June passed by in a blur of great weather, football fever and lots of great charity reads. Get an ice cream / cool drink and settle back to hook some juicy digital catches!
Warning – this is another bumper crop. Pick and choose links to read, or open in new tabs for later. Or bookmark this post. Even better, subscribe and get future round-ups direct to your inbox. Enjoy!
Content
- Love this short animation from Dogs Trust sharing the headlines from their impact report.
- Fab World Cup content from RightsInfo – comparing human rights data for the teams playing each other. See here Morocco vs Iran.
- There was some powerful content shared for #RefugeeDay. Including this moving video from Children’s Society. And this list of 34,000 refugees who have died trying to get to Europe.
- Have you taken Time to Change’s mental health quiz?
- Public information film from Age UK about being scam aware.
- Engaging animation produced by CBBC’s Newsround with Centrepoint about homelessness in young people.
- Crisis launched their EverybodyIn campaign with a video and interactive comments map.
- Sometimes less is more. Like this 10-word Amnesty International UK tweet in response to Donald Trump. And this response to the announcement about leaving the Human Rights Council.
- This response to other US policies was very moving too. People shared images of their five year old selves imagining what it would have felt like to be separated from their families. Heartbreaking.
- The CoastGuard Team use minifigs to give important safety information. Here’s a 5s video which has had 57.3k views giving a warning about staying safe during Storm Hector.
- So much cuteness from charities to mark Bring Your Dog To Work Day!
Digital
- Find out why Kate Collins, CEO of Teenage Cancer Trust says that Twitter is an essential leadership tool. This is a great article to show to your non-digital CEO.
- And this video from Cambridge CVS on Why should your organisation embrace digital?
- Six small charities doing great thing with digital by Third Edge.
- How can employee advocacy boost brand marketing? eConsultancy. Does your charity encourage staff to be ambassadors on social media?
- The short guide for non-techies running digital projects in charities by John Dunford in Third Sector.
- User experience for small charities – video produced by CRUK with Small Charities Coalition for Small Charity Week.
- 23 quantitative and qualitative user research methods: a comprehensive guide – UserZoom.
- Future trends of the almighty email by Rebecca Brewer on JustGiving. Top tips and examples.
- Webcredible’s guide to designing for Voice and why it is important. And why the future of donations is Voice on UKFundraising. But hey Alexa, what are you doing to my kid’s brain?
- Is your charity ready for the age of automation? Beth Kanter for Lightful.
- Top tips from social media managers on Lightful.
- Have you ever used the Content Scoring Matrix Template from Edo?
- To take the next step on digital, we dropped the word ‘digital’ – how Citizens Advice is going ‘beyond digital’.
- Your monthly reminder about why you should NOT use ‘click here’ / ‘read more’ / ‘more info‘ in your links.
- Find a small charity in your area with Olly Benson’s Small Charity Roulette tool. Genius!
In case you missed it Brathay Trust: a lesson in crisis comms.
Teams and ways of working
- Be a better cross functional team member, with these 5 ways to build your confidence by James Gadsby Peet.
- How to build your digital skills – lots of tips from Louise of NSPCC in the Digital Dunk.
- 5 tips for remote working by Leanne Griffin for the CRUK tech blog. This is a brilliant read!
- 10 things I’ve learnt about being freelance in 4 and a half years – great tips shared for National Freelancers Day by Angelica Malin.
- Looking after social can be a tough job. So should you ask your social media manager if they are ok? by Thea Neal.
- Do you know about the comms2point0 comms job description model. Really useful if you are thinking about the skills you are looking for in a new member of staff.
Mind your language
Suicide has been in the news a lot recently. Here are some guides to writing about it responsibly.
- This quick read guide is based on guidelines produced by Samaritans and Mind.
- Samaritan’s guidelines for talking about suicide.
- This opinion piece in The Pool argued that the reporting following Kate Spade’s death was a masterclass in how not to report suicide.
- Samaritan’s guide to helping someone who is feeling suicidal.
Events
- Catch up with the slides from Charity Comms’ Psychology of Communications conference. See also this post from Kate Brennan-Rhodes ahead of the event – To change behaviour, you need to look beyond the obvious.
- YoYoPresents was an event about digital transformation. Here’s a thread shared by Kirsty Marrins covering the presentation given by Woodland Trust. And a Wakelet (Storify replacement) by Graham Manuel-Jones.
- 5 take aways from the PR Week Crisis Conference.
Fundraising
- Are charity subscription boxes the new trend in regular giving? Kirsty Marrins looks at products offered by Scope, Mind and the Blurt Foundation.
- 4 ways to use digital to retain donors – Matt Collins for JustGiving.
- Plan International UK pilots project to transform child sponsorship communications on UKFundraising.
- Did your charity run any World Cup fundraising? Here is a selection in my World Cup Moment. And others in a UKFundraising round-up.
- How JustGiving crowdfunding went from an idea to £100m in five years by Jonathan Waddinton.
More
- What can we learn about micro acts of aggression? This article on The Conversation is worth reading. Discrimination against fat people is so endemic, most of us don’t even realise it is happening.
- Long thread about the many ways those ads follow you round the internet.
- nfpSynergy report on focus groups quotes about annual reports and accounts. Top tip: include a summary page.
And finally….
- The search is over for the best / worst office stock photo! While you are looking for your stock pictures, keep an eye out for the ‘shocked girl’!
- Scary / amazing data visualisations – all the flights on one day.
- A beatboxing Starling courtesy of BBC’s SpringWatch.
- A skateboarding bird!
- I love this thread about being a good listener by @sacraparental.
- The question you have always wanted answering – what would my favourite horror films look like with Paddington in them?
- Love this film of clips about computers from the BBC archive.
Your recommendations
What did you read, watch or launch this month? Please add your links in the comments.
Can I help you?
Get in touch if I can help you with digital copywriting, content planning, training or strategy. I work with charities of all shapes and sizes. I can help give your comms or digital processes a healthcheck and ideas injection.
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Did you miss May’s round-up? Catch up with more good reads!
