Useful free services, offers & resources for charities
Melanie May | 10 February 2023 | News
From a pro bono partnership with a creative agency, to the offer of free office furniture, and free to use tools and resources, here are some useful opportunities for charities.
Creative agency seeks charity for 2023 pro bono partnership
Nice and Serious, a certified B Corp creative agency that only partners with charities, organisations and brands on projects that have a positive impact has just launched the application for its 2023 Pro Bono Charity Partnership.
This will give one small, UK based charity full access to our creative capabilities for a whole year, free of charge. Our creative services include design, video, digital, branding and campaigns.
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To be considered for the partnership, UK charities must complete the application form. The partnership will run from 1 April this year to 31 March 2024.
Launched in 2022, Nice and Serious’s first pro bono partner was Pregnant Then Screwed. Work included the charity’s ‘Let’s Talk About Six’ campaign, which called for the government to make six weeks of new parent leave the norm.
Furniture & equipment for small charity offices
Collecteco helps organisations and companies donate furniture, equipment, and materials to good causes – so you can furnish your small charity office for free.
Charities can send a wishlist of the furniture items they need via the form on this page, and Collecteco will let them know when a match becomes available. There’s also a mailing list to sign up to for updates on new donation projects and potential Wishlist matches. Collecteco can also arrange low-cost delivery or on most projects or good causes can collect.
Free tool for small charities to measure & report social impact
Impactasaurus is a free tool that helps small charities measure and report their social impact.
It has a simple 4-step process, starting with selecting a questionnaire based on desired outcomes, or creating one, collecting responses – which are securely saved within Impactasaurus for review and analysis, monitoring beneficiaries’ journeys, and then generating reports showing the organisation’s impact on beneficiaries.
ERNOP relaunches website with free to access knowledge portal
ERNOP has relaunched its website with a freely accessible knowledge portal, dedicated membership portal and a new release on important research questions and topics on philanthropy research in Europe for 2023.
The knowledge portal provides quick access to studies on philanthropy in Europe through online presentations, an overview of philanthropic donations in 20 countries, a quick glance at pressing research questions by Europe’s research centres and chairs on philanthropy, and the latest issue of the ERNOP Research Notes.
- Webinars bring together researchers and practical experts aiming to share recent insights on the sector’s most burning questions. The ongoing series and the recording of the series can be found here.
- ERNOP overviews of philanthropic donations in 20 European countries give a picture of the size and composition of the philanthropic landscape in each country. The country profiles are accessible here.
- The ERNOP Snapshot of Philanthropy Research provides a quick glance of the philanthropy research centres in Europe and chairs in Europe and the most important research questions they aim to answer. The 2023 issue is accessible here.
- ERNOP Research Notes are two-page summaries of academic articles from ERNOP members focusing on implications for practice, written by voluntary practitioner experts. The latest issue is available here.
JustGiving offers £100 donations to London Marathon fundraisers
JustGiving is giving fundraisers the chance to win a £100 donation to their page every week until London Marathon race day.
From 1 January, every donation a charity’s runners receive counts as a competition entry. JustGiving automatically enters them into a weekly draw, and the more donations they get, the more chances they’ll have of winning.
If a charity is using a London Marathon campaign page this year, they can share a deep link with their runners but must make sure it’s linked to the right London Marathon 2023 event (the official event ID JustGiving is using for London Marathon 2023 is 6202477).
Free political intelligence tool launches
A free political intelligence tool has launched. PolicyInfluence is free for charities and small businesses to use. It has been released by political monitoring and information service, PolicyMogul, an online platform that delivers real-time updates on UK policymaking by topic area.
PolicyInfluence enables organisations to quickly identify parliamentarians and other stakeholders working in their field of interest, connect with others focused on similar issues and submit research and campaign material directly to those working on government policy.
Users can submit their research and campaign materials directly to stakeholders via access to PolicyMogul’s network of parliamentary subscribers who already use PolicyInfluence to source background materials relevant to their fields of interest. The network of parliamentarians and their staff currently stands at over 450 users.
Statistical help on offer from Statisticians for Society
Statisticians for Society links charitable organisations to volunteer statisticians at no cost. It supports organisations that want to use data and evidence for decision making by connecting them with statistical experts in its membership.
Interested organisations will be assessed to determine whether they meet the criteria for pro bono support. Those eligible will have a call with a member of the pro bono scoping committee to determine what form of statistical support is needed, who will then draw up a scoping brief for approval.
Once returned, a call will go out to members asking them to express interest in the opportunity within 14 days. The Society will then match the organisation with a volunteer statistician, or team of statisticians, with the relevant expertise for the project to work with them. More here.
Pro bono cross-sector data-focused hackathon wins award
Not available yet but one to watch. A group of technology and social value experts consisting of whatimpact.com, Ministry of Defence, Babcock, Plymouth County Council & Microsoft have won an award, having collaborated on a joint Social Value in Defence project.
Social Value in Defenceis a pro bono project delivering an open source, deprivation data platform for better informed social improvement in local areas. This platform is delivered through several hackathons and dataset planning through cross-sector engagement.
The team won the Institute of Analytics Data for Social Good Award for the pilot hackathon that was run in December 2022. In this hackathon, they built and tested a comprehensive dataset combining advanced analytics in three days after several weeks of preparation. Aggregating various open data sources they were able to create an in-depth analysis of the socio-economic status of the pilot council Plymouth, clarifying which areas of deprivation should be focused on when planning on social value investments and activities.
The focus of the hackathon was to create a prototype of a data platform to be the first step to support the teams’ broader ambition to create a platform and user interface which will be accessible to public, private and third sector organisations in the future.
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.