Digital round-up – January 2019

Highlights this month: January#, towels for owls, H-O-M-E, digital trends to avoid / embrace, how to declutter your digital footprint.

Things feel a little gloomy at the moment. So switch the news off and catch up with some creative charity content and recent good reads you might have missed.

How to use: 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.

Content

• Did you see the nice January hashtag #NationalComplimentDay? This Dogs Trust tweet (Good dog!!!) stood out showing that sometimes simple is best. See more examples in this ZurichVolSec Moment.
• It was good to see charities using the #10YearChallenge to talk about their impact (although the meme itself was dull and there were sinister concerns about its origin).
• Nice gif counting down the days to RSPB’s annual Great Garden Birdwatch. (Here’s more about how they process the data from the 500,000 participants.)
• Changing the language around cancer – great film by Macmillan.
• RNIB transcribed people’s names into braille for #WorldBrailleDay.
• I love ACRE’s Village Halls Week. This year’s poem by Kate Fox celebrated the variety of things happening in halls.
• Did you see Refuge’s powerful reversible poems?
• Lots of creative comms for #NationalStorytellingWeek, examples in this ZurichVolSec Moment.
• Great impact board from Headway East London. Would have been even better if they had linked to a web page for more information.
• Full Fact fact checked headlines about government spending. How to pack lots of information into one tweet. (Conversely, how to use a long thread to explain a complicated subject – why we don’t need a wall.)
• What we all need now is more fun + silliness. Did you see this thread of unsolicited duck pics from museums?
• Great work from Shelter who tweeted a still from the Bros documentary aired on TV over Christmas.

It can be difficult to remember all the good stuff from last year. Take a look back in these review from 2018:

• Dan Papworth-Smyth’s charity digital round-up of 2018.
• Charity video roundup – highlights from 2018 curated by Magneto Films.
• The CharityComms team’s personal campaign picks of 2018.
• Did you do your own round-up? It can be a nice antidote to all the Christmas fun. See CRUK’s top 5 cancer research stories from 2018.

Coming soon….

• Lightful are spearheading #ReclaimSocial on Wednesday 6 February. Join in!
• Thursday 7 February is Time to Talk Day. Get talking about mental health.
• Social Media Exchange 2019 is on Monday 11 February. Follow #SMEX19 if you can’t be there.

Comms

• How to deal with difficult social media shifts – useful post from Montfort.
• How to write a social media policy for your company – tips from Hootsuite.
• No time for that? Take a look at Time to Change’s social media principles.
• Slides from Charity Comms’s seminar, Unlocking the power of social influencers.
• The story behind Stories and our journalistic approach to digital content – Wellcome’s change in editorial strategy.
• Why CEO letters suck (and how to make them better) – Matt Chittock for CharityComms.
• Do you still believe in social media? asks Bertie Bosredon on CharityComms. See also How much longer can your brand stay on Facebook by James Mullarkey.

Digital – strategy, design, culture

• Digital transformation is a risky business – lessons from NSPCC’s Digital Dunk.
• Ten ways to make your charity genuinely digital – NPC.
• Why do digital? Matt Collins for Charity Comms gives persuasive arguments if you still need to convince colleagues.
• Is your organisation making the most of digital technologies? Take SCVO’s digital check-up.
• Then avoid these 5 digital trends – Matt Collins for JustGiving.
• But keep ahead of these – 5 Charity Digital Trends for 2019 by Montfort.
• What can we learn about information giving from The Weather Channel who use AR to bring extreme weather to life.
• And The Big Issue goes AR!
• AI is changing the world; who will change AI?  NESTA
• The Periodic Table of SEO Success Factors – Search Engine Land.
• I analysed the searches people used to read my blog and it’s not good news for women – Jessica Eaton.
• The service design story at Reach Volunteering.
• Assumptions, assumptions — how NCVO started talking about what we know (and what we think we know) – Megan Griffith Gray.
• Service Design Fringe Festival: Lessons from creating digital services within a charity – CAST.
• Where should UX sit in an organisation? Centralised vs embedded asks webcredible.
• Keep On, Keep Up: Collaboration in older person tech – great case study from Reason Digital.
• Monthly accessibility tip: don’t use special characters that look like letters.
• We need to talk about accessibility on chatbots – UX Design.
• I used the web for a day using a screen reader – Smashing Magazine.
• KonMari For Digital Clutter – CodesLikeAGirl – not just for clearing out the clutter in your home.
• CRUK’s tech team have tidied their digital up and moved their blog to Medium.

Fundraising

Still think you can’t ask for donations on Twitter? Be authentic / fun like these examples:

• Excellent responses to this request for donations of towels for owls.
• Eye-catching requests for toy donations to Little Village as part of their Think Small promotion.
• And lovely responses to this request for knitted blankets for a hospice.
• Cycle from Scratchy Bottom to Broadbottom for Toilet Twinning. Creative promo for their fundraising package.

See also:

• A golden formula for generating trust – important read by Kate Lee, CEO of CLIC Sargent.
• BT’s MyDonate fundraising platform will close in June particularly hitting small charities. White Fuse compiled alternatives to BT MyDonate for donations and fundraising.
• Seven common ‘funding headaches’ for charities – and what you can do about it – DSC.
• What does digital fundraising really mean? CRUK’s Rob Green.
• Charities try new tactics to be remembered in wills – view from The Economist (subscribe to read).
• Five strategies for motivating supporters – nfpSynergy.
• Charities: we need to start with why! Richard Sved.
• Tales from the Secret Giver #1: opening some Christmas crackers: a review of three Christmas campaigns – UK Fundraising.
• Martin Lewis: What happened to my pledge to give £10m to charity in 2012? Insights from a major giver.
• Making your Thank You’s SUPER – by David Burgess.

People

• Why I am recruiting more remote workers – call to action by Emily Casson for IoF.
• Matt Haworth: the digital entrepreneur who does good – profile article in UK Fundraising.
• 12 things you need to understand if you want your team to perform consistently well – Halo Psychology.
• How we transformed Happy from a £180k loss to a £165k profit in one year – good read from Happy Ltd.
• What do you have on the back of the toilet doors in your office? These posters from Monzo were widely shared this month.
• The rise and fall of the Chief Digital Officer – useful insights from webcredible
• Meet Oxfam’s new CEO Danny Sriskandarajah (and volunteer Pat and volunteer Sam).
• Have you read NCVO’s new volunteering research Time Well Spent?

And finally….

• Download British Red Cross’ power of kindness calendar.
• Cheer yourself up with TheMERL’s helpful cheat for #MuseumSelfieDay.
• Or this dad and baby chatting via Best Beginnings.
• A young boy joins in with the drumming at Welcome to the Forest.
• I love Olivia Colman screeching at her subjects in The Favourite.
• Hypnotise yourself with these polygonal sine waves.

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 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 the last round-up? Catch up with more good reads!