Digital round-up – June

June passed by in a blur of great weather, football fever and lots of great charity reads. Get an ice cream / cool drink and settle back to hook some juicy digital catches!

Warning – this is another bumper crop. Pick and choose links to read, or open in new tabs for later. Or bookmark this post. Even better, subscribe and get future round-ups direct to your inbox. Enjoy!

Content

• Love this short animation from Dogs Trust sharing the headlines from their impact report.
• Fab World Cup content from RightsInfo – comparing human rights data for the teams playing each other. See here Morocco vs Iran.
• There was some powerful content shared for #RefugeeDay. Including this moving video from Children’s Society. And this list of 34,000 refugees who have died trying to get to Europe.
• Have you taken Time to Change’s mental health quiz?
• Public information film from Age UK about being scam aware.
• Engaging animation produced by CBBC’s Newsround with Centrepoint about homelessness in young people.
• Crisis launched their EverybodyIn campaign with a video and interactive comments map.

• Sometimes less is more. Like this 10-word Amnesty International UK tweet in response to Donald Trump. And this response to the announcement about leaving the Human Rights Council.
• This response to other US policies was very moving too. People shared images of their five year old selves imagining what it would have felt like to be separated from their families. Heartbreaking.
• The CoastGuard Team use minifigs to give important safety information. Here’s a 5s video which has had 57.3k views giving a warning about staying safe during Storm Hector.

• So much cuteness from charities to mark Bring Your Dog To Work Day!

Digital

• Find out why Kate Collins, CEO of Teenage Cancer Trust says that Twitter is an essential leadership tool. This is a great article to show to your non-digital CEO.
• And this video from Cambridge CVS on Why should your organisation embrace digital?
• Six small charities doing great thing with digital by Third Edge.
• How can employee advocacy boost brand marketing? eConsultancy. Does your charity encourage staff to be ambassadors on social media?
• The short guide for non-techies running digital projects in charities by John Dunford in Third Sector.
• User experience for small charities – video produced by CRUK with Small Charities Coalition for Small Charity Week.
• 23 quantitative and qualitative user research methods: a comprehensive guide – UserZoom.
• Future trends of the almighty email by Rebecca Brewer on JustGiving. Top tips and examples.
• Webcredible’s guide to designing for Voice and why it is important. And why the future of donations is Voice on UKFundraising. But hey Alexa, what are you doing to my kid’s brain?
• Is your charity ready for the age of automation? Beth Kanter for Lightful.
• Top tips from social media managers on Lightful.
• Have you ever used the Content Scoring Matrix Template from Edo?
• To take the next step on digital, we dropped the word ‘digital’ – how Citizens Advice is going ‘beyond digital’.
• Your monthly reminder about why you should NOT use ‘click here’ / ‘read more’ / ‘more info‘ in your links.
• Find a small charity in your area with Olly Benson’s Small Charity Roulette tool. Genius!

In case you missed it Brathay Trust: a lesson in crisis comms.

Teams and ways of working

• Be a better cross functional team member, with these 5 ways to build your confidence by James Gadsby Peet.
• How to build your digital skills – lots of tips from Louise of NSPCC in the Digital Dunk.
• 5 tips for remote working by Leanne Griffin for the CRUK tech blog. This is a brilliant read!
• 10 things I’ve learnt about being freelance in 4 and a half years – great tips shared for National Freelancers Day by Angelica Malin.
• Looking after social can be a tough job. So should you ask your social media manager if they are ok? by Thea Neal.
• Do you know about the comms2point0 comms job description model. Really useful if you are thinking about the skills you are looking for in a new member of staff.

Mind your language

Suicide has been in the news a lot recently. Here are some guides to writing about it responsibly.

• This quick read guide is based on guidelines produced by Samaritans and Mind.
• Samaritan’s guidelines for talking about suicide.
• This opinion piece in The Pool argued that the reporting following Kate Spade’s death was a masterclass in how not to report suicide.
• Samaritan’s guide to helping someone who is feeling suicidal.

Events

• Catch up with the slides from Charity Comms’ Psychology of Communications conference. See also this post from Kate Brennan-Rhodes ahead of the event – To change behaviour, you need to look beyond the obvious.
• YoYoPresents was an event about digital transformation. Here’s a thread shared by Kirsty Marrins covering the presentation given by Woodland Trust. And a Wakelet (Storify replacement) by Graham Manuel-Jones.
• 5 take aways from the PR Week Crisis Conference.

Fundraising

• Are charity subscription boxes the new trend in regular giving? Kirsty Marrins looks at products offered by Scope, Mind and the Blurt Foundation.
• 4 ways to use digital to retain donors – Matt Collins for JustGiving.
• Plan International UK pilots project to transform child sponsorship communications on UKFundraising.
• Did your charity run any World Cup fundraising? Here is a selection in my World Cup Moment. And others in a UKFundraising round-up.
• How JustGiving crowdfunding went from an idea to £100m in five years by Jonathan Waddinton.

More

• What can we learn about micro acts of aggression? This article on The Conversation is worth reading. Discrimination against fat people is so endemic, most of us don’t even realise it is happening.
• Long thread about the many ways those ads follow you round the internet.
• nfpSynergy report on focus groups quotes about annual reports and accounts. Top tip: include a summary page.

And finally….

• The search is over for the best / worst office stock photo! While you are looking for your stock pictures, keep an eye out for the ‘shocked girl’!
• Scary / amazing data visualisations – all the flights on one day.
• A beatboxing Starling courtesy of BBC’s SpringWatch.
• A skateboarding bird!
• I love this thread about being a good listener by @sacraparental.
• The question you have always wanted answering – what would my favourite horror films look like with Paddington in them?
• Love this film of clips about computers from the BBC archive.

 

Your recommendations

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

Can I help you?

Get in touch if I can help you with digital copywriting, content planning, training or strategy. I work with charities of all shapes and sizes. I can help give your comms or digital processes a healthcheck and ideas injection.

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

 

 

 

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Digital round-up – May

In the month that we were all swamped in GDPR emails and RNLI and Dog’s Trust were responding to endless negative comments following misreported press stories, there were lots of great reads. Pull up a comfy chair and catch up with some great charity content and digital reads you might have missed from May 2018.

Warning – you may need longer than a tea break to catch 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. Enjoy!

Digital

Useful resources and reads if you are working on digital projects, thinking about future technologies or just getting on with your everyday digital tasks:

• Build the right thing in the right way – 10 design principles to help charities build better digital services by CAST.
• Super useful conversation menu produced by CAST. Use these prompt questions when starting digital projects.
• A guide to agile communication by Giles Turnball.
• Have you seen SCVO’s beta Digital Check-up tool?
• Key findings from the LBG Consumer Digital Index. And the full Consumer Digital Index report 2018.
• 8 free digital tools for small NGOs – useful list from Thomas Worley at BOND.
• CAF’s Future:Good project.
• The highs and lows of social media marketing in 2018 (eConsultancy).
• 6 steps to create a persona that drives your marketing (Social Media Today).

Inspiration from other organisations getting stuck into digital:

• Going digital is bloody difficult by Adam Koszary of MERL.
• Small charities smashing it with digital – Mandy Johnson blogs for JustGiving. Includes 5 top tips and examples.
• Research into the impact of health tracking following chemotherapy and about Anthony Nolan’s My Transplant Tracker app.

New websites / rebanding:

• New website from MS Society.
• New website from Alzheimer’s Society.
• About the rebrand and new website by Canal and River Trust. New Canal and River Trust website too.

Events:

• Becca Peter’s notes from the Charity Comms Engaging Digital conference.
• Doing more with less: tips for busy communicators. Slides from the CharityComms seminar.

Content / comms channels

• Why your content wants to be bad. Love this post by Jack Garfinkel of Scope about the impact of bad processes.
• How the British Red Cross revamped its website from 4000 pages to 400 (eConsultancy).
• How to position your brand as a knowledge centre through content (eConsultancy). Many charity websites are already ‘knowledge centres’ but is your knowledge the type and in the right format for your audience? Are you the go-to for your subject or are your peers or non-charity competitors doing it better?
• How to spot the passive voice in your writing using monkeys. Simples!
• Investing in a content strategy leads to better ROI with video. Video content benchmark report by Raw London on Charity Comms.
• How to write a video brief – tips from video agency Magneto Films.
• Best practice guide to Facebook by Kirsty Marrins for Lightful.
• What I learnt about impact in Oxford by Richard Sved.
• Your monthly reminder to caption your images on social.
• Talking about poverty in the UK – what works? JRF share a 10-step guide based on research by the FrameWorks Institute. See also this thread from a Universal Credit sufferer which got 4k likes and kick-started some #FoodBankChallenge action.
• Crisis also worked with FrameWorks to research attitudes to homelessness. Reframing homelessness in the UK (PDF).

ICYMI – I updated my 2013 post about trustee / staff pages on charity websites with new best practice and examples. How does your site match up?

Fundraising

• Charities have a problem with men according to a CAF report (UK Fundraising). Includes questions and a flatpack fundraising guide to address the issues. Handy!
• The landscape for grantmaking in 2043. Slide share of predictions by Rhodri Davies of CAF.
• Solo fundraising: how to make it work for your charity – Julia Pitman on CharityComms.

Working with people

• A letter to my extroverted boss, from an introvert by executive coach Emma Taggart.
• Measuring wellbeing – free tools for charity use (UK Fundraising).
• Tweets about stress for #MentalHealthAwarenessDay. (And did you see this film of Michael Rosen talking about how drawing helped him following the death of his son?)
• Why is flexible working not mainstream asks Kirsty Marrins.
• Similar questions about trust and good management from Kate Brennan-Rhodes in this thread.
• And this by Madeleine Cassidy on Charity Connect about the mental health of people in the charity sector – The elephant in the room.
• Stop. CollaboRaise and Listen by Lisa Clavering.
• If charities really want to be more diverse, then they need to change by Kirsty Weakley in Civil Society.
• Debunking Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs (BPS).
• Results of the ProCopywriters Survey 2018.
• Some brilliantly inspiring people on this year’s Alternative Rich List.

Great content

• What’s the difference between a healthy brain and one with Alzheimer’s? Engaging video from ARUK.
• Marine Conservation Society use a shocking image to prompt petition signings about single use plastic.
• Have we forgotten how to make friends asks the Campaign to End Loneliness.
• Cheeky Question Time tweet from Shelter.
• Live scenes of hay fever at Asthma UK.
• Love the pantone colour matching tweets from National Library of Scotland.
• Refugee Action campaign.
• NCVO’s nifty animation showing highlights from the Almanac.
• There was lots of activity for #ChildrensHospiceWeek. Also for #DyingMatters week (though there was no Moment or news round-up to link to, to show you).
• Instead watch this cute video and song from Dog’s Trust.

Plus there was lots of nice content around for the Royal Wedding, such as this knitted couple from Age UK and this blue blood image from NHS Give Blood.

This Royal Wedding Moment contains lots of fundraising related fun from large and small charities. Great examples of how to join in with a feel-good event.

Strawberry Social even did a comprehensive thread of an A-Z of Royal Wedding tat which should have got more likes than it did.

See also

• Love this visualisation of the T&C’s of different apps.
• Nice buttons and dials from Present and Correct.
• Gammon People (not) by Pulp in a thread.
• Sick of hearing about the floss but not actually sure what it’s all about? This handy guide by TES for teachers so they can keep up with the kids, is for you!
• Scan paintings with a new app at the National Gallery.
• How to build a fly stimulator and annoy little girls.
• 279k likes for this cool interaction between biker and bus driver.

Your recommendations

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

Can I help you?

Get in touch if I can help you with digital copywriting, content planning, training or strategy. I work with charities of all shapes and sizes. I can help give your comms or digital processes a healthcheck and ideas injection.

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

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Great #IWD2018 content

More than ever today, my timeline is wonderfully filled with messages celebrating brilliant women and highlighting women’s projects and causes.  It is International Women’s Day (#IWD2018) so here’s my pick of the top content around.

Fundraising for women’s charities

Bloody Good Period encouraged us to give a sister a leg-up by donating to their Amazon wishlist.

Richard Herring did his annual ‘Why isn’t there an International Men’s Day?’ response marathon to raise money for Refuge. At one stage during the day, new donations were being every added every ten seconds. The £50k target was hit around lunchtime, and £100,000 by the early evening. The final total is now almost £150k + Gift Aid!

There were lots of fundraising activities on the day. This reproduction of this suffragette poster from 1906 is being sold to support the campaign for a statue of Mary Woolstonecraft.

The Huffington Post ran an article about donating to women’s charities.

Celebrating brilliant women

There are thousands of tweets giving shout-outs to fabulous women. Imandeep Kaur’s thread, showcasing women in her life stood out. Using one tweet per person and a stonking photograph, she explains what the woman has achieved and why they are amazing.

Lots of charities celebrated their women founders and / or the stories of prominent women. For example, see Sue Ryder, The Woodland Trust, Leonard Cheshire, RSPCA, Maggie’s Centres, Battersea Dogs and Cats and British Red Cross.

And there were a number of posts introducing some of the women I admire working in the sector today. See CharityJob’s Sheroes, Kirsty Marrins’ post from last year and Lightful’s 6 phenomenal women leading the way.

Fighting for equality

City, University of London asked why there aren’t more expert women featured on the news with this nifty animation they shared on Twitter sharing research from Professor Lis Howell.

The NY Times admitted that its obituaries have been dominated by white men. They have responded with a series called Overlooked.

UNICEF produced this simple animation calling on a world where every woman and girl feels safe.

It’s worth watching the #FreedomForGirls video produced by Global Goals if you haven’t seen it already.

This interactive timeline of women’s rights and gender equality over the past 100 years from Southbank Centre has been released as part of their WOW festival.

Women’s projects

Great coverage for this Women in Sheds Age UK project in Loughborough.

Some charities you wouldn’t particularly expect to have an story for IWD, used the opportunity to share stories about their work. For example Dog’s Trust shared information about their Freedom Project.

And Crisis shared research about the impact of homelessness on women in a short video.

Inspiring messages

‘Be a role model for the sort of woman you want your children to be’. Wise words in this video from Age UK showing a discussion between Shirley Meredeen and Lynne Ruth Miller.

Grow old disgracefully – I love this from the Campaign to End Loneliness.

What did you spot?

This was just a small fraction of all the tweets, videos, campaigns shared for IWD18. What did you see or produce which particularly stood out? Do share your highlights in the comments.

See also:

• UK Fundraising’s #IWD18 round-up
• Lightful’s Twitter Moment packed with loads of examples
• Mandy Johnson made a Twitter Moment of Richard Herring’s International Men’s Day reply tweets.

Can I help you?

Get in touch if I can help you with digital copywriting, content planning, training or strategy. I work with charities of all shapes and sizes. Can I help give your comms or digital processes a healthcheck and ideas injection?

 

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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Digital roundup – October

My top reads for October. Catch up with this bumper month!

October was hashtag-tastic! We had #WorldTeachersDay, #WorldMentalHealthDay (see Third Sector’s series), #WorldOsteoporosisDay, #InternationalDayOfTheGirl, #WorldHomelessnessDay, #WorldSightDay and #WorldPorridgeDay. It was Breast Cancer Awareness month, #HospiceCareWeek,  It was also the month that the #RoundPound went out of use and many of us got our #FirstTenner.

It was also a month of great charity content and useful reads.

Great content

• There were some great nonprofit Halloween tweets this year. There were lots of creative fundraising, campaigning or silly examples. The Met Office spooky forecast and Time to Change’s stigma-free Halloween campaign really stood out.
• Doncaster Council won Twitter with their great use of gifs to illustrate fly-tipping. Do read this thread if you haven’t already. (Plus read Dan Slee’s comments about it.)
• The Salvation Army produced a powerful new animation about modern slavery.
• YWCA Scotland released their list of 30 inspiring women under 30. Each day in November they are sharing their stories. Follow them on Twitter (and via #30under30) or directly at their blog.
• ACEVO are 30. To mark the occasion they are running 30 things to think about during November.
• The brilliant @nhs account celebrated its first birthday. Some of the tweets from the children’s dentist week were particurly grim (like this one of a jar of teeth – don’t look if you are squeamish).
• Breast Cancer Now made personalised gifs (and this cheering one) for Wear it Pink supporters. See Joseph Freeman’s article in UK Fundraising for more information about it.
• St Joseph’s Hospice launched their Impact Report which is told through the eyes of patient Mary.

Useful stuff

• How does your charity deal with social media harassment? Erin Longhurst’s post on JustGiving includes a useful flowchart. See also this about how @GiveBloodNHS responded to a racist comment.
• 3 Google Analytics reports to help drive digital marketing decisions by Fran Swaine on CharityComms.
• How charities can work with tech companies on GdnVoluntary.
• The Guardian’s instagram strategy by Eleni Stefanou
• Sad charity video – does it still work? Magneto Films look at three alternative methods.
• 13 fantastic places to find background music for your video content on BufferSocial.
• 3 reasons why small charities should embrace digital by Felicity Christensen on JustGiving.
• Catch up with slides from CharityComms’s recent Digital Conference.
• How GDS are making accessibility clearer and easier.
• 8 old-school SEO practices that are no longer effective on moz.com.
• Just seven months to go until GDPR. There’s lots to read. Try this 10-step guide from the Institute of Fundraising, this webinar from NCVO, this post from Reason Digital and resources from the ICO who recently launched a helpline for small organisations (0303 123 1113).

Want more? Read JustGiving’s 10 things you should read this month.

Blog posts

• 5 things digital leaders do differently by Zoe Amar.
• Richard Sved wrote a spot-on post about comms for short attention spans using another 80s reference – Waiting for Bono.
• Each of your social media accounts is a hackers dream, how many do you have? asked Paul Newton on comms2point0.
• New for older at AgeUK by Lara Burns.
• If you missed Being the Story, read my blog post about the event – cathartic and powerful storytelling.

Surprising content

• Macmillan celebrated their charity number (261017) day (26 October 2017).
• Pen taxonomy.
• How blood groups work by @GiveBloodNHS.
• Twitter competitions between institutions – cathedrals for #WorldArchitectureDay and museums for #AskACuratorDay.
• I love these selfies taken in a photography studio in Birmingham in 1979.
• And this gif from the Mary Rose Museum.
• And this image for #WorldPastaDay plus the 1957 BBC April Fool of spaghetti harvesting.
• Someone donated an ancient tin of soup to Cardiff Foodbank. And Heinz didn’t really enter in to the spirit of things.
• Louis Theroux recorded a programme name created by the @louistherouxbot.

Coming up

November is sure to be busy too with #TrusteesWeek (13-17 Nov), #OurDay (for local government on 21 Nov) and #GivingTuesday (28 Nov). Plus all the preparations for Christmas fundraising and fun. If you are thinking about seasonal content, read my post about digital advent calendars.

What have you seen?

What did you read or see in October? Do share your highlights.

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

 

 

Social media and charity content – recent highlights

Catch up with this week’s news, hashtags and creative content.

In the news

This week it was 50 years since Cathy Come Home was broadcast. It inspired charities such as Crisis to be set up. It is currently available to watch on iplayer until the start of December. It is also worth listening to After Cathy which was on Radio 4, sharing stories of people experiencing different types of homelessness now.

John Lewis released its advert of bouncing animals. This year they are working with the Wildlife Trusts, although you wouldn’t know it from the advert. Sainbury’s and Aldi’s adverts at least had the charity logos showing at the end. In contrast Pret didn’t make a swanky, tear-jerking ad but produced a film showing their work around homelessness.

A CAF poll says that #FirstFiver generated an amazing £12.5m in donations. Did you see this note sent to Age UK?

The list of top #SocialCEOs was announced this week. The full list is on Zoe’s SocialCEOs blog post and tips were published on the Guardian Voluntary Sector Network. I liked the stars used to congratulate the individual winners.

Over the last 18 months I have been working with the British Society for Haematology and helped them to transform from this to this. Their new website and brand launched last week.

Events

If you missed them, catch up with recent conferences and events:

• Charity Comms’ Burst the Bubble was about finding audiences away from the filter bubble.
• Civil Society’s #charitytech16 (see the full programme and Mary McKenna’s call to action).
• #barcampnfp

Great content

• #OurDay is the annual chance for councils across the country to showcase their work. Mole Valley District Council won my vote for their use of double topical hashtag, sharing their day with a #MannequinChallenge!
• And many charities are now joining in the with #MannequinChallenge including RNIB (with voice over) and St John Ambulance (with campaign message). Read Kirsty Marrin’s latest Third Sector article to find out more about this slightly odd meme.
• I like Oxfam’s Give A Shift campaign including this behind the scenes celebrity film.
• I enjoyed Innocent’s #handmadetweets as a great example of creative and interactive content.

The biggest piece of content I have been looking at this week is JRF’s mighty manifesto to solve UK poverty. Amazing piece of work.

Coming soon

Am looking forward to taking a closer look at Christmas campaigns. In the meantime, here are some digital advent calendars from last year.

Feels like it has been a full-on week, especially in the lead-up to Christmas. What were your highlights this week? Please do share via the comments box.

Have a good weekend.