The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations is the membership organisation for Scotland's charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises. Charity registered in Scotland SC003558. Registered office Mansfield Traquair Centre, 15 Mansfield Place, Edinburgh EH3 6BB.
Digital for Good: The Scottish community helping you achieve your mission through technology
2020 is the Chinese year of the Metal Rat, and is the year of new opportunities, new beginnings and evolving. Digital for Good have an awesome opportunity for your organisation to grasp those new digital opportunities, to begin that new digital project and to realise organisational evolution.
I joined Digital for Good in February of 2019, attending the first official meetup held at Regis House in Edinburgh hosted by Steve Lloyd and Milosz Falinski. I was one of two charities there and presented on some of the main barriers faced by charities in the digital world. The room was full of coders, data analysts, web developers and other such wonderful tech-y people. All of them eager to help support charities to be more digital and take advantage of all the benefits the digital world can bring to the voluntary sector.
Over the year the community grew from a room full, to a venue full of people and we now have an active community of over 350 members. This year as a group we have big plans and want to have an even bigger impact. Make 2020 the year that your organisation grasps those new digital opportunities, begins that new digital project and realises organisational evolution.
Steve Lloyd, Transition Manager at Computershare and co-founder of Digital for Good, outlines the plans for the community in his blog below…
What is Digital for Good?
Digital for Good is a Scottish community, enabling people from digital to contribute to the most important problems facing people and the planet. We join expertise from across the sector and work closely with non-profits in a network aligned for openness, action and impact.
As a group, our primary goals are:
- Cultivating a community of digital professionals and third-sector representatives to connect and inspire action.
- Creating opportunities for digital professionals to volunteer their skills to charities by collaborating on digital projects.
- Incubating and supporting community-initiated projects, to spark innovation in how technology is used for good.
The group has existed for just over a year; has 352 members (and counting) and has collaborated on projects with LGBT Youth Scotland and Turning Point, among others. Our members have experience across the technology spectrum and all levels of seniority.
How can we help?
“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.”
Helen Keller, American writer and social activist
A great place to start engaging with us would be to come along to one of our meetups! This is forum where others in the third sector and the tech community meet over some beer and pizza. We regularly have speakers from both groups. These run in Edinburgh on the third Thursday of every month.
Another way would be to collaborate on a project! Alongside the meetups we will be running three long term engagements next year with the non-profit sector spanning the following dates:
- January 16th – May 21st
- May 21st – September 17th
- September 17th – January 21st 2021
For each engagement we will be selecting up to 3 charities that will be able to take advantage of the breadth and depth of skills within the Community, with members offering up their skills to you on a pro-bono basis.
Each Engagement will be co-ordinated by a Volunteer Leader that works closely with a charity (via the Charity Leader, your nominated representative) to define and deliver an impactful program of work over the 4 months. The Charity Leader should be someone with good knowledge of their charity’s sector (eg. trends, opportunities and challenges) as well as authority to make strategic decisions on behalf of the organisation. As this program of work takes shape, requests will be made to the Community via the Volunteer Leader, looking for specific skillsets and time commitments.
Together, they will build a small project team of members of the Community to deliver the program goals.
Related links
If you’d like to learn more:
- Join our Meetup
- Connect on Slack
- Check out digitalforgood.uk
If collaborating on projects interest you – get in touch! – we are currently accepting expressions of interest here.
