The Charity Information Landscape  at charityinformation.net

Newsletter July 21^st 2006.

Introduction

Hello, my name is Trevor Maynard and welcome to the first newsletter of the Charity Information Landscape ^TM.  This newsletter is immediately available to subscribers and will therefore not be posted onto the public website until the second newsletter is due for release.

My intention with this newsletter and with the website, is to encourage discussion and debate around issues about online charity information and to give people a chance to express their views. The current Quote to Debate concerns the new monday lottery.  Is it a good idea?  What do you think?  Add your voice now.

The long term goals of the website are

Ø      research and dissemination

Ø      to encourage and promote best practice

Ø      for the charity sector to get best possible use out of the Internet. 

Within the next four weeks, we will be launching our first Research Questionnaire focussing on how aware charities are of their Internet presence.  The results will be confidential and only used in summary.  Newsletter subscribers will receive the results ahead of the public site.

I will send you a note when the questionnaire is available on the website.

Best Regards

Trevor Maynard

Of course the contents of the newsletter are copyright, however, please feel free to reproduce or copy any part as long as you reference www.charityinformation.net as the source.

Contents

1          Launch

2          Charity Wall

3          Seminars

Discussion Point – How Do Charities Use the Internet?

4          Quote to Debate – Should charities be "working at the heart of society"¹ or should they be complimentary and adding value to society? ^{(1 Charity Commission)}

5          Our Web Statistics

6          The Last Paragraph

1          Launch

On 24^th April 2006, The Charity Information Landscape at www.charityinformation.net was launched with a press release sent to two thousand three hundred charities, three hundred press contacts, and three hundred and twenty individuals (academic, opinion formers, bloggers etc). 

Getting going is always the most difficult part of any start up and we were pleased to achieve a 10.8% response rate, and very encouraged by the take up of links on the Charity Wall. 

We would also like to thank all those who wished us well in the venture and wrote messages of support.

2          Charity Wall

The take up of links in the Charity Wall has been rapid.  Further enhancements to the Charity Wall have increased utility of the hover facility.  It is clear that the diversity achieved in the organizations signing up will increase user engagement in the site. 

Charities already signed up are encouraged to visit their link and review their hover information.  If changes are requested, these will be implemented as soon as possible.  Hovers should be no more than four lines, but, as everyone knows, the hover doesn’t remain long, so a short pithy message of around a line or two is advised.

More detailed information about each organization can be found on the Charity Wall Text page, so therefore, everyone gets two links!

3          Seminars

Nine seminars were announced at launch with four having taken place so far. Each ended with a discussion point in which participants were asked to comment on charity issues raised by the seminars, and indeed bring in any points they felt relevant.  The format of the discussion point is to allow participants to confidentially express their opinions and for the summary of the discussion to be made public.  In the process of précis, some points have been amalgamated.  The discussion was facilitated by Trevor Maynard.  The next seminars take place in the autumn.

Discussion Point – Spring Seminar Sessions

How do charities use the Internet?

There was general agreement that online information is overwhelming for most people and they often can’t find what they are looking for.

A useful tip is to think about keywords that best describes an organisation, and not just to look once and then give up when an immediate result is not forthcoming.  Users should try lots of combinations, and write down the combinations so that you can build up which keywords relate to your organization. Keywords are important to search engines.  Most people had heard of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) companies, but distrust them.  There is a lot of free advice on this subject anyway.  If in doubt, spend some time looking on the Internet, or designate someone else to look. Also try and look for own charity and what you regard as keywords and see what comes up.  You may be pleasantly, or unpleasantly surprised.

Some organisations said they did not have a website, however this need not mean they do not have a web presence.  If a charity is registered, it will be on GuideStar UK and searchable on The Charity Commission site.  You may, and several people found this, be mentioned on directories, or name-checked in other charities’ articles.  This can occur in many formats, for example, if your charity is a grant-making charity, you may find your name appears in the list of donors on another charity’s website.  If that site is highly ranked by the search engines, you may find you have a better web presence than you thought.

Some people were aware of these secondary or tertiary sources of information, and could see how they could be explored by using the concept of the Charity Information Landscape.  However, most were not.  There was a general feeling that the Internet is a way of thinking, and the mindset of most of the sector is still catching up, although some participants thought charities were way ahead in their use of the Internet.  It was felt a website was an excellent way to show what a charity was doing, as opposed to telling.  Charities are about “doing things not talking about doing things”.

However, others were not keen on the fact that their information could be produced on a website without their permission.  It was noted that public information, by its very nature, is free to air, and that freedom of speech meant opinions could be expressed about organisations.  It was also pointed out that in some cases charities could augment their public information, and in fact use other sites, such as GuideStar UK, as free advertising.  All agreed that the Charity Wall is also an example of free advertising.

Another source of web presence is the sharing of documents with other charities in the same fields, for example through advice, newsletters, directories and specialist web portals.  These are sometimes only available on the Invisible Web*.   It is estimated there are at least ten times, if not a hundred times, more information that is not indexed and therefore not shown in the Internet Search engines results.  Charities can draw attention to these sources by putting links on their site.  It is also a way of displaying specialised information that only your charity users might need. 

Most participants agreed this was something to look into, but of course, it was a matter of time, and money, and had to be directly linked to the performance of their charitable activity.  At least one participant was sceptical about talk of performance, and several felt the Internet was irrelevant, however, over 85% felt that they could now improve their web presence.  We were all reminded that although the Internet might appear to be primarily a visual media, there are ways and other methods of accessibility that should not be forgotten.

When asked, there was general agreement that further research would be useful, and the majority of organisations would be willing to answer questionnaires and take some part in focus groups.

Summarised from seminars held between May 3^rd and June 8^th 2006.  As per the terms and conditions of the seminar format all information is confidential.  15 organisations expressed opinions, of which four had a turnover of £1m and rest below £1m. 

*The Invisible Web can be defined as information that does not appear in search engine results because it is not indexed by search engines, and is therefore invisible when you to search.

4          Quote to Debate

“Should charities be "working at the heart of society"¹ or should they be complimentary and adding value to society? ^{(1 Charity Commission)}

The general feeling of the debate was that charity was at the heart of society, but that society did not mean government.  If anything, the charity sector filled in, or replaced what government lacked.  What the quote perhaps also illustrated, was how imprecise the term “society” is, and how, as ever, the use of words is very important to the charity/third/social sector.

The full text of each comment, and the subheadings their authors have chosen to give them, follows;

Government is the heart of a society

Surely it is Parliament, the elected representatives that is the heart of our society.  They are the people's voice and should provide the services the people fundamentally require.  Anything that is additional is the province of the third sector.  Logically, therefore, the rise of the charity sector is the failure of government.  ZP, Kent, 21/03/06

Heart is smart

The word "heart" is the key.  Yes, the role of government has decreased to the point where the phrase "welfare state" is as archaic as the word "charity".  But the third sector, or social sector as I would call it, is more about people co-operating at grassroots which is where people know what other people need.  At this level, you can please all the people all the time, at government level, you never can, so only broad strokes are, or should be possible.  Leaving the "heart" to the social sector is smart. Bill, West Yorks, 21/03/06

Heart is adding value

I think someone is missing the point here.  Just because the third sector (the phrase I prefer) is working at the heart, doesn't mean it doesn't add value; quite the contrary.  And as for Big Government and Grassroots, when our society is 60 million strong, surely we need both?  LP, London, 22/03/06

Intrinsic

It is not for nothing there are the proverbs "charity starts at home" and "home is where the heart is". TBM, (Ed), 14/4/06

Government

In an ideal world we, as citizens, elect our government, and in an ideal world, that should give us a civil society.  However, I would go further than Bill, Governments, by their very nature are soul-less, and charities, by their very nature have a soul.  Therefore, charity is not just at the heart of society, it is the heart of society.  Something that is a good thing to remember as this is Good Friday. Karen C, Bristol, 14/4/06

Heart of Society

The conscience of society maybe, not the heart. TBM (Ed), London, 15/4/6

Working at the heart

The quote is more precisely  "working at the heart of society" - this is surely saying that charity, and the third sector are now regarded as professional - we are "doers" rather than "do-gooders" - an excellent change in mindset I think, and one that reflects that the sector is far better at looking after this country's people than it's government.  JP, 18/4/06

Government

I think saying government doesn't look after its citizens is only correct in the most pejorative of senses.  There may be room for improvement, but even the most unfair of commentators could not say it does nothing.  And I refer to all shades of government, blue, red, yellow or chameleon.  Tellitasitis, England, 22/4/06

Icing on the Cake

Anything essential to the functioning of society is the responsibility of Government, to ensure inclusivity. Charities provide the icing on the cake, the complimentary extras that the country does not wish to afford through taxation. Jonathon.S, 27/4/6

We're people not ants

In my book charity is about alleviating and preventing the suffering of individual people and animals. For as long as there is suffering it will be charities which find and help those that society has passed by. Real charities are adding value to deprived people's lives, not to society. Ron, 3/5/6

Both

Our charity is both working at the heart of society and adding value. It also contributes where the government is lacking.  JB 13/6/6

5          charityinformation.net Web Statistics

www.charityinformation.net launched on Monday April 24^th  2006 and, as of 30^th June, has received 713,267 hits representing 28,959 page visits, which in turn translates to 8,642 individual visitors to site.  The vast majority were visits to the Charity Wall where a single visit represented 240 hits.  The next most popular area of reference was The Charity Information Landscape ^TM.

Search Engine rankings (on a general search) in the first week included 1^st in MSN and Yahoo! with a 1^st and 2^nd ranking achieved in Google after one month.  This gives a high web presence index ^TM with the keyword charityinformation and the key phrase charity information landscape, scoring highly.  Search results also brought up secondary references to the www.eavs.org and the www.charityblog.org.uk .

6          The Last Paragraph

It could be said that the not for profit sector is the most fulfilling sector to work within as its purpose is always about creating a better world and valuing people.  That may mean it is not always easy work, after all, if you just want to make money, put it in a bank and it will grow on its own, if you want to help people, you have to put in time and effort.  I hope you have found our first newsletter useful and interesting, even entertaining in places.  Personally, I look forward to receiving more of your comments and contributions to debates and seminars.

© 2006 Trevor Maynard, Research Director, The Charity Information Landscape