IT, Online

An Australian bunch of young volunteers is taking a new tack on volunteering. Youth Tree has just launched the Big Help Mob, regularly getting together in numbers to help non-profits then celebrating with "enormous, ludicrous flash mobs".

See vlabs blog.

National charity Scope is to use an automated online system to manage its employee expenses. Staff will be able to log onto the GlobalExpense website to complete a two-stage claim before the receipts are sent in by post.

See Civil Society Finance article at http://www.civilsociety.co.uk/finance/news/content/6042/.

The UK Council for Child Internet Safety has launched a 'Click Clever Click Safe' campaign at http://clickcleverclicksafe.direct.gov.uk to protect children online. It uses the three-step message "Zip it, Block it, Flag it" (inspired by the 1970s Green Cross Code).

Some of the larger household-name charities are looking to increase their sharing of IT functions, following on from a successful shared out-of-hours helpdesk scheme.

According to Civil Society IT, this would need a strong governance model with leadership from the Charities Consortium IT Directors Group, http://www.civilsociety.co.uk/it/news/content/6012/.

IT4Communities, the volunteering project for IT workers, has become a service provided by AbilityNet, the computer technology charity making it easier for people with disabilities to use IT.

It will continue to operate providing volunteers for charities and community groups through the same staff based in London. See IT4C news item at http://www.it4communities.org.uk/it4c/home/press240110.html.

From a post on Third Sector Forums:

The Social Media Governance website has a listing of social media policies from organisations around the world, including the BBC and the Chartered Institute of Public Relations. Do note that many of these have been written for use in other countries, where legal (and cultural) issues may differ, http://socialmediagovernance.com/policies.php.

New Viewpoint report from Joseph Rowntree Foundation, 'Could online marketplaces tackle poverty?' explores the case for 'national e-markets' which could create economic opportunities for people in poverty. See http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/online-marketplaces-poverty.

Greater public access to, and reuse of, government data took a large step forward with the launch of the website at http://www.data.gov.uk (which uses Drupal software). While it is in 'beta', it already contains references to a wide range of almost three thousand data sets which are open for reuse "by any individual or business to create innovative new software tools such as applications about house prices, local amenities and services, or access to local hospitals".