4 snippets of agency & supplier news
Melanie May | 11 June 2021 | News
A brief round up of agency and supplier news, from the launch of Agencies for Good, to the white-labelling of Be The Difference’s Philanthropy Advisory services.
New website for Refugee Roots sees it open online shop & sell out of first cookbook
A new website implemented by The Access Group has enabled Refugee Roots to host an online shop for the first time, with its first cookbook selling out within three weeks. The cookbook, The Sharing Table, is now seeing demand for a second print-run.
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The website has enabled the charity’s volunteers to bring in digital donations and diversify its fundraising efforts after it saw large reductions in in-person donations due to Covid-19. As a result, the charity was able to launch a specialist clothing shop through the website, helping to raise funds that will go towards a number of services such as virtual kitchens, befriending groups and in-person lessons – all aimed at helping refugees and asylum seekers integrate into society.
The implementation of the Access NFP Website Suite has also provided Refugee Roots with a CRM and solution which has significantly enhanced its user experience, saving volunteers vast amounts of admin time so they can focus on delivering quality fundraising campaigns.
Adam Baker, Refugee Roots Director, said:
“The pandemic has put many key dates in our fundraising calendars on hold, but our new website has allowed us to continue fundraising even when people were limited to staying at home. Being able to launch our own store has made a huge difference and is something we have been keen to implement for a long time, to reach a larger number of donors.
“Previously, our volunteers were manually adding information into the system and had to remember to update event times on a weekly basis. With this information now hosted in the cloud-based CRM system, event details are automatically updated on the website. The suite’s training modules also enable our volunteers to boost their skills so they’re better equipped to support our charity and our service users and to drive real change.”
Community of tech for good agencies, consultancies and freelancers launches
Agencies for Good, a community of tech for good agencies, consultancies and freelancers has launched. The community is on Slack, and aims to support those on it to do socially impactful work and:
- Discuss agency & freelance life
- Find people to collaborate with
- Celebrate launches
- Share briefs
- Respond to urgent needs
- Talk about design & tech
- Host projects and programmes
To join, there is a form on the site to fill in, which will notify the Working Group, and see an invite sent out. Those already on board include freelancers and individuals working at places including We Are Open, Founders and Coders, AndGood, Outlandish, Agile Collective, and Snook, while the Working Group comprises Ellie Hale, Producer at CAST, James Gadsby Peet, Digital Director at William Joseph, Gem Hampson, MD at Hactar, Chris Ashworth, Head of Public Benefit at Nominet, Molly Gavriel, Partnerships Manager at The Developer Society, and Noam Sohachevsky, Founder of SIDE Labs.
Be The Difference opens up its Philanthropy Advisory services for white labelling
Be The Difference’s Philanthropy Advisory services can now be white labelled, it has announced.
It means that all financial services companies looking to deepen their relationships with their clients and differentiate themselves in the market can offer philanthropy services as part of their proposition through a ‘trusted advisor of an advisor’ approach.
The service can be bought in on an ‘as needs’ basis and is cost-neutral for the financial services provider.
According to Be The Difference, research shows that at the moment less than 20% of the UK’s wealth advisory and IFA firms offer philanthropy advice and the depth and breadth of the advice varies significantly, while on average the UK’s wealthy population gives a score of 5.9 out of 10 to the philanthropy advice experience they receive from their professional advisers.
More information is available from Annie Moon, Founder, via he***@Be*************.services and at www.BeTheDifference.services.
Keep Britain Tidy moves to Aqilla’s accounting software
Keep Britain Tidy has taken on Aqilla’s accounting software.
One of the key features for Keep Britain Tidy is Aqilla’s “rough posting” which allows the charity to preview its postings and make final checks before committing posts to the ledger.
Monthly reports have also made better by Aqilla’s integration with Sharperlight, with management reports now simpler to generate, and providing better business intelligence its previous system. In addition, Aqilla’s purchasing system and workflow approval has further helped improve internal processes and save time on other tasks.
Because Aqilla is cloud-based, Keep Britain Tidy has also benefited from the cost-savings associated with no longer needing to support upgrades and backup schedules associated with managing an in-house server: Aqilla operates on a monthly license fee.
Aqilla CEO Hugh Scantlebury commented:
“As a charity, Keep Britain Tidy is a cost-conscious organisation so the savings in switching to the Cloud with Aqilla is a huge benefit. The most obvious advantage to their day-to-day operations is the increased efficiency they’re getting from Aqilla’s reporting. Where they were once spending an inordinate amount of time on mundane and manual processing, they can now focus on the details, accurate coding, and keeping costs in control.”
About Melanie May
Melanie May is a journalist and copywriter specialising in writing both for and about the charity and marketing services sectors since 2001. She can be reached via thepurplepim.com.