OR Society offers free services to help charities build back better
Howard Lake | 13 April 2021 | News
The OR Society is looking for charities who would benefit from their team of expert consultants for free. The Pro Bono OR service offers skilled consultants who can help solve complex problems related to data, strategy and day to day operations using their OR (operational research) skills and methodologies.
The OR (Operational Research) Society is reminding charities of its free service as third sector organisations continue to grapple with the impact of lockdowns and emerging into an uncertain environment.
Charities are facing issues ranging from meeting changing patterns of need, refining new supply chains, and running operations with strict social distancing considerations.
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Ruth Kaufman OBE, an experienced charity chair and a co-founder of Pro Bono OR, said:
“One of the largest barriers that many third sector organisations face is not even realising that help is available. They might have a tricky strategic tangle to negotiate a path through, or a logistical process that is hard to resource, and not realise that OR is the perfect approach to help them articulate the need, make robust decisions or design better systems.”
What is OR?
OR is a scientific discipline used widely in the public and private sector for improving insight, efficiency, and effectiveness.
Webinars to showcase the help available
To explain how it can help, the OR Society is hosting a series of webinars that showcase some of the skills and methods expert operational research consultants will use to address and solve complex problems.
Ruth Kaufman explains:
“The success of Pro Bono OR since it was founded ten years ago has been phenomenal. We hope that our webinars can help charities to better understand the kinds of problems that OR can address and reduce the barriers that prevent them making use of it.”
The learned society is itself a charity. Over the last 10 years it has helped charities such as Crimestoppers, The RSPCA, and Diabetes UK. Crimestoppers said of its work with Pro Bono OR: “We’ve benefited hugely from your work and support in all areas of the project. And from an organisational perspective you’ve enabled us to take a highly professional approach to increasing the efficiency of our charity.”
Amy Hughes is the Pro Bono OR Coordinator and she said:
“OR Society members love using the skills they utilise in a work environment to help charities. We now have over 1000 volunteers ready to help charities of any size.”
Find out about the Pro Bono OR webinars or contact am********@th**********.com for more information about how Pro Bono OR could help your organisation.
About Howard Lake
Howard Lake is consultant editor of UK Fundraising. He founded the site in 1994 and successfully sold it in 2022. As director of Giving X Ltd he is exploring growing giving on a massive scale.
He is the founder of Fundraising Camp and co-founder of GoodJobs.