If you are wondering about the relevance of blogging to charities, community groups etc, then take a look at the linked article, from the Co-CEO of Girls For A Change, “a non-profit organization that’s empowering girls to create social change”. OK it’s American, and the front page of the actual blog takes half a minute to load on 2 Meg connection, but there are some ideas here (and the linked page should load quite fast!).

Why Non-profits Should Blog.

An interesting piece about social firms - social enterprises where at least 25% of workers are disabled or have health problems - in today’s (Scottish) Herald:

New spirit of social enterprise - The Herald

A 3 year research project into how IT can make an impact on the effectiveness of charities has been announced in the States:

Nonprofits Research the Effects of Technology Assistance :: PNNOnline ::
“We know technology has the potential to dramatically increase what nonprofits are able to accomplish,” said NPower Executive Director Scott Schaffer. “This project is a way to put some actual measurements behind the qualitative evidence we’ve seen…”

A ‘new’ sector blog to add to the list shortly:

SCVS (Swansea Council For Voluntary Service) WEBLOGS PILOT
a project to evaluate the use(s) of weblogs in learning, e-learning and, in our case, community development.

Running for 6 months from Sept 05, so take a look quick!

And here’s another involved in the pilot: Torfaen

UPDATED ITEM: Information entered under ‘About yourself’ when registering will now appear on the appropriate Author page. There’s no option to add a pic there, but you can upload one in a posting if you want.
—————

I haven’t found an easy way to create a page per author to give some personal background, pic etc., if wanted. So I’m posting an item here!

Find out more about me on VolResource Credits page.

Net squared, a newish American set up billed as ‘remixing the web for social change’ is beginning to have some interesting stuff on its blog. Here’s what I’ve just picked up:

• The first time I’ve seen anything sector related on flickr, the photo sharing/tagging website: International NGOs.
• The ability to create mini-charts of how often words have appeared in blogs recently. Here’s an attempt at a link to ‘social enterprise‘ - below - it ought to refresh automatically.
• And a blog from a real frontline charity worker which has been going for a while: Urban Sprouts School Gardens, in San Francisco. is a project getting the youngsters involved in growing food.

Posts that contain Social Enterprise per day for the last 30 days.

Get your own chart!

I’m only just catching up on FreePint, the newsletter for information professionals, from the last few months. Here’s an area of interest from November: “Knowledge management for development: an international organisation’s perspective”.
FreePint Newsletter 195 - Knowledge and Extremes.

Also see VolResource page on Knowledge Management.

The information and advice website www.adviceguide.org.uk, run by national charity Citizens Advice, has won the voluntary sector/intermediary category of the e-Government National Awards 2005.

See Public Technology.net article: Citizens Advice scoops top award for website used by half a million a month.

Welcome to the new incarnation of our blog - previously VolResource Blog. And apologies to the half dozen of you who’ve been reading it since the autumn, as we’ve now moved twice in a month! But a spare slot on our new server and an appropriate web address was too good to miss. Plus we get to play with the newly released version 2 of WordPress, the open source software we’re using.
A good way to start posting to a website entitled CharityBlog is to question their worth. Well, not really. The following leader article in today’s Society Guardian is headed
SocietyGuardian.co.uk Charities are not the answer to everything, and I pretty much go along with the views put by Malcom Dean. Read it for yourself.
One quote: “The most prominent theme pushed by the Tories since the start of the year - voluntary organisations - should be an ideal issue for debate.”

We’re still tidying some of the styling, getting our hair washed and creating a warm and open environment. But as usual for VolResource projects we can’t wait to get it out there and see what happens.

This blog is ‘open’ to anyone involved in charities, community groups, voluntary organisations and the like to talk about anything about making things happen, or stopping them from going wrong. It’s not a place to promote fundraising events, volunteer opportunities or ask for donations, although we’re not going to censor the passing mention.

You just need to register (pick a user name, add an email address, wait for your password to arrive in your inbox.) We’ll have a quick check of first postings to stop spammers, but otherwise its up to you.

Update: Test ‘podcast’ has been removed - too boring!