Digital round-up – September 2020

Highlights this month: charity content showing the impact of the pandemic, comms fatigue, anti-racism within the sector.

Now that the kids are back at school and I have a bit more time, I thought I’d reinstate a round-up. Here are some of the highlights I spotted last month. With so much going on at the moment, it is impossible to keep up with everything. I hope this helps fill some of the gaps. Until next month…. (fingers crossed).

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

• NSPCC showed how their support for children continued throughout the pandemic.
• Interesting research from the Natural History Museum and partners on impacts the coronavirus pandemic had on nature.
• The Ramblers (The grass isn’t greener for everyone) and Friends of the Earth (Access to green space in England. Are you missing out?) both released reports about access to green space.
• PDSA give gold award to Magawa the rat.
• #ProtectAGeneration film and campaign from Save The Children.
• What it’s like to call a mental health helpline – Young Minds.
• Our impact is your impact say British Red Cross.
• Vision Foundation shared stories of the experience of blind Londoners during lockdown. This is Mary’s story.
• Doncaster Council tried to raise spirits with this thread about accepting the passing of time.
• There was a rumour that Art Attack’s Neil Buchannon was Banksy. Sussex Wildlife Trust shared some of his photos.
• This video of Whirligig beetles, also shared by Sussex Wildlife Trust, is mesmerising!
• Twitter thread from Trussell Trust sharing new data about the scale of food bank use.
• Crisis’ autumn appeal was co-created with their members.
• Also love this video celebrating the reopening of Crisis’ London Skylight cafe.
• There was lots of great content shared for #HeritageOpenDay. I liked this video made by 10 year-old Mollie giving a tour of a Martello Tower in Felixstowe.

Charities have sadly been announcing cost-cutting and redundancies. Here are a few examples of messages direct from CEOs sharing the news with their supporters and users. This is difficult content to write. Sharing the news like this rather than as a press release or news story is much more personal and powerful.

• We won’t stop, can’t stop, being there for young people with cancer – Kate Collins of Teenage Cancer Trust.
• A truly difficult decision… Lynda Thomas of Macmillan.
• Reducing the size of Blood Cancer UK – Gemma Peters.

See also: Martin Houghton-Brown: ‘St John Ambulance saw its income dry up, and we went to the NHS and offered to help’ – Civil Society.

Comms

• Changed trends: As we’ve moved out of lockdown in 2020 how we’re using the media has changed again – Dan Slee shared data from OfCom.
• It’s time to sort out our Social Dilemma – Tereza Litsa.
• Pandemic sparks rise in digital activism – UK Fundraising.
• COVID COMMS #29: People are getting bored of repeated messages… so how do we now communicate them? Dan Slee looks at the data from public sector comms.
• How to find the right language – understanding the language your audience uses will help bring them closer to your charity says Dr Richard Berks.
• Good writing for the web – video session with Rosie McIntosh of Third Sector Lab | The Curve. Includes top tip (as shared on Twitter by Amy Westendarp) for writing in the active rather than passive voice: if you can put “by zombies” onto the end of your sentence it’s the passive.
• Tips and resources for creating film remotely for less – Jake Smith for Charity Comms.
• How to actually use YouTube as a social media channel – useful tips from Tallie Proud.
• Which gifs are beyond their sell-by date? Good question asked by Wayne Murray.
• Three simple changes that will refresh your charity’s Instagram channel – Joanna Storer of Sightsavers for Charity Comms.
• Supporting charities to influence – links and toolkits from Lloyds Bank Foundation.
• Give yourself permission to be creative | Ethan Hawke.

Planning ahead for your Christmas content? It may be a good year to be creative and share some joy. Take a look at this from the archive for some ideas – Nonprofit digital advent calendars – tips and examples.

Digital – strategy, design, culture

• Fix the Digital Divide – campaign from Good Things Foundation.
• Charities in need: the state of website performance in the third sector – YouTube launch of BIMA’s report. Fill in this form to get the report.
• How charities can use digital to build back better during COVID-19 – Dan Sutch and Zoe Amar.
• Reporting inaccessible websites toolkit from RNIB following EU legislation which came into force requiring all public sector websites to be accessible.
• Have you got an accessibility statement on your website? This 42 minute video from Content Design London explains common fails.
• A guide to using subtitles, captions and transcripts for accessibility – The Big Hack.
• See also #DontRemoveYoutubeCCs: Community captions ‘benefit everyone’ – BBC news story.
• Free guide to running digital events for heritage organisations by Heritage Open Days.

Fundraising

• Art from Crisis – new subscription package sharing members’ artwork.
• How Covid-19 changed the way we give to charities – Reason Digital.
• COVID or climate emergency: what really impacted your fundraising in 2020 and how to plan for success – Open.
• “How much will you raise?” The importance of benchmarking and return on investment data – Richard Sved
• Mystery shopping finds ‘basic mistakes’ in legacy communications at top charities – Civil Society and full Legacy Inspire report available from Legacy Foresight.
• Thread of how Esmee Fairbairn responded to the pandemic.

People and organisations

I was very sad to hear the news that John Popham had died. He was a real trail blazer for digital in the sector and beyond. It was lovely to see such a huge response to the news with so many people sharing stories of how John had inspired them. #BeMoreJohn

• #ShowTheSalary launched this month. Here’s their story so far.
• Pay and Equalities Survey 2020: the key findings – ACEVO.
• Has covid stopped charities working on their responses to the climate emergency or has it been a catalyst for change? My post on #GlobalClimateStrike 2020.
• Anticipating and managing risk tips from a three year-old – Beth Crackles.
• Seven ways Shelter is dismantling racism.
• Learning to be bold and brave – our diversity journey. Charity People.
• Why BAME ain’t the same – Campaign.
• #PolicySoWhite – Kristiana Wrixon for Charity So White.
• How to be an anti-racist brand – on-demand session from Charity Comms.
• The Kruger Report: the start of a serious conversation about charities and volunteering – NCVO.
• Volunteering: a family affair? Our research findings – NCVO.
• Top tips on keeping mentoring relationships going virtually – Charity Comms.
• Pressure of work takes its toll on social media managers’ health – PR Moment.
• Joe Jenkins of The Children’s Society shared a LinkedIn post explaining what the organisation was doing to recognise the stress that colleagues have been working though. There were lots of interesting comments from others sharing what their organisations were also doing.
• We’re all exhausted. It’s six months into a crisis. Useful thread explaining why by Dr Aisha Ahmad. And this one about being kind to yourself and colleagues as we move into darker, colder months WFH by Olivia Butterworth.

<Feel the cold? Get a heatpad. Heat yourself, not your room / home. It’s cheaper and greener and warmer. Sorry if you have heard this a hundred times! Have been banging on about this for ages.>

And finally….

• “Who do you think would win out of a lion, a hippopotamus and a rhino??” Sir David Attenborough answers questions from children. Love this!
• Stunning footage of a cycling race.
• Mosaic cat portraits on pavements in Brussels.
• Dean Burnett shared stories of his cat Pickle.
• There were lots of alternative versions of the back to the office Dettol adverts.
• Stag beetle vs giant robot stag beetle.
• Quintin Lake walked round Great Britain over five years. His final leg included the notorious and dangerous Broomway. He was lucky to do it on such a stunning day.

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.

——

#GlobalClimateStrike 2020

Last year I asked why more charities weren’t joining in with the global day of action about the climate. Today is the annual strike day and it is very quiet. Obviously, there’s lots else going on but the climate crisis is not going away. What’s moved on in a year?

After the global day last year, there seemed to be a flurry of organisations writing and sharing their green pledges which was encouraging. Here’s a set of pledges, useful links and resources which I have shared in the last 12 months (NB I stopped doing round-ups during lockdown so there is a big gap when I will have missed things).

January 2020

• The 2020 Global Risks Report from World Economic Forum. All five of the top risks by likelihood and three by impact are climate related.
• NCVO’s Road Ahead report included climate change and activism as one of the social drivers in 2020.
• The climate crisis: the five shifts the sector needs to make in response – Kirsty McNeill of Save the Children for IoF. “Every single one of us is – or has the potential to be – a leader in the climate movement.”
• National Trust to be carbon neutral by 2030.
• The Natural History Museum declare a planetary emergency.
• Culture has a carbon footprint, and data matters – Museums and Heritage Advisor.
• Local newspapers featured climate change on their frontpages as part of the #Do1Thing campaign.
• What can I do about climate change? – Woodland Trust.

November 2019

• 17 ways to make your website more energy efficient – Wholegrain Digital.
• Check the carbon footprint of your website and others – it’s not as hard as you think to be a climate crisis influencer – James Mullarkey.
• A great example of graphic journalism used to show how each political party prioritised climate issues in their manifestos.
• Why we are working on sustainable finance – WWF.
• Locality’s climate change pledge.
• British Red Cross reveals ten-year strategy focused on three big causes – Civil Society. “Adamson also set out an expectation that the charity would be carbon neutral by 2025, “in order to be credible”. This means reducing travel, using few resources and using technology effectively.”

October 2019

• Climate change and social change: How funders can act on both – report from 10 Years’ Time.
• 20+ funders have signed the Funder Commitment on Climate Change.
• Climate change for charity leaders outside the environmental sector – ACEVO.
• Useful tips from the Catalyst including about the footprint of your digital systems – Responding to the Climate Crisis – Chris Thorpe.
• Here are ACEVO’s environmental commitments.
• The IFC Holland Conference shared their environmental policy.
• IoF shared ‘Our role in tackling the climate emergency‘.
• North East Together hosted an event – Climate change: a collaborative response.
• The new normal: leadership in the climate crisis – video of the RSA President’s Lecture 2019 from Emma Howard Boyd. Emma’s thread from her speech starts with: “Everyone needs to put the climate emergency at the heart of what they do. It should not be given a cursory 10 minutes at the Board meeting before everyone gets back to “the business of business”. The climate crisis IS “the business of business”. “
• RSPB animation made by young employees: “Young people are not just supporting the global climate movement. They are driving it.”

What’s moved on?

The need for urgent and drastic action seems more obvious now as there have been so many reports of extreme weather. The world hasn’t waited while we have been dealing with covid.

So, what has moved on in the sector? Has covid stopped or been a catalyst for change? For example, will lockdown lead to long-term changes in policy to do with travel or wastefulness? Are funders investing in projects which tackle inequalities in relation to access to food, shelter and healthcare? Are organisations now actively sharing tips for staff about WFH during the winter and especially the implications on energy use? [NB Buy a heatpad and heat yourself not your room / home – it’s cheaper and greener!]

What’s happening in your organisation? Are conversations about internal polices and external campaigns still going? What has moved on in a year? I’d love to know.

See also

• Zurich’s climate change challenge whitepaper for voluntary organisations
• 10 ways to take action on climate change without leaving the house – Possible
• David Attenborough joins Instagram and gains 2.8m followers in one day.

Digital round-up – April 2020

Highlights this month: covid content, covid comms, covid language battles, covid fundraising, covid-driven digital services, covid burnout.

Well, March was intense. April was the same, but different. Now we are in May, it feels like a good time to review and reflect on the month just gone. This round-up, like most of the comms this month, is 98% coronavirus. Here are some gems you might have missed. Stay safe everyone.

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 and digital fundraising

At the start of the pandemic in March, comms was focussed around hand washing and protecting vulnerable groups. As we moved into April, fundraising appeals, digital fundraising and lockdown coping strategy content emerged. It has been really inspiring to see so many creative campaigns turned round so quickly and made from home.

• “During the lockdown, mothers in the UK are providing at least 50% more childcare as well as spending around 10% to 30% more time than fathers home schooling their children” – Observer article. The Fawcett Society’s #MakeWomenVisible campaign says that the crisis is having a devastating impact on women and girls and is making nine demands.
• Charity So White report on the impact of covid19 on BAME communities. It establishes five key principles to guide the charity sector’s response.
• The NHS is reporting a big drop in cancer referrals. CEOs of big cancer charities recorded a shared message – #HelpUsHelpYou and some charities shared their symptoms comms (see Pancreatic Cancer UK and Bowel Cancer UK).
• Kindness will keep us together – moving advert from British Red Cross.
• Citizens Advice shared insights into how their advisors are giving #AdviceAtHome.
• Virtual fundraising ideas from Mind.
• There are lots of quizzes. See these from Mayhew, Compton Care, Marie Curie and Izzy Wizzy Let’s Get Quizzy – Sooty hosts a quiz for RNIB.
• Age UK are asking supporters to overdress.
• Some great reactive comms from Royal Academy and Wellcome Collection in response to Trump’s thoughts about bleach.
• Doncaster Council are great at using Twitter threads. Here they tell the parable of Back to the Future to teach us lessons about staying safe through a pandemic.
• April Fools from National Trust – how they are helping squirrels to find their nuts.
• Do hashtags and petitions actually work? Nice explainer from Greenpeace UK.
• #NoHookUps during a pandemic say Terence Higgins Trust (“That means w**king has never been more important. So go on – do it for yourself to help protect others). Take the Pleasure Pledge and get your kicks elsewhere.
• Sometimes we just need a hug – WWF.
• Choose your own adventure style thread from RNIB raising awareness of how hard it is for blind and partially sighted people to shop and observe social distancing.
• Domestic abuse isn’t always physical – Refuge
• Worried about your mortgage explainer from Shelter.
• FAQs thread about foodbanks – The Trussell Trust. See also stats on foodbank use in the first two weeks of the pandemic.
• Life under lockdown in a Syrian refugee camp – Oxfam.
• The National Emergency Trust has been showcasing some of the charities it has supported, like Made in Hackney.
• Not a charity, but Hassan Akkad who spoke at Being the Story, is sharing beautiful photos on Twitter of colleagues at the hospital where he is working as a cleaner. This is Sandra.

Most charities have built covid information hubs on their websites, very quickly writing lots of new content to meet the needs of their audience. These hubs are generally prominently linked from homepages and in some cases appear as a new item on top-level navigation. Here’s a selection:

• Full Fact
• NSPCC
• Rethink
• Scope

Comms

• Why we shouldn’t use war metaphors to talk about healthcare – Ruth Hannan for RSA. See also The horror of coronavirus is all too real. Don’t turn it into an imaginary war – Marina Hyde and The case against waging ‘war’ on the coronavirus – Yasmeen Serhan.
• Talking about coronavirus and poverty: a guide to framing your messages – JRF.
• Framing homelessness during coronavirus (PDF) – Crisis.
• More covid framing resources from Frameworks Institute.
• Why the #ClapForMeNow video is unhelpful – a thread by Dr Ameen Kamlana.
• What putting a human face on ‘Stay home, stay safe, protect the NHS’ actually looks like – Dan Slee.
• Engagement strategies for charities: top takeaways from the Charity Comms conference. Are you suffering (or causing) infobesity – digital clutter and information overload. See also: Hearing from the sector: audience engagement during and beyond the pandemic by Sarah Fitzgerald.
• Impact of COVID-19 on charity communications – Media Trust and Charity Comms survey results from 219 responses.
• Helping senior colleagues to get started on social media – timely advice from Alasdair Dick.
• What to do with completed research project webpages – advice for research charities from Richard Berks.
• Carers UK won film of the year at the Charity Film Awards. The CFA awards ceremony was streamed online and brilliantly presented by the CFA team.
• Has your charity made its own Zoom background? This UK Fundraising article explains how. Charities – how to make a Zoom background for your supporters. Missing the tube? Check out these backgrounds from TfL. And these from Fundraising Everywhere. And these gems from BBC empty TV show sets.

Digital – strategy, design, culture

• One in three charities has cancelled services due to lack of digital skills or tech – Zoe Amar shares initial results of the Charity Digital Skills Survey. The survey is open until 15 May.
• The top ten digital challenges facing the charity sector – Catalyst.
• How charities are making their services digital in light of Covid19 – Kirsty Marrins for Lightful. Includes lots of examples including NSPCC, The Ramblers and The Bike Project.
• 5 ways coronavirus will change the charity sector – Zoe Amar for Charity Digital.
• How should service design react to COVID-19? NHS Digital.
• Ten content design tips any charity can use to make online services work better – Joe Roberson.
• Fast-track content design for coronavirus – Stephanie Coulshed of Scope.
• Versus Arthritis launches UK’s first condition-specific coronavirus chatbot – Civil Society.
• Citizens Online launched a digital exclusion GP surgery map.
• Citizens Advice have been releasing data from their website showing key topics of concern and how this is changing during the crisis. Might be useful to look at if you are creating your own content or signposting information.
• Interactive Covid-19 data for charities and funders – NPC.
• Top tips about digital advertising during this time from Matt Collins.
• 12 tips on social media advertising for charities during COVID-19 – Matt Howarth.
• The Young Trustees Movement launch their new digital hub in style.
• Monthly accessibility tip: A 10-step guide to make your social media content more accessible – National Lottery Community Fund – Scotland.

It has been really worrying to see the rise of so much inaccessible information during this time from official sources, businesses and some charities. The accessibility of official information provided by No10, DHSC, PHE and even the NHS has been especially poor at a time when it matters most. This was covered on Channel 4 News.

It has been particularly noticeable that so many organic and promoted tweets used images or gifs of text to share statements and complicated information. These generally appear with no alt text or link to an html version of the information, or text version in a thread. The information is therefore inaccessible to anyone who can’t view images. There have also been lots of videos without subtitles and without voice overs.

Clearly this has been a pressured time to release information as quickly as possible. But accessibility matters.

• RNIB asked Number 10 for leadership on accessible coronavirus information.
• @covidaccessinfo was set up to challenge bad practice.
• Press briefings are also broadcast without sign language interpreters. Now lack of sign language interpreters leads to legal case against government – BBC.

Fundraising

• £7m was raised during the #TwoPointSixChallenge (London Marathon) weekend. People did so many exhausting and creative challenges. Here’s a round-up from UK Fundraising – 26 examples of 2.6 Challenge fundraising events. (My 7yo wrote a Roald Dahl quiz – download and donate £2 to play – thanks!)
• £70m raised during the week of the #BigNightIn.
• Captain Tom raised over £32m for NHS Charities. Just Giving shared a list of fundraisers inspired by him. (See also #WalkWithTom – raising money for ‘the NHS’)
• Inspiring virtual charity fundraiser ideas – Charity Comms.
• What charities can learn from the lockdown laps coronacoaster – Richard Sved shares lessons for fundraisers.
• How has the virus affected the nation’s mood? – useful insights from gov.uk. How might this affect your fundraising?
• 5 ways the coronavirus is changing the legacy market and what this means for charities – Rob Cope for IoF.
• You are not alone – how The Samaritans adapted their fundraising and set up a dedicated support service for NHS workers within 10 days. Interview with Sonya Trivedy.
• Webinar on digital fundraising for small charities – Matt Howarth for Lloyds Bank Foundation.
• Richard Sved is a master of conference live-tweeting. This month he has covered Alice Ferris’ Writing a fundraising strategy session and #IWITOT.
• Brevio – new website matching charities with grants.
• There still a chance to book for the Fundraising Everywhere Virtual Conference – 11-15 May.

People and organisations

We’ve all had to rapidly adjust to this new way of working. It has been tough. Not least because of the technological learning curve and the loss of face-to-face contact, but also because we are all dealing with big additional mental loads as we come to terms with the situation we are living and working in. The home schooling, the loneliness, the worries about food and health and the future and our loved ones. There’s lots to deal with.

There was a flood of ‘top tips for working at home’ type-articles at the start. And now, there are more about recognising that wall-to-wall Zoom calls and WFH (especially when your home isn’t set up for this) is very draining. If you are finding it hard, or your team’s motivation is draining, this is normal. Here are some articles which it might be worth sharing internally. You are doing great. It’s ok to have off-days. Working life is likely to be like this for a while.

• 3 tips to avoid WFH burnout – Harvard Business Review.
• New and changing patterns for digital working – Ben Holliday discusses the move from working remotely during a pandemic to digital working.
• The reason Zoom calls drain your energy – BBC.
• Leading your team and communicating through a crisis – Matthew Sherrington for IoF.
• Charity Comms’ wellbeing guide for comms professionals.
• Sound familiar? Fundraising right now from the fundraising frontline – Agents for Good

The current situation has lots of implications for long-term outputs. Organisational strategies have been parked and business as usual pivoted. It’s a challenging time for senior leaders and trustees.

• What should charity trustees be thinking about? NPC
• YHA – what does it mean to be a charity in the decisions that we make? Anita Kerwin-Nye. “From repurposing our hostels to support the most vulnerable in communities, to creating scrubs in YHA green from recycled bed linen”, here’s how the YHA responded.
• How Hospice UK have responded including by running weekly Zoom calls of 300 colleagues across the country. CEO Tracey Bleakley explains in this short video post.
• Virtual Relay: Live panel debate on how charities are adapting to the impact of COVID-19 – Raw.
• The CEO decathlon I didn’t foresee – Menai Owen-Jones for ACEVO.
• The value of extreme crisis planning. How Tesco’s ‘doomsday exercise’ helped it cope with the coronavirus – The Guardian.

Sector

• Lords leap to charities’ aid – DSC report on the House of Lords debate on charities (30 April).
• 9 out of 10 BAME micro and small organisations is set to close if the crisis continues beyond 3 months following the lockdown – report from The Ubele Initiative.
• Medical research charities are facing a significant loss in funding. AMRC have a detailed information hub about the impact. See also Cancer Research UK cuts research funding by £44m, which could set it back ‘for years’ – Civil Society.
• The #NeverMoreNeeded campaign followed on from #EveryDayCounts.
• The Chancellor finally announced some support for the sector. Here are some of the responses – thread by David Ainsworth, NCVO statement. It was disappointing to read the number of ‘what about CEO salaries’ statements under Sky News’ Beth Rigby announcement.
• Karl Wilding of NCVO gave evidence to the Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee on 31 March.

And finally….

I am missing train trips and walks in open countryside. I have been sharing some virtual walks and adventures including Cornwall, a sleeper train to Spain (and back) plus the lavender fields of Kent.

If you want to transport yourself to other places at a deeper level, take a look at Radio Lento podcasts. Get some headphones and listen to 30-minute soundscapes of woods, rivers and birds. Perfect for meditation, some quiet before sleep or just switching off during the day. Subscribe via your podcast provider or get updates via @RadioLento.

• Lots to explore in the BBC’s Museum from home page.
• 1.9m views for this 3year-old sheep handler.
• How to recreate old family photos – this made me cry.
• ‘Useful’ makeup tutorial.
• Boy reads Owl Babies to baby owls.

Your recommendations

What did you read, watch or launch? Please share 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.

——

Did you miss the last round-up? Catch up with more good reads from a time before lockdown.

Digital round-up – October 2019

Highlights this month: big hashtag events including #YouMadeItHappen and #WorldMentalHealthDay, legacy fundraising + the sector’s response to the climate emergency.

October is a massive month for awareness days and creative content so this is another bumper issue of 100+ links. I have also included a new section on the sector’s growing response to the climate emergency.

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

• Love this new campaign from Battersea – #RescueIsMyFavouriteBreed. “You don’t have to be a Dane to be Great.” Dogs Trust shared it too.
• New ambitious campaign from MS Society UK – #StopMS. Appeal webpage has a powerful message and pledge totaliser: “By 2025, we want to be in the final stages of testing treatments for everyone with MS. Treatments that slow or stop disability progression. We believe £100 million could take us to a future where no one has to worry about their MS getting worse. But we can’t do it without your support.” They also shared an animated video explaining MS and its symptoms.
• Great responsive campaigning from Girl Guiding who spotted Boris Johnson’s coffee cup shuffle as an opportunity to share their Plastic Promise.
• Shocking video from Oxfam GB for their #BehindTheBarcodes campaign.
• A Moment of St Mungo’s #50Lives campaign.
• Great video from Keech Hospice Care for #HospiceCareWeek.
• How much do you know about hospice care? Hospice UK shared this quiz.
• Amnesty UK share a beautiful animated poem by the illustrator Axel Scheffler about refugees for #NationalPoetryDay.
• The Poverty Alliance in Scotland shared this animation for #ChallengePoverty week.
• I liked this warning from Breast Cancer Now to their supporters ahead of their new campaign about secondary breast cancer.
• Did you hear any birdsong on RSPB’s #LetNatureSing takeover day?
• Perfect Friday afternoon thread: #MakeABookChocolate from Book Trust.
• There was some great Halloween content. Like this spooky game in a Twitter thread from The Globe, a quiz about museum enemy critters from Museum of London using #CreepyCrawlyTrickOrTreat and these spooky sounds from The British Library’s archive. This Halloween Moment has more examples.

#WorldMentalHealthDay is a very busy day. Here are some highlights and other mental health-related content shared this month:

• Great thread from CIPR Not-for-profit sharing charity comms highlights from #WorldMentalHealthDay.
• Sometimes simple works best. This post-it tweet from Time to Change shared on #WorldMentalHealthDay, a very busy day, got 2k RTs and 3k likes.
• 407k views for this Samaritans video shared on WMHD.
• “A bit OCD.” Poem shared by Time to Change for OCD Week which has had 95k views.
• ITV partnered with Mind and Young Minds to launch #BritainGetTalking. The replies to this launch tweet by ITV were not very positive.
• #EveryMindMatters was also launched by Public Health England. The Every Mind Matters website has a quiz and information.
• Getting outside definitely helps my mental health. I liked this from London Wildlife Trust.

Did you join in with #YouMadeItHappen day this year? Here is a #YMIH Moment of some of the stand-out comms and a #YMIH blog post which goes into more detail.

Comms

• Telling stories with Instagram stories – Helpful Digital.
• How other charities do…. achievements webpages – packed with examples to give you food for thought. Gathered by Richard Berks.
• Innovative charity annual reviews 2019 – Jennifer Campbell. See also  slides from Charity Comms’ Annual Reviews seminar.
• CLIC Sargent launched their 2019 impact and accountability report including a 9minute video about things that didn’t go so well.
• There were negative responses to TV’s Lorraine’s Boob Bus for Breast Cancer Awareness Month including this article in The Independent about excluding women of colour and this tweet from Stella Duffy.
• How charities are innovating with digital outdoor advertising – Charity Digital News.
• You have until 1 December to vote for your favourite in the Charity Film Awards.
• Rebrand: Breast Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Now merge to become Breast Cancer Now.
• Rebrand: Greater London Fund for the Blind becomes the Vision Foundation.
• New partnership between Battersea and Street Vet.
• 7 tips for freshening up your comms – Helpful Digital.
• Are you guilty of using alienating jargon in your internal and external comms? This post from Virgin Money Foundation is a useful reminder about the words we use.
• Opportunity knocks for social change, even in divided times – JRF. How culture can hold the key to driving shifts in attitudes towards people trapped in poverty.
• JRF now do a weekly round-up newsletter sharing publications, blogs and stories in the news.
• Do you live-tweet through relevant TV programmes? Here’s some tips from sounddelivery – How charities can use programmes to raise their profile. And an example from WWF who tweet through #SevenWorldsOnePlanet.
• Accessibility tip of the month: don’t use images / gifs which flicker as they could trigger a seizure in someone who has photosensitive epilepsy. Useful information from Epilepsy Action.
• Facebook comments: Here’s the advice you need if you’re a public sector Facebook page admin wondering how to reply to a comment – Dan Slee.
• A lesson in Twitter storytelling in this thread about his dad’s hospital stay by Rajesh Thind.

Digital – strategy, design, culture

• What comes first: Digital transformation or workplace modernisation – Digital Leaders.
• Thomas Cook and how not to go digital – ZoeOnTheGo.
• In which I am a bit over this digital transformation business – Catherine Howe.
• The digital leadership challenge – Joe Freeman for Charity Comms.
• Moment from Digital Agenda’s Power and Responsibility Summit 2019. Read the Digital Agenda Green Paper too.
• ‘Say hello to digital‘ – fab promo film for Reason Digital. Good one to show your trustees about why a digital strategy is important.

Fundraising

• My notes from the IoF’s legacy fundraising conference.
• Legacy and In-Memory Giving 2045. Double the income. Double the opportunity. Meg Abdy for DSC. Download Legacy Foresight’s Giving Tomorrow report.
• Legacies and laughter – Rob Cope for Charity Choice.
• The emergence of NHS charities – Vanessa Holmes for nfpSynergy.
• CAF’s UK Giving 2019 report.
• Engagement is more than a fundraising rebrand – Rally.
• Where is the value in subscription box fundraising – Mark Philips
• Before diving into ‘platform philanthropy’, charities need to ask some big ethical questions – Rhodri Davies for Charity Digital News.
• IoF thread about safeguarding and sexual harassment.
• Help for Heroes launches ‘40,000 strong’ miniature figures campaign – Charity Digital News.

Charity on the climate crisis

Extinction Rebellion have sector specific branches for doctors, lawyers, the arts etc but there isn’t one for the charity sector? I have added this section to share some of the sector’s response.

Action:

• Climate change and social change: How funders can act on both – report from 10 Years’ Time.
• 20+ funders have signed the Funder Commitment on Climate Change.
• Climate change for charity leaders outside the environmental sector – ACEVO.
• Useful tips from the Catalyst including about the footprint of your digital systems – Responding to the Climate Crisis – Chris Thorpe.
• Here are ACEVO’s environmental commitments.
• The IFC Holland Conference shared their environmental policy. (Image above as shared by Toast Fundraiser.)
• IoF shared ‘Our role in tackling the climate emergency‘.
• North East Together hosted an event – Climate change: a collaborative response.
• The new normal: leadership in the climate crisis – video of the RSA President’s Lecture 2019 from Emma Howard Boyd. Emma’s thread from her speech starts with: “Everyone needs to put the climate emergency at the heart of what they do. It should not be given a cursory 10 minutes at the Board meeting before everyone gets back to “the business of business”. The climate crisis IS “the business of business”. “

There’s another global school strike coming up on 29 November. Will you get involved? I wrote this about the sector’s response to the strike in September.

Campaigns and comms:

• Woodland Trust is recruiting citizen scientists to track the effects of weather and climate change – Nature’s Calendar and pushing their #EveryTreeCounts target.
• RSPB shared this animation made by young employees: “Young people are not just supporting the global climate movement. They are driving it.”
• The best charity digital campaigns tackling sustainability – Charity Digital News.

Useful reads:

• ‘It’s a crisis, not a change’: the six Guardian language changes on climate matters.
• This is a crisis: Facing up to the age of environmental breakdown and Putting people at the heart of the green transition – IPPR.

People and organisations

• New safeguarding resources from NCVO.
• A guide to impact assessment for charities – free tool from In Kind Direct.
• A coalition of 13 Foundations have formed the DEI coalition – Foundations make a stand for diversity, equity and inclusion. See more in this thread from Fozia Irfan.
• From diversity data to meaningful change: the sector responds to our newest report – Charity Comms.
• Are there young people on your board? Take a look at the Young Trustees Movement.
• Horizon scanning at RNLI – Martin Wilson.

And finally….

• Stamp out the hate with the Goodness Bot.
• Animated paintings at Tate.
• The Rijksmuseum shared this image of William III for #ComingOutDay.
• Everyday tasks done with joy in this 2minute video.

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.

——

Did you miss September’s round-up? Catch up with more good reads!

Digital round-up – September 2019

Highlights this month: a lesson in crisis comms from RNLI, climate change comms, diversity in the sector, guide to wellbeing.

It’s overwhelming to try and keep up at the moment. Aside from UK and world news, this is a busy time of year for awareness days and campaign launches. Here’s a small snapshot of some of the best charity content and reads from this month and some from August too.

How to use this round-up: 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

Big campaigns

• Alzheimer’s Research UK launched a new video starring Samuel L Jackson as part of their #ShareTheOrange campaign. It’s all over social and has been viewed over a million times on Twitter. No mention of it on their homepage now World Alzheimer’s Month has finished though. The campaign has now been running for five years. ARUK also shared a behind the scenes film from the shoot.
• Clic Sargent shared this video about the cost of travel to treatment, as part of Childhood Cancer Awareness Month.
• Peter Andre shared his experience of bullying at school as part of The Diana Award’s #Back2School campaign. More stories on the Back2School website.
• This one-minute film from Royal British Legion has powerful copywriting – They Still Go.
• The We Are Undefeatable campaign has been telling inspiring stories all month since it launched.
• Did you join in with Oxfam’s #SecondHandSeptember? They created some nice graphics and explainer content. Take the pledge.
• Guide Dogs shared this video of Ainsley Harriot to promote their My Guide Service.
• Dogs Trust shared this video (with very upsetting content) to mark 15 years of their Freedom Project, removing a barrier for families escaping from domestic abuse.

Creative content

• ‘Choose your own adventure’-type Twitter thread from Trussell Trust to raise awareness about Universal Credit and drive signups to their #5WeeksTooLong campaign.
• Twitter game from The Tower of London – can you escape The Tower?
• Time to Change shared a Moment of what people want you to know about suicide, for #WorldSuicidePreventionDay. They have also been sharing illustrations of what it is like to have mental health problems. This showing physical symptoms is very powerful.
• I like these short videos from Dogs Trust sharing fun games to play with your dog.
• Emergency services around the world got their kit out as part of the #TetrisChallenge. See examples from Tower RNLI, St John Ambulance and West Yorkshire Fire and Rescue Service.
• 8.1k views for this London Fashion Week video from London Fire Brigade.

Reactive content

• A few charities live-tweeted along with the documentary about Jade Goody. This thread by Cancer Research UK did well.
• Word on the Curb did their own version of chicken box comms to tackle knife crime.
• Have you seen people changing their profile image to colourful stripes (eg Help Refugees)? Take a look at the #ShowYourStripes campaign.
• Some charities used #WorldPhotographyDay to share images from their work.
• Cakes rated by Macmillan.
• Reactive Error 404 messages from political parties (as discovered by Will Cardy).

Celebrity endorsement of the month: The Hoff visits RNLI Penarth.

Did your organisation do anything to join in with the #GlobalClimateStrike either by joining a strike or sharing messages of solidarity or making statement about your own organisation’s commitment to addressing climate change? On a day where there was a global focus on the issues, it was good to see some (mostly environmental charities) pulling out all the stops. It was disappointing to see so many others saying nothing. Here are some examples of charities who joined in with the #GlobalClimateStrike.

Comms

It can be stressful and relentless being on the comms frontline. Your work is key to building and protecting your organisation’s reputation and impact, while also battling internal pressures. This month, Charity Comms launched A wellbeing guide for comms professionals authored by Kirsty Marrins with contributions from others sharing case studies and tips. It aims to help build resilience and look after mental health. Do have a read if you haven’t seen it already.

This month, RNLI faced a backlash then a rush of support, following a story profiling their overseas work. Their messaging on Twitter was an example of patience and warmth. The volume of incoming comments was relentless through the week. They responded by writing personal messages to thousands of people. Their initial tweet has been liked 44.8k times.

I wrote a short thread through the first day as the situation developed including tweets of support from other charities. Dan Slee blogged with more examples and UK Fundraising showed some of the ways people challenged the press story.

What was striking about RNLI’s response was that they took ownership of the situation and proudly communicated their values and mission. For example they changed the image on their homepage (see above) and shared beautiful images from their overseas projects on social media. They also did lots to connect with new and established supporters (see this tweet from Shappi Khorsandi, a thank you email and a thank you video from Dave at Poole Lifeboat Centre).

Would you be ready to respond to a crisis comms situation?

Also this month:

• Here’s a lesson in how to communicate a rebrand! Great blog post by Vicky Browning of ACEVO. We want to change the world but how?
• Other rebrands this month from National Children’s Bureau and The Vitiligo Society.
• Beyond the font – How to use your brand refresh for fundraising; simple tips from the British Heart Foundation – CharityNikki.
• Is your charity’s brand future-proof? – nfpSynergy.
• “We are no longer in need of financial donations” – The Red Box Project starts winding down its operations.
• A message to your #5YearOldSelfie – insights from the successful campaign from Shirin Zaid of Young Minds. Here’s the #5YearOldSelfie launch tweet.
• Thread from Aimee Vance about the danger of seeing social media as a quick fix solution.
• Update from The Brain Tumour Charity about the success of their campaign to raise awareness in teenagers – Our Snapchat symptom campaign success continues.
• Afternoon Tea with Breast Cancer Care – campaign insights from Torchbox.
• Great thread of ideas from Richard Berks about sharing research insights internally. Could also be used as part of any buy-in process or internal roadshow.
• How charities can reach new audiences by live-tweeting TV shows – five different ways to join in, also by Richard Berks.
• Do you follow Joseph Freeman’s weekly updates?
• How to create a social media approval process for your charity – Lightful.
• Facebook tips for small and medium charities – webinar from CAF.
• Content is not king – is content marketing just filler asks Andrew O’Keeffe.
• Here’s what’s wrong with Content Marketing World (and what’s right for your content strategy) – wise words from Kristina Halvorson.
• Understanding 10 types of fake news – really useful post from Social Simulator.

Digital – strategy, design, culture

• Don’t Feed The Trolls – new report and advice.
• Listen to this Radio 4 programme about digital skills and the social divide created by the digital world. Dr Josie Barnard explores reasons why 22% of the population are being left behind. Digital Future: the new underclass.
• Lessons from the Charity Digital Code of Practice – Principle 4: Strategy – Zoe Amar for Charity Digital News.
• 7 cultures that digital needs to survive – Platypus Digital.
• 6 big questions charity digital leaders need to ask – Ross McCulloch for Charity Digital News.
• The Digital Practice work-stream’s first output: de-fragmenting digital maturity – The Catalyst.
• The best UK charities at digital service delivery – Charity Digital News.
• Five UK charities making the most of digital communications in 2019 – Charity Digital News.
• Monthly accessibility tip: Designing for accessibility – part 1 and designing for accessibility – part 2, useful tips about web design both from GOSS.
• How Virtual Reality is helping bridge the communication divide for people with autism – Charity Digital News.
• How charities can gather images ethically? – Rachel Erskine for Great Charity Speakers.
• Joe Freeman blogged: ‘I’m so bored of hearing about digital‘ on Charity Connect.
• Amazing work from suicide prevention organisations who have managed to influence so many digital platforms to automatically share content about prevention in response to keyword searches. This tweet from Ben Bowdler-Thomas shares some screenshots from Twitter, Facebook etc.

Fundraising

• Age UK partner with Cadbury in #DonateYourWords. 30p from every special Dairy Milk bar will be donated to Age UK.
• Paddington’s Postcards – subscription scheme from Unicef UK.
• 5 fundraising campaigns built on social media – Lightful.
• How reward and recognition schemes can motivate your fundraisers – JustGiving blog.
• Remember a Charity Week was 10 years old this year. Here are some examples of how charities joined in on social media. Legacy fundraising on social media.
• Time for action! Why we have to invest in sustainable legacy fundraising – 101 Fundraising. “Build inspiring legacy fundraising communication creating connection and trust. Do not get lost in technical or legal advice at the expense of inspiration.”
• How St Mungo’s used Pinterest to reach potential legators at the right time – Civil Society. Hayley Creasey shares their journey into online marketing for legacy fundraising.
• TOP 10 list of design mistakes I see in direct response over and over again – John Lepp for Agents of Good.
• The Blurt Foundation smashed their £35k crowdfunding target. Their long-read plea to help save Blurt was a great example in transparent and authentic comms. They did the same in a Twitter thread.
• Putting the story straight about Olive Cooke. Radio 4 programme Olive the Poppy Seller.
• Have you seen the IoF’s public perceptions of the fundraising profession report?
• New website and manifesto from #NonGraduatesWelcome.
• Donation boxes in museums – guide from Association of Independent Museums.
• The Tudor Trust mapped their grants against the UK areas of deprivation. [See the latest figures – English indices of deprivation 2019.]
• Get ready for #GivingTuesday (3 December) with these PDF toolkit guides.
• And don’t forget to say thank you on #YouMadeItHappen day next week – 11 October.

People and organisations

There has been lots shared this month about representation in the sector. Here’s a selection of useful reads and resources

• It’s time for us to recognise the barriers that BAME people face in the charity sector – Sushi Juggapah for Charity Digital News.
• HuffPost – charity workers share shocking incidents of racism.
• 70 per cent of CEOs at largest 100 charities are men – Civil Society
• #CharitySoWhite launched on Twitter.
• Practical steps towards a more diverse team – great post by Krislyn Tan for JustGiving.
• Inclusive recruitment toolkit – Snook.
• Salary and Organisational Culture Report – new report from Charity Comms based on 668 survey responses. Includes data about pay, diversity, career paths and attitudes towards comms staff. The report links to useful guides and includes a list of actions for staff, leaders and recruiters.

Also this month:

• Recruitment tips: from a candidate who’s been there – really useful insights for recruiters from Lara Burns.
• JRF’s new start for new starters — a user’s perspective – Hannah McCulloch. How does your induction process measure up?
• 5 excuses for not having young trustees – OSCR.
• Planning for tomorrow’s workforce – report from NCVO.
• Speaking up: How to manage introverts in your team – Matt Chittock for Charity Comms.
• Radio 4 programme about managing volunteers.
• NCVO launched the Trusted Charity Essentials Tool, a new online diagnostic toolkit for small charities to judge how well they are working and how to improve.
• Why our organisation is closing for an entire week – Simon Blake on MHFA England’s August shutdown.
• Did you see this year’s Independent’s Happy List 2019 which was released in August? And this response by Kirsty Marrins for The Independent – Here’s to all the small charities you’ve never heard of.

And finally….

Well done for getting to the end! Here’s some fun stuff.

• 2mins44sec video of Sandi Toksvig giving hugs on QI.
• Bored at your desk? Take a 10 second trip on the Romney Hythe and Dymchurch Railway.
• Or watch a Viennetta being made.
• Want a random page from 80s pop mag Smash Hits to pop up on your timeline?
• Joyful Soviet soldiers dancing to MC Hammer.
• Naughty goats have to wear pool noodles. Who knew?

Your recommendations and feedback

What did you read, watch or launch this month? Please share your recommendations in the comments.

Could you also tell me if these round-ups are useful. It takes quite a long time to put them together. How do you use the round-ups? Please share any feedback. Thanks!

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.

——

Did you miss July’s round-up? Catch up with more good reads!

Digital round-up – June and July 2019

Highlights this month: tools and resources to accelerate digital progress, responses to the Oxfam report, diversity, spontaneous comms.

For one month only, here is a combined round-up with some of the things you might have missed in June and July. Wishing you a productive or restful month whether you are in or out of the office.

How to use the round-up: Pick and choose links to read now or later. Even better, subscribe and get future round-ups direct to your inbox so you don’t miss any.

Content highlights

• There was lots of comms to mark 50 years since the moon landing. Some charities spontaneously joined in with #UnlikelyFirstWordsOnTheMoon, like this one from The National Trust. Royal Museums Greenwich live tweeted the last 13 minutes to touchdown.
• #BringYourDogToWork day comms from Dogs Trust and Book Trust.
• Following the leadership contest result, the Charity Retail Association cheekily tweeted this.
• Oxfam’s supermarket scorecard campaign – nicely presented data to inspire people to use their consumer power. See also this Behind the Barcodes video.
• Charities are starting to talk about their responses to the climate emergency. Here’s an example from The National Trust. 
• BPAS raised awareness of abortion laws in Northern Ireland with this video message for Donald Trump.
• Nice reactive content from Blue Cross and Battersea to the new Cats Movie trailer.
• Kittens love tennis – who knew?! Wimbledon tweet from Cats Protection.
• Love this behind the scene thread from small charity Tiny Tickers. Their six staff all work from home. 
• Lovely thank you video from The Bike Project.
• Brand new videos about the UK asylum system – bite-sized videos in eight languages from Right to Remain.
• 3min video from The Law Society about the problems affecting the justice system.
• 50 stories to mark St Mungo’s 50th anniversary.
• Changing Faces shared an open letter from parents of a girl who was badly burnt in a fire. It gained a huge response including hundreds of comments and worldwide coverage.
• How do you keep people safe on the beach? RNLI are trialling sand signage in Cornwall.
• Some creative comms in this Moment of #WorldEmojiDay tweets.
• It was very hot last week, lots of charities were sharing useful tips. Some highlights in this heatwave Moment.
• Staff pic of the week from Battersea.
• Local funder Camden Giving showcased amazing organisations they support in this A-Z thread for Small Charity Week.

Twitter takeover of the month: VIP (very important pony) Dennis held the reins of Mencap’s Twitter for a short time during Volunteers Week.

Video of the month: The Bank of England revealed the new face of the £50 note in this video. Genius or awful? You decide…..

Comms: best practice

• Updating your style guide? Take a look at the universal content style guide project started by Sarah Richards. Rather than everyone coming up with their own, “what if there was one place where we, as a community, shared knowledge and created a style guide that was accessible, usable and – if we wanted – evidenced?”
• 6 practical tips to designing content with greater impact – Lightful.
• A definition of copywriting vs content design by Sarah Richards on ProCopywriters Network.
• Are personal stories too personal? The challenges of advocating for more progressive media coverage of criminal justice – Clinks.
• Do you live-tweet? My top tips for live reporting from events and conferences. Includes examples from the recent mighty #IoFFC.
• Dr Richard Berks shared examples of charities live tweeting through a recent documentary about leukaemia. Does your charity join in with relevant live TV events?
• After the event: using social media to maintain momentum – lots of useful tips from Gemma Pettman.
• Meaningful engagement: do you need a social strategy? Lisa Clavering for Charity Comms.
• How to nail your tone of voice on social media – Kirsty Marrins for Lightful.
• Practical tips for dealing with trolling online – Zoe Williams for Charity Comms.
• Oh…so you CAN go viral on Instagram! – Time to Change’s Natasha Dillon for Charity Comms.
• Doncaster Council had a party to celebrate hitting 20k followers!
• Five big ways that the world of media has changed in the last two decades – 5 trends plus what it all means for charities. nfpSynergy post from November 2018 which you might have missed.
• Small but mighty – key takeaways from our Small Charities conference – Charity Comms.
• Top tips for communicating in a crisis – Charity Comms.
• There was lots of coverage about how NSPCC dealt with its recent crisis comms following events with Munroe Bergdorf. This statement had 700+ comments.
• New brand launched on Action for Children’s 150th anniversary. New Choose Childhood campaign launched too with strong messages and images on Twitter.
• How Samaritans managed the launch of its new brand identity with digital – Charity Digital News.
• 30 Days Wild challenge reaches new record – 400,000 people took part in The Wildlife Trust’s annual event.
• 1.7m views of Emilia Clarke’s video recreating workplace stock photos.

If you are a Charity Comms member, don’t forget to vote in the trustee election. Closes at 5pm, 19 August.

Digital: strategy, design, culture

The Catalyst, a UK collaborative to bring a social purpose to the digital revolution, launched. They are a coalition of major foundations, digital design agencies, civil society bodies and the UK government, seeking to massively accelerate the use of digital in the UK’s voluntary and charity sector. Sign up via the website for information and updates. Read this post by Dan Sutch to find out more – digital, design and data for social good. And follow The Catalyst on Medium too.

More transformation resources:

• If you work in the arts, take a look at the Digital Culture Network which launched in June. This from MoDA is good too – A Museum of the Digital Age.
• New website to fast-track digital transformation in adult social care – VODG.
• Start Somewhere – report on making tech imaginable and usable for small charities – CAST and IVAR. Summary includes five suggestions for small voluntary organisations. And this thread by CAST includes tips for those supporting smaller organisations with digital. And this thread by IVAR shares tips for funders.
• Digital Leadership 101 conversation starter pack – useful resource for boards and CEOs from Superhighways based on the Charity Digital Code.
• 3 eras of digital transformation: Are we facing fatigue? – Webcredible.

Did you see the results from this year’s Charity Digital Skills Report, now in its third year? More than half (53%) of charities are aware of emerging tech developments but aren’t planning for them yet. Just 12% are planning for how this could change their charity. How does your organisation compare with the results?

• Six ways to increase your organisation’s ‘Digital IQ’ – Elizabeth Marsh for Digital Leaders.

See also:

• What are ‘digital ethics’ and why should charities care? Useful round-up of good reads by Charity Digital News.
• National Lottery funding to boost voluntary sector’s digital capabilities – eight organisations receive a share of £3.4m.
• Building a digitally accessible front door to the NHS – Digital Agenda.
• Microsoft’s Inclusive Design resources.
• New digital marketing strategy webinar series launched by Media Trust.
• 6 things I learned in 6 months as a user researcher – Zoe McClatchey, product design graduate at NHS Digital.
• The best Artificial Intelligence resources for charities – Charity Digital News.
• I updated my digital teams blog list to include some of the new teams now blogging.
• The guides I wish I had when starting digital work in charities – lots of useful links from John Dunford of The Developer Society.
• Giant thread of charity service design resources by Ross McCulloch.
• How to write a digital strategy for smaller charities – Michael MacLennan for Charity Comms.
• Culture is our strategy – Emma Stace for Digital Leaders.
• No more ‘computer says no’ – everyone in Barnardo’s is getting a new computer. Dan Fryer.
• Monthly accessibility link: RNIB aims to redesign emojis for visually impaired users – UK Fundraising. Includes some useful tips about how to make your use of emojis more accessible.
• Love this animation of the changing popularity of different browsers over the past 10 years. [No voice over though so accessibility is poor. Summary is that Chrome overtook everything else from 2012.)

Fundraising

• Ready. Aim. Fundraise! Clever fundraising campaign from Help for Heroes. Fab graphics. #BakeForHeroes.
• Rehoming Alerts – new text message-based way to donate to Battersea.
• Oxfam launch their first ever crowdfunder – #BeesForNepal.
• NSPCC launches innovative digital platform for regular giving.
• WaterAid’s Fempowered project: Harnessing the monthly power of periods – Nicholas Spandagos for Charity Comms. 
• Thread of tweets from IoF’s Communicating with Older Generations event – #IoFOlderGen.
• Smee & Ford Legacy Trends 2019 – free whitepaper if you give your email address. See also this thread from IoFFC by Howard Lake about multicultural in memory and legacy giving.
• Five creative ways to thank your Facebook fundraisers – Kirsty Marrins for GivePanel.
• Instagram donate – insights from WWF by Nicola Gee.
• IoFFC blog from Ruth Smyth.
• Branding: Help or Hindrance? The relationship between branding and fundraising by Roger Craver.
• The A-Z of writing fundraising appeals – Mark Phillips.
• What does fundraising ethically even mean? – Ruby Bayley-Pratt on Great Charity Speakers.
• Useful thread from NCVO summarising the Charity Tax Commission Report.
• Highlights for fundraisers from this year’s NCVO almanac.
• Fundraising Everywhere – virtual fundraising conference in November. FREE for small charities. Register now.
• Lizzie Hollis’ mega google doc list of fundraising learning resources.

People / careers / sector

Oxfam:

The Charity Commission’s report about Oxfam came out at the beginning of June.

• Here’s Oxfam’s video response from their Chair and their written statement.
• Karl Wilding shared some wider lessons for the sector.
• In this talk, Danny Sriskandarajah talks about the role of civil society and organisations like Oxfam. It was recorded at the end of his first 4months in post as Oxfam’s new CEO.
• Oxfam: doing well in reputation rehab – interesting data on trust up until July 2019 – UK Fundraising.

Diversity in the sector:

Karl Wilding was appointed as NCVO’s new CEO. While welcomed, the news prompted heated discussions about diversity. Here’s a small selection.

• Should white men step aside? by an anonymous white male fundraiser on Great Charity Speakers.
• Elizabeth Balgobin: To improve diversity in charities we must do more than tick boxes – Civil Society.
• Kirsty Weakley: Charities need to deal with the white man problem, but don’t get personal – Civil Society.
• BAME people are under-represented in our sector. This article from Charity Digital News says that it is time for us to recognise the barriers that BAME people face in the charity sector. If you know a digital BAME star, there may still be time to nominate them as a top charity digital BAME leader.
• Creating race equity: CEO and chair programme – new from ACEVO.

Other reads

• “What if the future of altruism isn’t a charity sector stuffed with variations on a theme? What if it’s a completely different set of business models which generate the power to change the world?” I failed and I liked it – Ben Holt.
• See also What will charities look like in the future? James Plunkett
• Getting ahead in your comms career: my key takeaways from the Charity Comms conference.
• Clore Social Leadership Talking Leadership report. Plus take a look at their Backpack of tools to address leadership challenges.
• ACEVO / Centre for Mental Health report into bullying in the sector – In Plain Sight. Here’s a thread of the six recommendations in the report. Plus actions for Chairs and trustees from Association of Chairs.
• Lucy Caldicott: If we’re the good guys, why is there still racism, homophobia, bullying and misogyny in the sector? – Civil Society.
• Why you should perfect your elevator pitch TODAY – Nicky Weelen. Good tips for freelancers.
• Why charities need to offer better flexible working options – TPP Recruitment.
• Managing overwhelm at work – advice from a realist – useful advice from Helen Reynolds.
• Case study: Changing leadership culture to drive innovation – WaterAid’s Marcus Missen for EFA.
• How do you attract people to work in your organisation? I liked this video from Shelter. Shame no subtitles though.
• Being the Story’s spokesperson network was launched.

And finally….

• Do American supermarkets have a British food aisle asked Joseph Freeman. [Also see Joe’s weekly round-ups which are excellent.]
• Check your copy. Proof-reading fail from Waitrose.
• More signs – love these shared for #NorfolkDay by @beakpie.
• Quiz: How much do you know about memes? BBC Arts.
• Did you watch the fully interactive episode of BBC Click?
• Have your thought about your own digital legacy? Interesting thread from Marie Curie from a recent event.
• What went right? January-June 2019 – the Positive News stories you need.

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.

——

Did you miss May’s round-up?Catch up with more good reads!

Digital round-up – May 2019

Highlights this month: mental health awareness, campaigns about talking, animals (dogs, cats, ravens) and lots of great digital charity reads.

Not sure where the summer has gone! Pop the kettle on, turn off the news and catch up with some of the things you might have missed in May.

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

This month, it was #MentalHealthAwarenessWeek so there was some great content around. For example, have a look at:

• conversation starters – 20 questions to use to open conversations with your child about mental health from YoungMinds (the website has more detail about starting the conversation)
• animation from Time to Change with over 2000 RTs and this text message one
• video about body image from The Children’s Society which had 29k views
• a simple reminder about sources of help from Combat Stress.

Also this month:

• Great video from the Campaign to End Loneliness – #LetsTalkMore!
• See also #AskUsAnything from Alzheimer’s Society.
• Talking to children about lymphoma – YouTube playlist of five videos from Lymphoma Action.
• Action Deafness produced these powerful posters showing how not to talk to deaf people for Deaf Awareness Week.
• Diabetes UK launched their #ItsMissing campaign about the lack of emotional support available for people with diabetes. These stories help to show the relentless pressure on people like Kaja with diabetes and mum Sue caring for her teenage son.
• A simple, positive, enriching tweet from Dogs Trust with 900 likes.
• What would your funeral song be? LOROS Hospice shared theirs for #DyingMattersWeek with this great video!
• There was some nice content for #WorldBeeDay.
• It was hashtag-tastic for #MuseumWeek – one for each day.
• Nice post from the Science Museum about expanding their collection of menstrual products – (NB snazzy way of displaying their blog tags too.)
• Game of ‘would you rather…?’ as part of Crisis’ Cover the Cost campaign.
• Lovely video of a community shop in Oxfordshire from Plunkett Foundation.
• Raven chicks at the Tower of London. Proud dad.
• Did you see The Cats Protection new campaign – #CatMenDo? Go to the website for more men and cats pictures plus Father’s Day card downloads.

Twitter takeover of the month: Ceri and Krissie’s Twitter takeover of the Scope account showing how Scope have developed their digital experiences to make them easy to use and accessible.

What are you doing for #SmallCharityWeek next week (17-22 June)? If you don’t work for a small charity, why not find a local one to support. Keep an eye out for the #BigSupportSmall campaign too.

Comms

• More than words – report exploring how voluntary sector organisations in the UK are developing, embedding and sharing their communications strategies – Ariadne Network. Here’s a short thread about the report from Neil Crowther.
• How to communicate: a tip from Sir Terry – Sarah Browning.
• Working with storytellers: ‘It’s never our story to tell, it’s theirs’ – Hayley Tomkinson, stories manager, Anthony Nolan for CharityComms.
• A guide to low-cost social media content creation – Seb Baird of Time to Change. He also wrote this for Media Trust – Four ways to boost your social media content.
• Nice an example of how to use a Moment as part of an awards evening, showcasing the winners and sharing a bit of the atmosphere from the event – The King’s Fund’s GSK Impact Awards. It was released next day giving all involved something to share. See more in my post How to use a Twitter Moment.
• FACE TIPS: Facebook have just posted a ‘how to’ guide to make videos that will get seen and it’s really handy – Dan Slee
• Increasing impact through cause-specific dates – Deborah Alsina CEO of Bowel Cancer UK shared five reasons to take full advantage of awareness periods.
• New global logo for Water Aid – more info from Water Aid Australia.
• Five essential steps for a low-cost, high-impact rebrand – CharityComms.
• What strategies do you use to share your impact report? Here’s a Mailchimp summary from the #IWill campaign, twitter thread showing some highlights and their news story.
• If you are a medical charity, how often do you tweet about symptoms to raise awareness? Here are some nice examples from Fight Bladder Cancer and Ovarian Cancer Action this month.
• 5 outlets for positive news – curated by UK Fundraising.
• Love this! Top 10 most irritating phrases as voted by comms people and curated by Dan Slee. How many do you recognise?

Don’t miss CharityComms’ Getting ahead in your comms career conference next week (20 June). Follow #CommsCareer if you are not there.

Digital – strategy, design, culture

NCVO have updated the Digital Maturity Matrix to include service design, data protection and security. Have you used this tool to assess the digital maturity of your organisation? In today’s Charity Digital Report, it was cited (question4)  by just 23% of respondents. Do take a look if you haven’t seen it already.

Once you have done that, read Digital transformation is a leadership problem about team culture and blockages by Mike Bracken. Here’s his definition as he says the term has got lost in all the noise: “digital transformation is the act of radically changing how your organisation works, so that it can survive and thrive in the internet era.”

• The Service Transformation team at Parkinson’s UK have started blogging. Here is the first post sharing their team principles – The Challenge Ahead.
• What is Service Design and what does it mean for charities? Kirsty Marrins talks with Giulia Merlo of CRUK in this Lightful article.
• Charities, young people and digital mental health services – new report from NPC looking at the capacity level in charities needed to develop these services and suggesting strategies how funders can support charities to do more in this area.
• Monthly accessibility tip: How to write more accessible social media posts – Australian Network on Disability.
• Accessibility update: sample accessibility statement, monitoring and enforcement – GDS blog post about the new regulations covering public sector websites (not charities) from September.
• Did you know that there is an accessibility checker in Word?
• Glasgow Women’s Library have a policy to not RT tweets that don’t use image descriptions. Does anyone else have similar accessibility rules about sharing content?
• Scope launched The Big Hack – a reporting tool where disabled people can share experiences with digital technology and help to make things better.
• Auto pop-up chat windows, a bit like Marmite – Lizzie Bruce
• About Culture 24’s Let’s get real 7 project: developing deeper human connection across digital channels.
• Research about the digital skills needed amongst museum staff and volunteers – One by One project phase 2 findings.
• Seven not-for-profit websites with great UX – eConsultancy.
• Making the case for investment — turning data and insight into a compelling strategy – Megan Griffith Gray’s latest post about the development of NCVO’s digital strategy.
• 146 responses to Matt Collins’ question, what is strategy?
• How to keep technostress at bay – Don’t end up as digital roadkill by Caroline Rook.

Fundraising

• The sustainability of large-scale challenge events – research and recommendations in this thread from Russell Benson.
• Who do you view as your competition? Might not just be your direct peers. Take a look at this list of binary decisions. Taken from How donors choose charities (2013) by Beth Breeze.
• The golden rule of fundraising – the single identifiable beneficiary – Craig Linton.
• Why fewer people are giving to charity and what we can do about it – Daniel Fluskey.
• Animal welfare charity doubles text giving total – Charity Digital News.
• 11 Facebook fundraising myths demystified – Nick Burne.
• Why it’s not a good idea to message your Facebook fundraisers on Messenger – Kirsty Marrins on givepanel.
• Motor Neurone Disease Association launches VR tour in legacy drive – UK Fundraising.
• Legacy stewardship gaining more prominence, Legacy Foresight research reveals – UK Fundraising
• Samaritans launched Samarathon fundraiser.
• Macmillan Cancer launched Milestone Moments.
• As a funder, what three questions would you ask to make a decision? Interesting discussion started by Tom Steinberg.
• Useful thread from James Heywood about online donations.
• Nice reminder why it counts to include personality in your asks – email from Link Dementia.

Don’t miss the free online conference from Resource Alliance – 12 & 13 June: Fundraising Online including an international line-up of speakers.

People and organisations

• Future of advice: our strategic framework 2019-22 – Citizens Advice share their three-year plan. Here’s a tweet sharing the five elements of the vision too.
• The Co-op Foundation’s Impact Report 2018 has a nice section about their values in action.
• CoppaFeel’s Impact Report gif tweet (and link to more information).
• ACEVO’s leadership competencies – six skillsets every active leader needs.
• Making diversity count in the charity sector – ACEVO.
• Who is sitting round your board table? – Janet Thorne for Association of Chairs.
• Andy Haldane: ‘We have allowed the voluntary sector to wither’ – Civil society will be crucial in the technological age, says the Bank of England’s chief economist. We must rebuild it reports Patrick Butler in The Guardian.
• Managing staff on social media – good read from Zoe Amar.

And finally….

• How Orkney Library became involved with getting copies of The Lost Words to all schools in Orkney.
• Lessons from a secret library worker about digital literacy and the importance of libraries.
• TfL are rolling out wifi tracking across the network – geeky thread about data and surveillance.
• Very cool stuff in this year’s RSA Student Design Awards.
• Fab thread about JoAnn Morgan, the only woman inside the control room at the launch of Apollo 11.
• Knitted representation of gender mix of speakers at a council meeting.
• Sir David Attenborough was 93 – this 93 second video shares many joyful clips.
• Video of the pendulum motion. [AD: brightly-coloured balls hanging on strings all the same length are released at once in a line. Initially they swinging backwards and forwards, then move in changing sequences including at one point like a caterpillar].

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.

——

Did you miss April’s round-up? Catch up with more good reads!

Digital round-up – April

 

Highlights this month: Notre Dame, Extinction Rebellion, New Power, April Fool comms, surveys and more….

Another Bank Holiday? Already? Excellent! Catch up with charity digital content and reads you might have missed while you were trying to squeeze some work in between days off.

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 spot any good April Fool comms? I liked the National Trust nightclub film and CoppaFeel’s google doodle. Lightful shared a collection of other charity April Fool comms.
• RSPB released the first ever single of bird song, along with some nice content – such as album covers with birds on. It is currently No2 in the charts (behind Taylor Swift – hence the excellent hashtag #swiftsOverSwift). It is the focus of a campaign all raising awareness about disappearing wildlife. Let Nature Sing.
• Thread from Greenpeace UK about what a climate emergency would entail.
• What happened the last time you got angry asked Young Minds. #ListenToAnger.
• Macmillan got into the spirit of #EdBallsDay.
• This year’s treats from #InternationalCarrotDay – carrot marmalade anyone?!
• The Miscarriage Association launched a range of greetings cards to honour pregnancy loss.
• Parkinson’s Is…. campaign for World Parkinson’s Day.
• Charity emoji fun – curated by UK Fundraising.
• Creative fundraising can lead to creative content. One of BHF’s shops started selling books without their covers, instead inviting customers to choose a book based on the opening sentence. This prompted HQ to run Friday fun Twitter polls to test knowledge of opening lines of novels.
• I also liked this handy spring clear-out flowchart from BHF.
• I love a behind the scenes blog post or story. This month I read this from RSPB – Behind the scenes on our kids’ mags from 2017.
• More craft fun in these videos from Cats Protection.
• #LiftTheBan is a campaign run by Refugee Action and a coalition of 150 charities challenging the right to work of people seeking asylum. Have you seen any of the eye-catching graphics – such as this one shared by Asylum Matters? Find out why The Bike Project joined.
• The National Library of Scotland were one of the first to respond to #BlackHoleDay, modifying one of their usual weather updates.

Comms and marketing

• Work as a charity communicator? Take the annual Charity Comms survey. Closes 24 May.
• There’s also the Charity Digital Skills survey to benchmark where the sector is at with digital, now in its third year. Closes 14 May.
• Pressing pause: a playlist for comms team development – comms2point0.
• A quiet revolution: from case study to person with real life expertise – Philippa Budgen about the changes in representation in the media. 
• 10 ways charities are using Instagram stories – Kirsty Marrins for Lightful.
• Little Village were named as one of Harry and Meghan’s baby shower charities (see #GlobalSussexBabyShower). They responded brilliantly to the exposure and donations. Their instagram following doubled.
• Engaging with the media: 6 lessons from a small charity – soundDelivery share lessons from Little Village.
• In case you missed Charity Comms video for charities event – here are the slides and resources. Plus Raw London’s benchmark report (and top takeaways) about charity video.
• Films to inspire change – great examples from Molly Clarke of Charity Comms.
• More and more charities as producing films which are more like documentary. Did you see this 12minute film comissioned by RSA about low income rural Britain?
• Snapchat publishes new report on the evolution of video consumption – Social Media Today.
• Lightful’s latest social media round-up.
• Applying for the Google Ad Grants programme has got a little easier say Platypus Digital.
• The best digital marketing stats we have seen this week – eConsultancy.
• Lush announced that they were switching up social and moving away from company channels, instead focussing on #LushCommunity. See also Stop shaming companies that bail on social media and content marketing by MarTech.
• What’s NOT new for social media in 2019 – refreshing review of the principles of good social media management by Digital Mums. (See also their 5 year social impact report.
• Have you seen JRF’s talking about poverty toolkit? Here’s a tweet which shows why it matters to use accurate terminology about poverty.
• Here’s another jargon buster – this time about phrases used in health and social care.
• Does your organisation talk about its work to drive change, as clearly as Gingerbread?
• Or Extinction Rebellion?

Digital – strategy, design, culture

• Digital investment: charity’s money problem – important read from Matt Collins.
• What we’re learning about how the sector understands “digital” – Cassie Robinson.
• Looking for a new blog from a digital team? Catch up with the work that Addaction are doing. The latest post is Why we’re using our webchat service as the starting point for our new content.
• Latest post about NCVO’s digital journey – The receptionist, security guard, decorator and delivery person — NCVO’s front controller.
• Read about and vote for the nominees in this year’s Digital Leaders 100. Voting closes 10 May.
• Monthly accessibility tip: have you seen these HTML versions of the Home Office’s posters about designing accessible services?
• New website from Inspiring Impact packed with useful stuff about how to plan, understand and improve your impact.
• Design shouldn’t be a secluded or self indulgent process – Stephen McCarthy, head of design at GDS.
• Argentina just made driving licences digital in 65 days – Mike Bracken of Public Digital.
• User testing on the cheap – University of Bristol.
• 15 month of fresh hell inside Facebook – Wired.
• Have you seen the National Cyber Security Centre’s guide for small charities?
• Podcast – digital distraction and cutting through the hype – Charity Comms featuring Matt Collins.

Fundraising

• Read Paul de Gregorio’s future of fundraising presentation at the NCVO conference.
• There were lots of responses to the money raised for Notre Dame thinking about the role of philanthropy. See threads from Rhodri Davies, Angela Cluff, Nikki Bell.
• Do you have an emergency fundraising plan asks David Burgess. Would you be ready to respond to a crisis?
• New e-learning course on legacy fundraising for small charities from FSI.
• 10 donations in 10 weeks – lessons about thank you’s and platforms from Lime Green Consulting.
• GDPR: what we didn’t know last year – Institute of Fundraising on their updated guide.
• Looking to refresh your fundraising mojo and can get to London? Sign up to the latest Charity Meetup. 23 May.

People and organisations

There has been lots of talk this month about shifts in power, diversity and representation. Here are some useful reads (and watches):

• Watch keynote speeches from the NCVO annual conference from Danny Sriskandarajah (or read the transcript of Danny’s speech) and Ruth Ibegbuna
• Write-up from an Association of Chairs event looking at the Civil Society Futures report with thoughts about diversity of boards.
• Understanding ‘new power’ – by Jeremy Heimanns and Henry Timms in Harvard Business Review.
• Examples of co-production and how to manage potential risks – Zurich Insurance.
• Why we need to hear from more people with lived experience – why Gemma Pettman is supporting the Being the Story network.

• Raising the bar of leadership excellence – ACEVO launch a new leadership framework.
• Breast Cancer Care and Breast Cancer Now officially merged. The new name and brand will be released in the Autumn.
• The secret rules of getting hired – from Twitter rant to blog post by Terence Eden – check your recruitment methods.
• Spotting the signs of someone struggling – Clare Lucas on Charity Connect.
• Field guide to the future of work – 7 thought-provoking and eclectic perspectives on the future of work curated by RSA.
• Long read about XR and its rise as a movement – Lets talk about Extinction Rebellion by thinking, doing, changing. Is this the future of charities?
• Climate change for charity leaders outside the environmental sector – Jake Hayden blogs a call to action for ACEVO.
• No Royal Road: finding and following the natural pathways in advocacy evaluation by Center for Evaluation Innovation.
• Big growth in community rail volunteers – new research from ACoRP.
• Celebrating women driving #BalanceforBetter in the charity sector – Catherine Raynor introduces four women who inspire her.
• NCVO’s empowering women in the workplace event sold out. Hopefully there will be a good hashtag so others can join from afar. Watch out for it on 10 May.
• Podcasts – lots to explore in Do More Good’s rich back catalogue.

And finally….

• Did you watch the thought-provoking Miriam’s Dead Good Adventure about death and ageing? Catch up on iPlayer.
• Mesmerising Ocado robot order packers in action.

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.

——

Did you miss March’s round-up? Catch up with more good reads!

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.

——

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

Digital round-up – Jan/Feb 18

In case you missed them, some of the best reads on crisis comms, digital strategy and charity content from last month.

Crisis comms

Charities have been in the headlines ever since the start of the year (Oxfam, President’s Club, Oxfam again, Jo Cox Foundation). There’s lots we can learn from these events in terms of how we need to respond to a crisis and rebuild trust.

• This from Jon Ware about involving the social team in crisis comms is excellent – Is your social media response helping during a crisis?
• And this about what it is like to be inside a major crisis by Outrageous Impact.
• Plus this – after Oxfam, charities are no longer untouchable by Vicky Browning of ACEVO – in which she tackles the public call for charities to be transparent while resenting money spent on admin.

Read, then review your crisis comms plan. Does it include the right people? Have you got clarity about the messages? Do they work across all channels? Have staff done media training? Are there enough people with social media skills to be able to respond to comments? (NB Oxfam put a call-out to staff for help and drafted in 40 colleagues to help with front-line messaging.)

It’s worth noting that it’s not just Oxfam who have been effected by this story. NCVO have been working tirelessly to share safeguarding best practice and represent the sector in media interviews.

Digital skills, design and strategy

• Dr Simon Davey says that charities can no longer be digitally defiant and argues that digital doesn’t have to be difficult.
• Read about the digital journey of Parkinson’s UK.
• The digital team at CRUK’s blog is a good read. Find out about their approach to user centric digital learning and development.
• Test. Test. Test. You are not the user. A useful reminder about the false consensus effect from NN group.
• Macmillan’s Senior Digital Editor, Rebecca Cryan, talks about accessibility audits.
• Seb Baird from Time to Change shared insights from this year’s #TimeToTalk day in which they shared over 40 pieces of unique content across different social channels.
• Benchmark your stats with the new (subscription needed) Charity Comms Digital Benchmark! Based on data from 46 charities.

Content

#WorldCancerDay is a big day for lots of health charities. Macmillan launched this lovely #LittleActsOfKindness video. I really liked the way they displayed the subtitles.

In addition to the usual fundraising and bad poems, there were some harder-hitting Valentine’s Day charity comms. None quite as cringy as the DWP’s festive message though thankfully.

Other charities joined in with #TimeToTalk day. This gentle video from the Mental Health Foundation makes us think about answers to ‘how are you?’

How can you use your archive to connect with topical stories? There were lots of charities marking the 100 years since (some) women got the vote. Age UK told the story of one of its founders Eleanor Rathbone.

I am a sucker for maps and data. These examples of (non-charity) content marketing campaigns using maps could give food for thought. How can you use your data to tell a bigger story?

This blind Twitter user’s plea which has now had 179k likes seems to have done so much more to raise awareness about image accessibility than any charity or Twitter themselves. Have you changed your settings? This guide to getting alt text right is a must-read if you are new to describing images.

Good to see Doncaster Council’s Chief Executive maintaining the gif standards in her comms.

And finally…

• Never swallow a bombardier beetle. Urgh!
• Take a moment to appreciate police dog Max’s hair.

What did I miss?

I spent January doing an interim comms manager role as well as going to BarCampNFP and SMEX18 so might have missed other good stuff. What did you read / watch / produce this month? Please do share.

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Did you miss November 2017’s round-up? Catch up with more good reads!

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