Another imaginative use of ‘new media’ technology:

BBC NEWS | Technology | Podcasts reach Peruvian villages

UK charity Practical Action has married old and new technology to podcast twice-monthly [agricultural] updates to eight information centres in the Cajamarca region [of Peru].

An interesting example fo e-learning on information management:

“The Information Management Resource Kit (IMARK) is a partnership-based e-learning initiative to train individuals and support institutions and networks world-wide in the effective management of agricultural information. IMARK consists of a suite of distance learning resources, tools and communities on information management.”

More such imaginative uses of the web, please!

Link sourced from APC Newsletter - see APC News . Readers may also be interested in Wireless Networking in the Developing World - not theory but learning from experience.

So whose bright idea was it to put all the Code of Fundraising Practice into one huge 22MB pdf file? Even on a one year old well-spec’d PC my screen went black for some time while it loaded. And it surely must fail any accessibility test. Rather negates Institute of Fundraising distributing a free CD in Third Sector, and presumably elsewhere.

Let’s hope that the self-regulation body understands ‘new media’ a bit better otherwise they could be done under disability legislation!

A fairly obvious use of the new Google Video facility. As ITN videos are on there, I’ll assume its easily available this side of the pond.

From npMarketing Blog:
Google Video Experiment

“….. asking if we could host a video they could use to recruit more event participants… after thinking about what services we could provide them internally, we decided to try an experiment…

http://video.google.com/videosearch?q=leukemia

I think we’re going to do more of this… and I’m not sure that Google Video shouldn’t be utilized even more by non-profits - it’s cheaper and way easier than trying to host video ourselves - and it gives us a chance to reach a much wider audience who might have never found us…”

Learn More about Google Video.

E-Government Bulletin, an email newsletter, reports:

“A programme to link the lowest tier of local government - parish and town councils - and grassroots community and neighbourhood organisations to the Directgov online portal for public services is to be launched in March.”

“This is important because it’s about joining up the whole of the public sector,” Anna Tan, ODPM’s director for the Home and Community Franchise, told E-Government Bulletin. “Imagine your elderly mum lived in Hackney, for example. Wouldn’t it be great if you could go to Directgov and find information about health centres and organisations like Age Concern, as well as neighbourhood centres and contact details for councillors?”

More delivery of public services by charities or social enterprises has been advocated in recent government proposals on reforming welfare and health services. Will increased public funding and a possible change of perception by the general public impact on community and other groups even if not active in this? Will they be expected, officially or due to informal pressure, to report on their work in as much detail as bigger bodies might be required to do, to prove value for money?

In Society Guardian today:

• short item Charities march on Number 10. “Yesterday, a delegation from the Association of Chief Executives of Voluntary Organisations (Acevo) met the prime minister Tony Blair to gauge his resolve on third-sector contracting.”
• An opinion piece from one of the ‘marchers’: Charities reach the fork in the road “From public accountability to legal regulation, we need a revolution in the way charities are run.” …… “Last week’s green paper on welfare reform envisaged a much greater role for the voluntary sector in helping disabled people find work. It was only the latest in a long line of government announcements, from welfare reform to healthcare, to propose the expansion of the sector on a scale that questions its traditional role - no longer additional to mainstream services, but at the heart of them.”

And the Charity Commission has announced a one-day conference on 21st March for charities “to share experiences, solutions and explore the particular needs of charities delivering public services”. See VR’s newsletter or event listings for details soon.