#ILoveCharity – campaign update

SCVO launched the I Love Charity campaign in February 2018 to inspire trust in charities. The idea was to provide practical tools and resources to help the sector improve how it operates – the only way to truly stamp out negative headlines is to stamp out bad practice. And, as the vast majority of Scottish charities are well run, we also wanted to support organisations that are well run and do amazing work to tell their stories better –more good news stories must be told to help protect public trust in charities. After asking the sector how best to achieve these aims, we launched a 12-month programme of practical support in July, based on the feedback we received.

So far, we have:

• Worked with Scotland’s Third Sector Governance Forum to launch a new Governance Code for the Third Sector in Scotland, creating a website for the Code and distributing 20,000 copies of the Code to organisations across Scotland
• Launched a short animation explaining ‘What is a modern charity?’ – to help the general public understand our sector better
• Launched a new interactive charity data hub – pulling together all the basic data on the third sector for anyone to use, helping us all to understand and share better sector stats
• Run a Storytelling Conference to support and inspire organisations to tell their stories well to beneficiaries, supporters, fundraisers and the public
• Re-launched SCVO’s Communications Network to provide peer-to-peer support for staff and volunteers who are interested in creating great communications and marketing to tell their organisation’s story better

The best bit?

I’m biased, so I would obviously say that everything we have done has had real value for the sector. But over and above that, it has been wonderful to see the real sense of pride and community that #ILoveCharity has sparked. It has provided a vehicle for people to stand up and say they are proud to work in the third sector, and proud of what the third sector is and does.

What next?

Next on the list is an #ILoveCharity Roadshow – a series of regional outreach events across Scotland, bringing the campaign to a venue near you. We’ll also be looking to get your feedback on the campaign so far, and ideas and suggestions to help us plan for the next 12 months. For more info and updates, keep an eye on the I Love Charity campaign page on our website and Twitter @scvotweet.