give them thechance to save to their hard disc? Once you have

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your piece of audio and have uploaded it to yoursite, best practice is to tell users how long the audiointerview will be so that they know how long theyneed to listen for!

When you’ve mastered the art of spicing up yoursite with sound clips you could then perhaps moveup to basic video clips! Again, with a cheap digitalcamera and some editing software (once more,Macs come with an inbuilt editing suite that’s veryeasy to master) the clips can be uploaded ontosharing sites such as YouTube and then hosted onyour own site with that embedded code.

Taking things one step further, Loveearth pins their‘postcards’ onto an interactive Google map of theworld, where celebrities and heroes’ postcards sitalongside those of users, showing the responsesthey have had right across the globe, and helping tobuild on the metaphor of the virtual postcard.

However if you feel you can’t get an audio interviewwith a celebrity, don’t fret. Loveearth has gottenround this problem as well by just putting up the texttestimonies, as they did for moonwalker, Buzz Aldrin,and presenter, Michaela Strachan. If you can get acelebrity to write testimonies for you, you’re doingjust as well!

And if you want to take the testimonials one stepfurther there is one more leaf you can take out ofthe Loveearth book. That is to encourage users tosubmit their own thoughts about the work that youdo. If you are going to show user responses, it isworth highlighting how valuable they are by treatingthem to the same exposure as celebrities whetheryou’re putting them on your homepage, a gallery ona map! All feedback and responses help build yourcommunity, a sense of participation that willundoubtedly include and encourage both new andexisting users.

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35

CHAPTER 7

Wikis

IMAGINE

Simon had to have the new strategy paper ready forthe Trustees meeting by a week on Tuesday. Hecould write it himself of course but with the delicatepolitical situation within the organisation he didn’twant to go it alone. He hated the word‘stakeholders’ but unless the whole organisation feltownership, the Trustees would never buy it. Helooked on the Wiki. His initial page of themes hadsprung off in all directions. The fundraiser had linkedfrom his discussion of ‘single parents’ to anotherpage of ideas about marginalised groups and a newEU fund. The schoolteacher they’d worked with lastyear had edited the page on education correcting amisunderstanding and linking to a Guardian article.Most interestingly, the intern had bounced off one ofthe campaigns pages and written a thoughtful pieceabout her own experience. Simon had no idea as tothe level of the interns experience and potential. Headded a link back to the main report structure pageand left a note asking her to have a coffee next timeshe was in. She really had something to add.

When we think of wikis we tend to think ofWikipedia – the collaborative encyclopedia built withthe wisdom of crowds. At Wikipedia, anyone canbegin a new article or edit an existing one and makeit better. There is of course a lot of debate aboutwhether Wikipedia is as accurate and reliable asencyclopedias built by the great and the good fromthe top-down, but one thing is sure, the Wikipedia isbuilt with passion, enthusiasm and involvement.Everyone who adds to it or makes it better is doingso out of their interest in the issue or subject. Theyhave a stake in the ownership of their encyclopedia.It is those issues of passion, enthusiasm,

involvement and ownership which are at the heart ofthe wiki way. And it is those that offer great potentialfor teams and organisations.

To install or use a wiki within an organisation is atone level to offer a giant whiteboard where anyonecan write documents together, collect togetherinformation or just brainstorm and connect ideas.The ability to easily add ‘pages’ and connect themtogether means not only that lots of material can beamassed, connected and made searchable – a bitlike an organisational encyclopedia – but thateveryone can get involved. Enabling everyoneacross an organisation to contribute theirknowledge, information and experience means anorganisation is making the best use of theinformation and knowledge that is spread acrosspeople’s desks and inside their heads.

But wikis offer more than that. Because they aremore informal than traditional knowledgemanagement systems, people can feel able to addideas, notes and thoughts to the mix. Your team hasa wealth of experience and ideas as well as codifiedknowledge. Because creating a wiki page andlinking it to others is so easy and informal, peoplecan feel happy to add informal notes or asides tothe mix. These may spur others into makingconnections, adding and bouncing idea round. Ineffect we have an encyclopedia and brainstormspace in one. As far as use goes in the non-forprofit sector there are endless possibilities for wikis.The Wikimedia Foundation, the charitableorganisation behind Wikipedia, unsurprisingly headsup the forefront of wiki use themselves, bydedicating a section of their own site to debatesand discussions about their own charitableorganisation.http://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:About#The_Wikimedia_Foundation

According to Eric Mattson, social media scholar and

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co-author of the study, ‘Blogging for the Hearts ofDonors’, focussing on social media usage by the200 largest charities in the US, not for profitorganisations are overtaking businesses in their useof social media, including wikis. These organisationsare built up of a passionate core of people whowant to hear about what is going on and want toparticipate.

Wikis, whether you use software on your own server(like the free mediawiki software that runsWikipedia) or on a free host like wikispaces, pbwikior wetpaint all work on the same principle. Everypage has an ‘edit’ button. When you click on it youcan change any text and add links either to anotheror new page on the wiki, or to another website.That’s about it.

The most important thing to remember is that wikisare a radical thing for most people, particularlypeople in organisations. We are not used to beingasked to contribute on equal terms, to being givenpermission to join in and add our thoughts andideas. We are not used to be told to just getinvolved, pitch in and help build something. We arenot used to having informal thoughts and notesvalued alongside polished, finished documents. Assuch any organisation looking to develop awikispace needs to look at training and supportingits staff so that they can play a full part and thepotential network effects can work their wonders.

So, how could an organisation use a wiki? Youcould develop a wiki as your organisation’sknowledge base, an ever-growing resource thatpulls together all of your staff and stakeholders’wisdom, experience and information. This can beformal information or informal knowledge andstories.

In terms of managing, sharing and making the mostof information and resources, Mercy Ships, a US

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based organisaton [www.mercyships.org] whichprovides hospitals ships uses a wiki to keep track ofits complex logistics and teams. In the wake ofHurricane Katrina, wikis were used to bring people,ideas and information together[http://katrinahelp.info]. Others have used wikis aspart of planning. A loose collection of civil servantsand social media advocates used a wiki to organisea conference[http://barcamp.org/BarcampUKGovweb]. GlobalVoice Online has used a wiki[http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/wiki/] to bringtogether information and help it not only plan butalso run and follow up the work of its real-worldconferences.

It is of course possible to widen an informationwikispace beyond the walls of an individualorganisation. The Sustainable Community Actionwiki [http://sca21.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page] actsas a place where people involved in the area, frommany different organisations can share information,build knowledge and connections as well providinga rich site for people looking for information aboutthe subject and the people and organisationsinvolved. By opening up the space, information notonly flows more effectively but arguably gets turnedinto knowledge that can form part of initiatives,plans, relationships and action. When informationbecomes personal and connected to the real worldand work, it becomes knowledge that can be used.It becomes powerful.

It is the power of wikis to make information workharder and becoming knowledge that offers hugepotential for organisations willing to open up andenable their teams and stakeholders and clientsbecome involved.

As well as acting as archives or encyclopedias,wikis can help organisations and movements plan.As with the barcamp and Global voices examples

above, wikis can enable the sharing of informationprior to events. But they can also be used as acreative thinking space for more generalbrainstorming. Many corporates including Sony,Nokia and investment bank Dresdner KleinwortWasserstein are now using them as a means ofteam building and also as a way of planning.

PROS and CONS

pros

1. Limitless space to brainstorm ideas whilekeeping them all connected and searchable

2. Effectively gives permission for everyone tocontribute easily and on equal terms

3. Very effective at cutting out emails and sendingdocuments backwards and forwards

4. Can create organic archive that matches the waypeople work and think. People create their ownlinks, categories and taxonomies

cons

1. Can be difficult to get people involved. As wellas training, offer some simple, direct challengese.g. “can you add a paragraph about X”

2. Can be difficult to manage, particularly if youmake it open. You can set membership optionsand always roll back any changes

3. Can have cultural implications. Once you haveopened up the organisation and its thinking, it’shard to go back.

GET STARTED

1. Go to www.wikispaces.com and create a freeaccount

2. Decide what your wiki will be about. Planning anevent, producing a report, building a resource

3. Decide whether it will be members only or open.If work is opened out, consider how this will bemanaged and evaluated.

4. Run a training session with any users explaining

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the technology but more importantly, theprinciples and philosophy

5. Set a timescale and evaluate results.

TIPS

1. Be clear about your aim and your timescale. Makesure everyone knows.

2. Get everyone on board from senior managers tostakeholders, clients and friends. Harness thewisdom of crowds.

3. Set up some initial themes or areas so that peoplearen’t faced with a blank slate

5. Make the wiki part of the work process. Can workbe done on the wiki that would normally have beendone by email or passing documents around?

6. Incentivise use. Publicise creative use internallyand externally

7. Look for some quick wins. Maybe an article in thestaff newsletter written on the wiki or a projectthat’s been easier because it was coordinated onthe wiki.

8. Enable people to access the wiki from home.Sometimes creativity doesn’t work 9-5

CASE STUDY

Penny Wilson, a playworker and trainer with the PlayAssociation of Tower Hamlets had long thought thatplayworkers were not sharing their knowledge andexperiences not only so they could learn from eachother, but also so that stories could be collectedtogether for research and development. She set up awiki (www.theinternationale.net/playstories) wherefrontline playworkers could simply add stories from theirplaygrounds. The wiki made it easy and informal. Shefound that playworkers did not have to worry about thetechnology or even how they wrote. They could justleave notes and experiences for others to read, connectwith and share.Penny says: “We were looking for a simple and directway of sharing stories and building an archive. The wikimade it easy, even for playworkers who hatecomputers.”

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CHAPTER 8

Online shopping cart

IMAGINE

Erin was getting frustrated; shopping was never herfavourite past time and this Christmas in a bid toavoid the crowds she had decided to do hershopping from the comfort of her own study. Afterseeing a documentary on an Oxford based socialenterprise that ran an online arm selling tasty fair-trade goods, Erin was convinced that ethical givingwas the way forward, as well as a convenientexcuse to avoid the shops! However when Erinlogged on and started her shopping she found anewly developed site that would only let her buy onetype of product at a time, worse still due to thereassuringly ethical nature of the site it didn’t retainany of Erin’s payment details. As she typed in hercredit card details for the third painstaking time, thisethical giving caper suddenly seemed far lessappealing.

An online shopping cart is a basic function of manywebsites, from Amazon, to Lastminute.com. It’sbeen part of the Oxfam toolkit since 2004, but since2007 there has been a new campaign helping us allto avoid ‘rubbish presents’. A virtual shopping cartenables users to buy products online at the click ofa button, with a secure server protecting credit carddetails. Oxfam have taken this one step further andnot only offer their online visitors a chance to buyethical and inspiring gifts, from a classroom at£1700, to bees at £50 and packs of seeds at £28.

Oxfam unwrapped:http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/Browse.aspx?catalog=Unwrapped&category=UWGifts

How many times have we received gifts that wedon’t really want? Wave farewell to knitted jumpers,

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‘collected love songs’ cds and cheap earrings, youknow-all those gifts that get put straight in the backof a cupboard to collect dust. Oxfam is taking astance against ‘rubbish presents’ and leading theway for ethical gifts with their online shopping carts.You too can use the new found ‘good giving’movement to promote your own products and raiseawareness for your campaigns.

What do users get out of it?

The key to making a shopping cart work is to makeproducts as easy to find as possible. Oxfam enableusers to search by theme, such as education,farming, HIV education or by price, which makesthis functionality particularly user-friendly along witha ‘like this? try this’ recommendation facility similarlyto Amazon.http://www.oxfam.org.uk/shop/ProductDetails.aspx?catalog=Unwrapped&product=OU2706Offering easy ways to search means users will findthe exact product they want within just a few clicks.Convenience and ease will prompt users to becomeregular shoppers.

How to make it work for your organisation

If you’ve ever shopped online, you’ll be familiar withthe shopping cart model. On top of this, therecommendation facility is a non-intrusive way ofadding on value for your organisation. Shopperssearch for a product and then once they’ve found itthey get automatic recommendations of otherproducts that might accompany or compliment theoriginal. If your organisation is selling braceletsmade in India, why not recommend anaccompanying necklace or pair of earrings?

Whatever you’ve got to sell, make it easy for peopleto find more. Additionally, for budget consciousshoppers, Oxfam Unwrapped allows users to searchby price bracket – £5 and under, £5-£20, £20-£50, £50+. You too can do the same with yourproducts.

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Oxfam promote some of their more popularproducts on their homepage [See fig xxx], thereforeenticing potential customers with new gift ideas theymay not have actively searched for. This is based onuser statistics and back end information, letting youknow from information captured on your database,which are the most bought/searched for products.The database also helps generate automaticreferrals as ‘meta data’ is entered into it. It is this(invisible to the user) meta data that helps ensurethat one product will refer another, encouragingmore traffic around your site.

The new Oxfam shop uses Microsoft CommerceServer 2007 and was built by a multimedia agencyfor them who help support it along with an Oxfaminternal team. It took a year to build from conceptionto completion. The icing on the proverbial cake isthat Oxfam have also included a wedding list facilitywithin their shopping cart application. Again thiswas first seen on Amazon, but is a useful applicationfor any shopping site, allowing users to set up awish list and send it on to their guests and friends.

A helping hand

It is helpful to users to have fully-fledged FAQ(frequently asked questions) pages – informingusers, for example, on how to place an order, whenthey can expect to receive their products, how toget their products delivered, how they query anorder and your returns policy. It is worth ensuringthat this page is kept up to date by adding answersto common questions that your current users areasking.

Also worth considering is how to divide yourproducts into searchable categories to help usersfind them more easily. For instance, Oxfam splitstheir offering into the following categories – Giftsthat Grow: which include tools for farming, fertilizer,seeds; Working Wonders: supporting farmers orfisher folk, offering financial advice; Positive

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Pressies: such as condoms, HIV counselling andtraining; Emergency Essentials: including shelterand a feeding pack; Four-legged Friends: if you’relooking for a goat or chicken and School Scene:providing anything from educational materials toschool rooms. Ensure that your potential user’stransactions are as smooth and convenient aspossible, by grouping your products by type, region,price or whatever is most relevant to yourorganisation.

Essentially, Oxfam’s Unwrapped campaigns is oneof the most innovative initiatives the charity sectorhas seen in a while, as it supplies a real demand atthe same time raising money and awareness for thecharity. A shopping cart on your site can be put touse in the same way. Oxfam believes that there is anincreasing demand for ethical gifts and increasingcompetition in this market. Whilst an onlineshopping cart will increase demand and traffic, it willneed an initial investment to establish and maintainit. So it’s worth remembering Ebay can often do thejob just as well and is free….

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CHAPTER 9

Social bookmarking

IMAGINE

Sam had just been told the baby had Down’sSyndrome. After the initial shock, Sam had turned toher computer and Googled ‘Down’s Syndrome’ –1,670,000 results. Where should she begin? Thepeople at the hospital had given her some bookletsand the name of the local organisation supportingparents of children with learning difficulties. After 20minutes getting more confused and overwhelmed,she googled the organisation and went to its site. Itwasn’t as flashy as some sites but it had the usualnavigation including a page called “Information”. Onthat page were other links: “Latest medicalresearch”, “Benefits and money” and one thatcaught Sam’s eye: “Just been told your baby hasDown’s?” She clicked on it and found herself on apage that brought together bookmarks, news,videos, photos and blog entries all talking aboutexactly how she was feeling. There was still lots ofinformation, but it was all obviously chosen bypeople who understood. At the bottom of the pagewas a request: “If you find any other usefulinformation online, tag it with “Down’s Syndrome”and “Ambridge Learning Difficulties Alliance”, it’ll endup here for the next parent to find.

So, you’ve heard of social networking, now exploresocial bookmarking, brought direct to your webbrowser with del.icio.us. What this tasty websiteoffers, is a neat little solution for users to collecttheir favourite websites all in one place. It allowspeople to keep favourite articles, blogs, music andreviews, and access them from any computer on theweb. They can then be easily shared with friendsand family as well as the del.icio.us community.There’s a lot of stuff out there. Words and nowpictures, video and audio. Google et al do their best

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to help us find it, but at best Google is a clevermachine. It can’t judge relevancy only how manypeople link to a page. It can’t recommend: peopledo that. We have the information and stories we’vecreated and we have the one’s we’ve found. Each ofus is an expert on something. How often do you tellsomeone on the phone that they need to talk to Jo,she’s the expert on that. Jo has a lot of knowledgeat her fingertips but not everything, and Jo’s notalways there.

Social bookmarking enables Jo’s knowledge to workharder. If Jo tags all the pieces she writes for theblog, all the photos she takes and all the videosshe’s uploaded to YouTube with the right keywords,they’ll all be linked together and people will be ableto find them. If she tags all the bookmarks with thesame tag, that brings them together too. Take ourimaginary example. Ambridge Learning DifficultiesAlliance adds the keywords “down’s syndrome”,“learning disabilities”, “learning difficulties” and“Ambridge Learning Difficulties Alliance” to all thepostings on its blog. It asks any of its members whopost content online to do the same. It also uses thetag “mental handicap”. Now it knows that this termis no longer acceptable but it also knows that a lotof people (maybe new parents) still use the termand may search for it.

The Alliance goes further though. It tags contentothers have created. It uses http://del.icio.us to tagits bookmarks. Rather than having all the bookmarks(the web addresses the Alliance uses mostfrequently) on the office computer’s browser, theyare saved on the del.icio.us site so they can beaccessed from anywhere and they are all tagged.Like social networking sites Flickr and YouTube,del.icio.us also allows you to tag the sites that youbookmark, making it much more flexible than yourfavourites folder on your computer. The tags alsomean that you can search the site for links that otherpeople have saved using the same tags – it all

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helps build up an organic community.

So now all the good information and personallyrecommended content that Jo and her colleagueshave amassed over years in the area is tagged.Anyone around the world using tag search engineslike www.technorati.com or www.blogpulse.com findthat information. Anyone searching on del.icio.usfinds the bookmarks around Down’s Syndromerecommended by Ambridge Learning DifficultiesAlliance as well as those recommended by otherswho really know the subject.

The final step in the puzzle is to bring all thatinformation together. You could just provide links tothe relevant search engines and del.icio.us or youcould pull all that quality content into your own site.A site like www.pageflakes.com allows you to set upa single page (that you could link to from your site),which automatically pulls in the latest content withyour tags on. You could have a pageflakes page forthe organisation’s tag that pulls in the latest news –from the mainstream media as well as so-called‘citizen’s media. You could have one that pulls ineverything that is tagged with “Down’s Syndromemedical research”. Each page would have blogstories, photos, videos, bookmarks, news... none ofwhich would be hosted on your site so there are nostorage or bandwidth problems. You, yourorganisation and your partners become humanfilters for the best information. You become anauthority.

But the real power comes when that authority isshared. To continue our example, there are otherJo’s around the world. If they agree on a commonset of tags the information can work harder. Samcan get the expertise of a worldwide collection ofexperts and Jo can possibly find things that shewould never have come across as well as sharingher own finds with similar hard-pressedprofessionals.

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And one other thing, using tags and ‘socialbookmarking’ services helps you work moreeffectively. You no longer have to worry about filingsomething in just one place. That bookmarked sitemay have useful information about medical researchbut also about benefits. You don’t have to decidewhich ‘folder’ to put it in. Give it two tags: ‘medicalresearch’ and ‘benefits’ and it’s filed under both. It’snot only your clients who can find things, you cantoo. By tagging information you make it morefindable and usable. Bear in mind that del.icio.us isnot the only site of its kind. Digg is equally popularand their social bookmarking sites include; Blue Dot,BookmarkSync, Furl, GiveALink.org, My Web,Newsvine and Reddit.

PROS and CONS

pros:

1. Free.2. Makes information manageable.3. More people can find your information.4. Makes it portable. You can access yourbookmarks and even your database fromanywhere.

5. Connects your information and you to otherexperts.

cons:

1. Can be difficult to agree on tags. You may haveto focus on what people would search for ratherthan what you would like them to search for.

2. You can’t stop people tagging content, even stuffyou don’t want associated with your brand orissue.

3. Bookmarks can go out of date.

GET STARTED

1. Agree on set of tags relevant to yourorganisation and issue. Look online for whatothers in your area use and match that so you’reconnected.

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2. Tell everyone across your organisation (andfriends outside) to add tags to their blogpostings, Flickr photos, YouTube videos etc.

3. Set up an account at http://del.icio.us and importand tag your bookmarks. You can specify whichbookmarks are public and which private.

4. Place link on your site to your del.icio.us page.5. Create page at www.pageflakes.com.6. Search at www.technorati.com for your tags andright click on the ‘subscribe’ link. Copy link andadd the ‘RSS feed’ to your pageflakes page.

7. Add the RSS feeds for the searches, yourdel.icio.us bookmarks and any other taggedcontent to your information page.

8. Link to it from your site.

TIPS

1. Encourage visitors to your site to add your pagesto their del.icio.us and other bookmarkingservices. You can put a ‘widget’ on your pagethat allows users to bookmark the story.

2. Publicise your tags. The more people that knowthem, the more content will be tagged.

3. Use a site like www.bloglines.com to subscribeto tag searches so that you can see what otherpeople are tagging.

4. Make sure everyone in the organisation is doingit. If someone is still guarding their own filingcabinet or bookmarks, you and your clients aremissing out.

5. When you’re tagging, try and be specific i.e. notjust ‘environment’ but ‘canal, environment,Newcastle’.

CASE STUDY

There are a lot of techies and geeks helpingcharities, organisations, or ‘non-profits’ as Americanssay, make use of ICT. There is a lot of expertise andideas around. The problem has been that thatinformation has been on countless different websitesand people’s blogs and in their bookmarks etc.

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Back in December 2004, a new tag began toappear on del.icio.us: ‘nptech’. It’s difficult to knowwho started it but it soon took off and thecommunity began to add it to their bookmarks, theirblog entries etc. It wasn’t the only tag they used –they used other relevant ones such as ‘contentmanagement systems’ or ‘open source’ but all of thecontent they had around ICT for ‘non profits’ waspulled together by the tag.

The tag spread beyond del.icio.us to includePowerPoint slides upload to SlideShare, blogpostings, videos... in fact all manner of usefulcontent, pulling the community of like-mindedpeople together.

Chris Blow, an activist in the area says: “I think thatthe development of this tag is arguably the singlelargest reason for the current (thriving I think) stateof what is commonly called the ‘nptech community’.”The specially developed tag has now spawnedother np tags including: npblog, npflickr, npsl(nonprofit second life), nptag (nonprofit tagging),npyoutube and others helping the geeks and theorganisations they help find the best content.

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CHAPTER 10

Online video

IMAGINE

Ray had just picked up a text message from Chrison the march. He’d got some film of the groupoutside Parliament and emailed it to YouTube,should be on the site in a few minutes. If he couldhe’d get the speeches later too. Greg checked theYouTube page. The site was still formatting themobile phone video for the site. While he waswaiting he saw that Susan in the US had posted anew update to her story about caring for her Dad.While Ray was waiting he copied the embed codefrom the page and pasted it onto the organisation’svideo page. When he refreshed the box appearedand the new ‘episode’ of “Young carers: theAmerican experience” began to play. After watchingit and leaving Susan a comment, he found thatChris’ video was ready to embed too. Ray turnedback to his own site and clicked through to the “LiveMarch” page.

If a few years ago a request for a photo library onyour site would have turned your IT person (if youhad one) puce. To broach the idea of using onlinevideo would have had them on the floor gasping forair. Even if you could find someone to shoot the stuffthere were issues of different formats, storagecapacity, bandwidth... No, video was for the bigboys. Not anymore.

The growth in cheap video cameras, particularlymobile phone cameras, the availability of free video-editing software and in particular the explosion insites that allow you to store, share and then embedyour videos on other sites, has meant we can allmake films. Running alongside this technologicalshift has been an equally important cultural shift:we’re now not frightened of the idea of making films.

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As we browse through YouTube videos, we’rereassured that we can do that too. Videos don’thave to be perfect to be powerful. They don’t haveto be about big things: simple often works best.They don’t have to be long: short windows into aworld can make all the difference. It’s almost as ifwe’ve all been given permission.

Video gives your organisation a chance to reach abroad international market, through a YouTube page.Take a leaf out of Pudsey’s book and encouragepeople to upload their own videos of fundraisingactivities. The BBC’s 2007 Children in Need tookcyberspace by storm this year and raised even moremoney than ever.http://www.bbc.co.uk/pudsey/cinnews/news/2007/10/26/50236.shtml

As with all the Live Web media of course, the realpower comes in how that story connects to otherstories and therefore connects people. YouTube andits competitor sites is not just a gallery or storagespace, it’s a place where people leave comments,add videos to their ‘favourites’ lists and use tags toconnect videos, stories and issues together.

When I upload a video from my computer or directfrom my phone, give it a title, description and sometags, I am adding it to a global video conversationabout ‘carers’ or ‘the environment’ or whatever. Myvideo will appear alongside others that are similar.People will find it and leave comments. I will findother films and filmmakers who are as passionateand knowledgeable about the issues as I am.

When I take the piece of code that YouTube givesme that enables me to ‘embed’ that video on mysite, it does more than save bandwidth. Sure, thatcode means the video plays on my page in a box.As far as the viewer’s concerned, it’s on my site. Idon’t pay to stream it or store it but it looks like it’smine. What is more important is that because it

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remains on YouTube where there are millions ofvisitors rather than on my site where there areperhaps hundreds, it has a bigger reach. People findit on YouTube, find my issue and then my site andthen... me. YouTube and video sharing is yet anothertool to help your organisation spread the word,increase awareness or raise funds. You can uploadyour video straight to the site, tag it appropriatelyand users will engage with your organisation.Video offers a powerful way of telling direct stories.Even just a ‘talking head’ can engage a reader withthe story and so the issue in a way that is moredifficult in other media. The fact that so manysupporters and stakeholders have access to video-storytelling equipment means that it is possible toget many different perspectives and ideas buzzingaround your cause or issue. You do not need to hirea professional camera crew to make THE single film.You can ask lots of people – particularly youngpeople – to make films about your community, theparkland that’s under threat, their playground or theirhomes. They can upload them to YouTube and aslong as they include your tag, you can pull them alltogether. As with all this open source content idea,what a visitor sees is a vibrant and passionatecommunity telling stories, raising awareness andpotentially money. Your organisation just brings it alltogether and helps it happen.

It is tempting with video to think that once the film orfilms have been made, that’s it. People watch themand that’s the end. On the Live Web stories arealways beginnings. It is important to remember thatviewers of your – or your supporters’ – videos willleave comments. They are active and see your filmas the start of a conversation. You need to thinkabout how you will respond and make use of thoserelationships you have set in motion. Even just asimple ‘thank you’ acknowledgment will do. It willkeep the relationship open and who knows, thatcommenter may end up being one of you bestfundraisers or campaigners.

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A word of warning; Always make sure youthoroughly check the video content regularly toensure that there is no self promotion, advertising ormaterial that can offend. It might even be worthspecifying this in the guidelines for uploading video.Morwenna Gordon, producer of the Children inNeed site 2007, has some advice in particular; “Ifyour charity has a very specific peak (such as a oneoff event) you need to think about what that meansfor the interactive activity around this event in thedays and months preceding it” For instance, if youare asking users to submit examples of what theyare doing for one event in particular on a particularday, remember that these videos won’t actually beavailable until AFTER the event itself, so you’ll needto put up other previous examples of fundraising, orpeople explaining online what they will do… You willalso need to watch out for rights that aren’t cleared.For example music over 2 minutes will need specificcopyright unless it is original. Morwenna alsopointed out the need for clear instructions online –ideally an extremely clear video telling users exactlywhat to do and how to participate.

PROS and CONS

pros

1. Cheap and easy.2. Very powerful and direct.3. Very sexy and popular at the moment.4. Mobile. You can shoot and ‘report’ fromanywhere.

cons

1. Difficult to upload longer videos to YouTube etcwithout broadband connection.

2. People you interview can be intimidated by ideaof video.

3. Can be difficult to keep it short and simple. Trytelling your subjects: “You have 30 seconds. Tellus about your experience”.

4. As you (and your friends) shoot more, may have

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to think about way of archiving all the links on yoursite and thinking how to guide your visitor throughall the stories.

GET STARTED

1. Get your phone out and if it has a video camerapoint it at your colleague and ask them to saywhat your organisation is and to tell a story aboutwhy it’s important. Keep it under a minute.

2. Go to YouTube and create an account. Think of aname that is relevant to your organisation andissue. 3. Upload the film. YouTube will give youan address that you can send your video to fromyour phone (via email or MMS message).

4. If you have a video camera, try and shootsomething a little longer or more complicated.Use free software like iMovie or Windows MovieMaker to edit the film.

5. Contact your local media studies teacher to seeif any young people want to become part of yourfilm making community.

6. Make a clear call to action to view and submitvideos on your own website to ensure your videocontributors are on the right track, just asChildren in Need has done. This is a link that cantake you through to the guidelines for submittingvideos. CiN have done this with a large promobox clearly marked ‘Fundraising – submit yourown videos’. [See image 1.] Not all of youraudience may be familiar with uploading videos,so you might want to give them guidelines onhow to do it. You can set up a page with clearbulleted instructions on how to submit theirvideos to YouTube.

7. Think of tags you want everyone to use on theirfilms. Publicise the new film making community.

TIPS

1. Keep it simple. Tell stories and go for the detailsthat people remember.

2. Don’t get too hung up on quality. Go for thepassion!

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3. Remember that videos have sound. Use it to addto the atmosphere and story. You can always addsoundtracks later.

4. Encourage others to add to the film show.5. Favourite other relevant videos on your page.6. Offer guidelines on length, format etc.

CASE STUDY

The International League for the Protection ofHorses (ILPH) has a website which providessupporters and potential supporters with a range ofinformation (http://www.ilph.org/). It also has aYouTube channel(http://www.YouTube.com/user/horsecharity) whereit posts videos it has shot. These range from theCEO explaining what the organisation does, toevents and reports on horse rescues.

Visitors to the YouTube can subscribe to thechannel, rate and leave comments on the videos aswell as add them to their own favourites. Thechannel has attracted a number of ‘subscribers’ and‘friends’ who are now connected to the organisationand its work. The channel also pulls in other relevantvideos so linking it to the broader animal welfareand indeed horse communities.

As part of its work, the organisation rehabilitateshorses and then loans them to good homes. Manyof the people who go on to care for the horses addtheir own videos of how the horse is progressing.Phil Spiby, Head of Communications says: “It helpspeople feel part of a club. It gives them a sense ofbelonging. It’s been a fantastic thing to getfeedback.”

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CHAPTER 11

Legacy donations online

IMAGINE:

It was a sombre day at the Funeral; the deceased, apassionate and committed women’s rightscampaigner, would be dearly missed. Mike couldn’thelp but smile when he heard the words read onbehalf of the deceased by her brother, that she‘didn’t want flowers or any of that nonsense’ butrather for her friends and loved ones to make adonation to the women’s refugee group to whomshe had willed her estate. Her family handed out theusual memoriam cards; only these ones had therefugee group’s url included. Mike promised himselfhe would log on and donate when he got home.

Legacy donations are nothing new, but what aboutusing digital media platforms to help yourorganisation attract posthumous donations? TheWorld Wildlife Fund uses its website to encouragepeople to leave money via their will. By promotingthis service online, a frequent visitor who may nothave previously considered it, may be prompted toinclude the charity in their will. This can have asubstantial affect on future funding.

https://secure.wwf.org.uk/core/takeaction/legacy0000003872.asp

The WWF site, points out “leaving a gift to afavoured charity in your will not only helps a goodcause but also normally reduces your inheritance taxliability, because any gifts to charities are deductedfrom the value of your estate prior to taxation”. Itseems that legacy donations form a substantial partof what the WWF receives, funding roughly one fifthof the projects that the familiar panda logo-edorganisation completes.

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The organisation goes on to offer advice on how toprepare or amend a will – you just need to fill out aform for them to send you a booklet either by postor by email and WWF make it even easier byoffering supporters a will-writing service. They alsoprovide info on how to leave a willed gift. These giftsare normally split into three categories� Residual gifts – the residue of your estate;� Partial residuary gifts – a percentage of yourestate;

� Pecuniary gifts – specifying a particular sum.

In return for nominating WWF as legal beneficiariesdonors get a tree dedicated in their name, alongwith the knowledge they are helping to tackleclimate change, protect endangered habitats andsafeguard the future of animals on the verge ofextinction.

As a smaller charity you might not be able to offer atree naming service, but you can certainly publishpeople’s names in your newsletter or on yourwebsite as and when contributors tell you abouttheir legacy donations. One nice feature on theWWF site is the legacy donor interviews. People,who have already named the organisation as abeneficiary, explain their choice and motivations. Itsa friendly and informal touch and lets usersexperience, in a first person sense, why others havenominated the charity as a worthy cause to includein their wills. Similarly your donors would be happyto tell their stories to improve your organisation’slegacy campaigns, to personalise what can be afairly anonymous procedure and make that dauntingdecision seem easier.

Crucially, however, what WWF does to supportboth the web pages and the pamphlet is provide acontact – a ‘planned giving adviser’ whose contactdetails are on the page. Legacy giving is a sensitivesubject and not to be taken lightly, so more than

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ever in this case, the personal touch is important.Consider how your organisation can tackle theissue, determining the resources required. SallyBurrows, Head of Legacy Management at WWFpoints out how valuable it is to make sure that youare responding to people’s questions regardingdonations from their will. She points out that severalyears ago she attended a seminar run by a DirectMarketing agency, where the Managing Director hadsent request to 50 odd charities for will guides andmonitored the response. Whilst some got back tohim within a week, others took up to two weeks,others up to a month and some didn’t even botherto respond at all! Sally goes on to emphasise that inorder to include your organisation in their will,potential legacy donors need to have complete trustand faith in your charity, and efficiency plays a largepart in that. It is therefore important to have a fastand considered response. Her top tip would be toset up a dedicated response team to make sure thatyou can build a relationship with people just at thetime they are beginning to think about writing theirwills.

Legacy income is just as, if not even more,important than other methods of fundraising so itshould be prioritised accordingly.

However she does point out that their responseteam is not trained to give legal advice. The teamwill respond to basic questions about how themoney will be divided, whether it is a registeredcharity, will send out packs, and answer generalquestions on a day to day basis but as they do nothave indemnity insurance they are not in thebusiness of giving people either financial or legaladvice. The team help out with the admin, but willdirect potential legacy donor towards legal counselwhen it comes to actually changing their will.

When going about the tricky task of acquiring

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legacy donations online, your target audience is akey consideration. Whilst we may have all heardabout the increase in the silver surfers, what is infact more of a reality is that there are more 30 and40 year olds surfing the web. These may not be theobvious target market; however they will probablybe seeking information, if not for their own wills,possibly for their parents wills.

The World Wild Life Fund is not the onlyorganisation that offers the chance to donatethrough your will. Acorns, a children’s hospice trustbased in theWest Midlands received £1,171,000 from willeddonations in just one year. Like the World WildlifeFund, Acorns offer a downloadable pamphlet givingadvice on how to prepare a will, which is clearlysignposted from their navigation.

In terms of setting this facility up for donations, oneof the key considerations is to sensitively convey themessage along a number of channels (online andoffline) and ensure that there is appropriateinformation on the website, focussing on thecharitable cause and the “legacy” the supporter willcontribute to the cause. Whilst offering appropriateand easily accessible information on how to includethe charity in the will.

The WWF is also currently looking at adding a‘pledge’ button to their site. This will mean thatusers will testify to leaving a certain donation fromtheir will, however whether they carry this throughwill of course have to be seen at a later date...

One of the key issues to bear in mind when seekingto increase your legacy donations is that you arebroaching perhaps two of the most taboo areas inthe British psyche – money and death. It is certainlyworth raising awareness of how to contribute onyour website, giving examples of other users who

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have pledged donations in their will and gettingtestimonies where possible, however you will haveto deal with this subject with a lot of sensitivity.Ensure that there is a well resourced supportfunction for potential legacy givers and above all –be patient, a strong legacy donor base will take timeto establish.

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CHAPTER 12

Twitter and mobile communications

IMAGINE

The vicar had just phoned. He was going to have toask them to move the meeting, something about aleak in the hall, would Su be able to move themeeting to the old building down the road. Su knewthere was no choice but she had to contact theorganising committee, the speakers and the 6groups who were coming... oh and the localjournalist who’d promised to cover the event. Shepicked up her mobile. She typed: “Save OurHospital meet moved. Now Old church hall, HighStreet. Pass the word.” She sent the singlemessage. Within minutes Su’s phoned buzzed. Amessage from the MP’s secretary. Another fromGeorge who was organising the catering. A thirdfrom someone in Ireland who was involved in thecampaign there, just wishing her luck. A little latershe sent another message asking whether thegroup thought they should lay on some wine. Withina minute, Jo replied from Sainsbury’s he’d pick up afew bottles. Su looked at her watch and thoughtshe’d better phone the journalist. He hadn’t got thehang of Twitter yet. Better just check.

There are currently 1.244 billion internet usersworldwide, on about a billion PCs. There are 3billion mobile phones in use. In the UK, 63.8%of thepopulation are Internet users while 79% have mobilephones. The mobile phone is the most widespreadand potentially powerful IT tool we have and itcrosses the age, class and gender lines. Kidsobviously have them, but so do Grannies.

Of course it’s possible to make sure your website ismobile-ready so that people can access your site viathe new generation of mobile phones. An easy way

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to set up a mobile-version of your site is to use aservice like www.winksite.com. Winksite allows youto easily create a site that people can see on theirsmall screen. You can create a very simple site withcontact details and a page or two that explains whatyou do but Winksite offers lots of scope to addnews (that can be pulled in from your main site) andeven chat rooms and forums, all for free. As phonesbecome more sophisticated and people expect tobe able to get their news and information on theirphone, it will become more important thatorganisations can be easily reached wherever andwhenever people want. Mobile sites are one thingbut there are potentially more powerful ways ofusing the network people carry in their pocket, waysthat reach way beyond the early adopters who wantto surf the web in the palm of their hand.

Twitter is a site that brings together ‘micro-blogging’and ‘messaging’. At its most basic you can useTwitter as a way to create a mobile micro blog.When you sign up for a free account atwww.twitter.com you are given a UK phone number.Any text message you send to that number willappear on your Twitter page. Even if Twitter only didthis, it would be good. It means anyone can set up ablog really easily and update it from anywhere,anytime. The runners you have in the LondonMarathon could micro-blog as they’re going round:“London bridge and it’s starting to hurt. Still, 3grand on its way to the hospice”. The kids you areworking with on an estate could tell stories of theircommunities and play in short stories (under 140characters): “10 o’clock. The playground gate’slocked. Back to the carpark I guess.”

But Twitter does more. Other Twitter users canchoose to ‘follow’ you. When you post something,the message or story gets sent to their mobilephone as a text message. If you have 20 followers, itgoes to everyone. You only pay for the one text

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message you sent to the site. This is obviously agreat (and cheap) way of keeping people up-to-date. But it’s also a way of asking for informationfrom your network: “About to go into meeting.Anyone got any new facts we can present?” It’salso a way of sharing ideas or asking questions:“Can you ask around and see if people like the ideaof joining forces.” Essentially Twitter takes the powerof networks and conversations mobile.

Using it with your own group or existing network isone thing but Twitter is worldwide. You couldexpand your followers (or the people you follow) toinclude others in your area. Maybe they’ll haveinformation about the latest developments or a freshperspective. Maybe they’ll have some ideas. Maybethey’ll just be able to offer support.

A key thing about Twitter and similar services suchas www.tumblr.com and www.jaiku.com is thatbecause they are based on mobile phones, thelearning curve is really easy. Users don’t need tohave computers or even know about the internet.They don’t have to worry about the protocols ortechnologies that are behind it. All they need toknow is that the Twitter entry in their address booksends a message to everyone in the organisationand that the message they receive has similarlygone around everyone.

PROS and CONS

pros:

1. Free.2. Easy to set up and use. Perfect for thecomputer-phobic!

3. Simple and direct idea. Can use it for simplecontrolled things like information delivery or freeidea sharing and brainstorming.

4. Accessible anywhere and anytime.

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cons:

1. Can be difficult to stop being verbose and tellingstories in 140 characters (can be seen as apositive thing!).

2. Can be difficult to integrate into your site. Thereare ways of embedding your ‘Tweets’ but theymight need a bit of contextualizing.

3. Can be overwhelming in terms of responses. Youcan set Twitter to notify your phone or just yourTwitter page when those you are following saysomething.

4. If you are part of a worldwide network, theirTweets might arrive in the middle of the night!You can set Twitter to only notify you at set times.

GET STARTED

1. Go to www.twitter.com and set up a freeaccount.

2. Give your Twitter stream a name that’s relevantand attractive.

3. Put a link on your existing site to your new Twitterstream and encourage people to “follow “ you.Twitter will help you send an email to peopleencouraging them to sign up.

4. Do a short and simple training session at yournext meeting to show colleagues and supportershow easy it is.

5. As well as general small story-telling, try to planusing Twitter to help with specific event e.g.conference or lobby.

5. When you have some followers, look at who theyare following and see if it might be worthintroducing yourself.

TIPS

1. As well as using Twitter to get and shareinformation, use it to tell short stories.

2. Twitter in the moment. Tell that story of the familyyou met as soon as you leave them, when thepicture’s still in your mind.

3. Use Twitter to alert people to things you find

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online. Include the address4. Twitter questions as well as answers. Make useof your network.

5. Be creative. See the 140 character limit as acreative challenge not a shortcoming.

CASE STUDY

YoMo provides practical training for schools, youth &community groups in young peoples participation[http://www.yomo.co.uk/]. It used Twitter at a recentconference to enable attendees to play a full part.

Tim Davies set up a conference Twitter page andasked people attending the conference to “follow”the new account. Conference organisers were ableto send messages to all attendees throughout theevent and in turn they could Twitter their owncontributions, which would be added to theconference page, which was projected in the mainroom, and on tickers running along the top of eachPowerPoint presentation being given.

The young people attending the conference took upthe offer immediately and even the adult participantsused it. Tim believes it added an interactive elementto gaining feedback and could be used more to helpcreate networks, particularly of young people.

“It cost us nothing to set up. And it provided somereally insightful gut-reaction instant feedbackthroughout the event,” Tim says.

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CHAPTER 13

About Media Trust and Capacitybuilders

Media Trust works in partnership with the mediaindustry to build effective voluntary and communitysector communications.

Our aims

� resource the communications needs of thevoluntary and community sector

� harness media and communications industrysupport

� engage the public in the voluntary andcommunity sector

� strengthen the impact, reach and effectiveness ofour work

Our vision

We want Media Trust to be at the heart of the mediaand communications industry, inspiring and enablingthe media to reflect, debate and support the goals,achievements and voices of the voluntary andcommunity sector.

We aim to bring added value and new opportunitiesto both sectors and stakeholders in the public andcorporate sectors.

We want to create a society where the:

� voluntary and community sector is widely visibleand celebrated for what it achieves – communityengagement, volunteering, charitable giving andtake-up of voluntary sector services

� public can easily access the voluntary andcommunity sector

� voluntary sector staff and volunteers can accessthe resources, skills and contacts tocommunicate effectively with target audiencesvia a wide range of media and communications

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Our corporate members

Media Trust corporate members include:BBC, BSkyB, Channel 4, Daily Mail and GeneralTrust, Discovery Networks Europe, Disney ChannelUK, Emap plc, Guardian Media Group, ITV, MTVNetworks UK and Ireland, News International,Newsquest Media Group, OMD, Time Warner andWPP Group.

Capacitybuilders

works in partnership with government and otherinfrastructure bodies to help voluntary andcommunity organisations (VCOs) work moreeffectively. Their overall aim is to help create a moreeffective third sector, so that every third sectororganisation is able to access high quality supportthat meets their needs, when they need it. Byimproving support, this will strengthen the sector,increasing its ability to create a better quality of lifefor individuals and communities.

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GLOSSARY OF TERMS

Unless otherwise specified all definitions are from Wikipedia

ICT:

Acronym referring to Information Communications Technology

Web 2.0:

a trend in World Wide Web technology, and web design, a second generationof web-based communities and hosted services such as social-networkingsites, wikis and blogs which aim to facilitate creativity, collaboration, andsharing among users. Also known as the live web

New media:

new media relies on digital technologies, allowing for previously separatemedia to converge. Media convergence is defined as a phenomenon of digitalmedia.

Social networking sites:

social network services uses software to build online social networks forcommunities of people who share interests and activities or who are interestedin exploring the interests and activities of others. Most services are primarilyweb based and provide a collection of various ways for users to interact, suchas chat, messaging, email, video, voice chat, file sharing, blogging, discussiongroups, and so on. Well known social networking sites include Facebook,MySpace and Bebo.

Blog:

(web log) is a website where entries are commonly displayed in reversechronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain oradd content to a blog. Many blogs provide commentary or news on a particularsubject; others function as more personal online diaries. A typical blogcombines text, images, and links to other blogs, web pages, and other mediarelated to its topic.

Forum:

an internet forum is a web application for holding discussions and posting usergenerated content. Internet forums are also commonly referred to as Webforums, message boards, discussion boards, (electronic) discussion groups,

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discussion forums, bulletin boards, fora (the Latin plural) or simply forums. Theterms “forum” and “board” may refer to the entire community or to a specificsub-forum dealing with a distinct topic. Messages within these sub-forums arethen displayed either in chronological order or as threaded discussions

Flickr:

a photo sharing website and web services suite, and an online communityplatform. It was one of the earliest Web 2.0 applications. In addition to being apopular Web site for users to share personal photographs, the service is widelyused by bloggers as a photo repository. Its popularity has been fuelled by itsinnovative online community tools, allowing photos to be archived, tagged andsearched.

Wiki:

is software that allows users to easily create, edit, and link pages together.Wikis are often used to create collaborative websites and to power communitywebsites.

Online shopping cart:

software used in e-commerce to assist people making purchases online,analogous to the American English term ‘shopping cart’. In British English it isgenerally known as a shopping basket, almost exclusively shortened onwebsites to ‘basket’. The software allows online shopping customers to placeitems in the cart. Upon checkout, the software typically calculates a total for theorder, including shipping and handling (i.e. postage and packing) charges andthe associated taxes, as applicable.

Social bookmarking:

a method for Internet users to store, organize, search, and manage bookmarksof web pages on the Internet with the help of metadata. In a social bookmarkingsystem, users save links to web pages that they want to remember and/orshare. These bookmarks are usually public, and can be saved privately, sharedonly with specified people or groups, shared only inside certain networks, oranother combination of public and private domains. The allowed people canusually view these bookmarks chronologically, by category or tags, or via asearch engine e.g. Del.icio.us, Digg or Reddit.

Twitter:

a free social networking and micro-blogging service that allows users to send“updates” (or “tweets”; text-based posts, up to 140 characters long) to theTwitter website, via short message service, instant messaging, or a third-partyapplication such as Twitterrific. www.twitter.com

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CREDITS

Media Trust would like to thank the following peoplefor their contributions to this guide.

Firstly, a big thank you to all the charities andvoluntary organisations who shared their successstories with us.

To the writers

Paul Caplan is a digital coach, or a digitalcharabanc as he prefers it. He runs theInternationale which works with Government and thethird sector to look at ways of using the new LiveWeb of social media and the power ofconversations. Paul has been a photographer andjournalist for 20 years or so and has taught inschools, colleges and universities. You can find outmore about him and the digital charabanc at‘content to be different’ his Blog atwww.theinternationale.org

Susie Goldring has over 14 years experience inmedia both on and offline. For the last 8 years Susiehas worked at the BBC focussing on arts, musicand one of the corporation’s biggest educationcampaigns.

To the Copyeditor

Rebecca Heffernan is a Producer and Researcherfor Media Trust. She doesn’t like the term newmedia because the differentiation between‘traditional’ and ‘digital’ media is increasinglyirrelevant. Rebecca wishes she was a digital native,but she is probably a bit too old for that to behonest.

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To the Photographers

Adrian Lowrie is a London based photographer whograduated with a First-Class Distinction fromNewcastle College’s Foundation Degree inPhotography in 2007. One of 20 emerging nationalphotography talents to be awarded a prestigiousNikon Discovery Award in London in November2007, Adrian continues to work on commercialcommissions and personal projects.

Janine Reilly currently works as a web producer buthas been involved with various multimedia, e-learning and web projects for over 10 years. Shehas worked in a variety of editorial, contentmanagement and producer roles working for, orwith, a mixture of Broadcasting, not-for-profit anddigital media companies including the DFes, NCALT,BDP Media and the BBC.

Thank you to Capacitybuilders and ICT Hub for theirsupport.

Finally, thank you to Jo Inskip at Media Trust foroverseeing production of this guide.

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