Support & learning blog

Katya Allcott of Scottish Mentoring Network blogs about her organisation’s digital journey It’s April 2020 and I’m sitting at my desk waiting to enter the second ever DigiShift call on Zoom. It’s not even called DigiShift – at this point it’s being referred to as ‘Big Zoom Call... Read more

Generated by Stable Diffusion. Prompt: a photograph of an astronaut riding a horse Tools like ChatGPT, Google Bard and Stable Diffusion have been hitting the headlines since the start of the year. Why all the hype about generative AI? We’re not all going to get replaced or turned... Read more

Quite a few of the charities we support with digital change ask for help with framing their digital strategy. Sometimes people ask us if we have a template for a digital strategy. I never share one, because a good strategy needs to be your own, not something off the shelf. But... Read more

In this second blog on our digital checkup learning, I’m looking at whether organisation size has a big effect on checkup scores. We know that larger organisations often have a bit more internal expertise, if they have an internal IT department. And some areas of digital and... Read more

What does digital change look like Before, During, and Beyond a pandemic? Although it feels like we’re living week to week or month to month right now, it’s sometimes useful to take a broader view and reflect on how things are changing over the longer term. SCVO has been... Read more

We have all had to scramble over the past eight weeks. For many of us this has meant producing new content in a bit of a panic. There have been fantastic examples of content that meets a need. For example, I volunteered as a street champion. My local community group sent a... Read more

Our recent DigiShift zoom was packed with insights and inspiration from charity professionals working with children and young people. This blog pulls together ten great examples of organisations delivering digital services that you can learn from. Barnardo’s - WhatsApp as a tool... Read more

Siobhan Mercer reflects on the insights and inspiration from an Ask Me Anything DigiShift session with the renowned Beth Kanter. The topics covered were virtual meetings, managing remote teams, and maintaining connection and wellbeing while social distancing. Have you ever... Read more

SCVO launched The Catalyst, a ground-breaking initiative to support thousands of charities to make use of digital at The Gathering Read more

At SCVO Digital, we’ve encouraged lots of charities to make more use of ‘flexible technology’. But what on earth is it, and how can it help charities work more effectively? First of all, it’s not about foldable phones, which are not much use to anyone at the moment. What we mean... Read more

True confession time – as you would expect from someone working in the field of cybersecurity, I find the whole “industry” a fascinating minefield – the slightly shady criminal aspects, the big talk of nation state threats to critical national infrastructure, even what can be... Read more

‘Your answer to someone else’s problem is not the solution.’ The statement above was the statement that opened the ‘Scottish Government service design champion training’ that I attended last year. As a sector, more than ever in 2020 we need to ensure that our services are fit for... Read more

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... Read more

I'm the CEO of a small ( but fabulous) third sector organisation - and I can clearly remember life before computers, before mobile phones and before email. When I started work I had a Rolodex file on my desk with all my contacts. If I wanted to send a letter it took a minimum of... Read more

Trustees Week 2019 saw Third Sector Lab and SCVO Digital bring together charities and people working in digital industries to create greater understanding of how we practically get more digital folk on charity boards. Digital Trustees Scotland was part of the roadshow developed... Read more

We often use the term digital trustees as if they’re a homogenous group of people all with the same skillset. They’re not! There are so many digital skills, from web development to digital marketing to cyber security. Choosing someone with the right skills for your board (as with... Read more

This June, I was lucky enough to be opening speaker at the Third Sector Lab Digital Trustees Scotland event held in Glasgow and funded by the National Lottery Community Fund. The event brought together senior leaders from the voluntary sector with people working in the digital... Read more

Two things help or hinder the progress of digital evolution in any organisation – culture and leadership. Charities led by a senior team who trust their staff and understand the potential of technology, whose culture is focused on openness, experimentation and entrepreneurship... Read more

In my last blog I described how I had spent a large amount of my first few weeks trying to get to grips with the cyber support landscape here in Scotland. I am delighted to say that progress has been made and I now know my cyber catalyst network members from my NCSC resources – a... Read more

Kicking off in 2016, our Senior Leaders Programme has worked with over 90 voluntary sector leaders. Using an action learning set approach, we have helped and supported them to successfully navigate the digital landscape and be a leader in the 21st Century. Our participants attend... Read more

“That job description sounds like a challenge – I fancy that!” I can’t believe it is three months since I uttered those words and a mere one and a half months since the challenge became mine. My name is Alison Stone and I am the newly appointed Cyber Resilience co-ordinator at... Read more

CAST is running three free ‘Design Hop’ workshops in partnership with SCVO in September, in Inverness, Glasgow and Edinburgh. Read more and sign up here. Are you keen to understand how ‘digital’ can help improve your organisation’s impact, reach and focus, but not sure where to... Read more

73% of charities want their senior team to offer a clear vision of digital and what it could help them achieve. Join a group of senior leaders and give your organisation the vision it wants. You have a unique opportunity to work alongside other voluntary sector CEOs, department... Read more

Cyber Essentials is like an MOT test for your car – it confirms that your IT systems have passed a key set of standards. If you can show that your organisation is meeting the security standards in Cyber Essentials, you can be confident that you have some protection against the... Read more

When I started at SCVO three years ago, we maintained a wide portfolio of websites developed in different languages and technology stacks, including WordPress, bespoke ASP.NET, and PHP/MySQL. We also had a strategic direction to move all business data from separate databases into... Read more

What we’ve learned from a year of digital checkups At SCVO we’ve been running an online digital health check and follow-up for support for over a year. About 200 charities have taken the self-assessment, and over 60 of these have had follow-up support via a one-to-one phone call... Read more

Overview: There are an estimated 788,000 unpaid carers in Scotland, including 44,000 carers under the age of 18. A network of over 60 local carers centres exist across the Scotland to provide support services to carers in their local communities. These organisations range in size... Read more

Today marks the start of our first ever Cyber Scotland Week, centred around the National Cyber Security Centre’s (NCSC) CYBERUK, taking place on 24-25 April in Glasgow. This Scottish Government initiative raises awareness of the importance of cyber resilience to our citizens... Read more

Cyber security threats are growing, and many charities are still at risk. When I speak to charities through our digital checkup process, cyber security is often on their radar. But quite a number of charities haven't yet taken action to improve their cyber defences. The good news... Read more

About SCVO Digital The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) is the national body representing the third sector. SCVO Digital works to encourage Scotland’s Third Sector organisations to explore, adapt, invest and collaborate to become more digitally confident and to... Read more

Two years doesn’t sound like a long time - but a lot can happen. It has been less than two years since Donald Trump was elected, since Article 50 was triggered, and since Beyonce and Jay-z had twins..! The general consensus about modern life is that everything has got quicker and... Read more

Taking part in the SCVO Senior Leaders programme can help you become a winner. From winning actual awards to securing new funding, starting new projects and employing new staff. Applications are now open for the fourth round of the programme – apply here. Two of our actual award... Read more

Your charity is probably dabbling in the world of digital right now, maybe you have a fairly healthy social media presence, perhaps you’ve moved to the cloud or you’re starting to use data to make better decisions. I want you to consider how much of this currently sits in silos... Read more

It’s the moment you’ve all been waiting for! It’s been a busy couple of months behind the scenes at SCVO Digital and we are delighted to (finally!) be able to announce the launch of Scotland’s Essential Digital Skills Toolkit. In consultation with over 60 different organisations... Read more

In a previous role my monthly team meetings used to be PAINFUL. Action list of over 30 items. Long, boring individual updates. People on their phones. This could be so much better (I fumed). So. I became a changemaker – I stole from the digital startup community and we introduced... Read more

Despite the warmest summer since 1976 (I was reliably informed at a Digital Champion training session with the wonderful C-Change Scotland that ’76 was the last roaster of a summer and we discussed at length melting tarmac, skint knees and eating Wall’s Feet in the Airdrie area... Read more

I’ve just joined the SCVO Digital team as Digital Evolution Officer. I’ve enjoyed getting to know the team and learning about the wide range of ways we’re helping charities across Scotland get to grips with digital. My work on digital evolution will involve connecting with and... Read more

Cyber security. Maybe that term conjures up an image in your mind of a hacker in a hoodie attempting to break into government systems, just like we see in films. However, the reality is that cyber crime is big business, perpetrated by organised crime groups, nation states and... Read more

It’s been a couple of months now since I started my research with One Digital and the University of the West of Scotland and I already feel that to pick out some highlights from my reading is a tall order. So, grab a coffee (and apologies if there are some articles you need an... Read more

I like meetups. I like that they are informal. I like that I can learn new things. And most of all I like that I meet people who care about the same things that I do - it inspires me to be better. We identified a gap in Scotland a few years ago for people who also like meetups... Read more

In recent weeks I’ve been pondering developments in technology – in particular robots and artificial intelligence (AI). I’m thoughtful of how these advances might impact on the future of volunteering. A common narrative on this theme is people versus technology. It’s one or the... Read more

Can you think about a service which you use every week which is almost completely run by volunteers? It disrupted a 250 year old industry and made a Microsoft product irrelevant. That service is Wikipedia, with 136,119 volunteers contributing in the last 30 days to the English... Read more

It’s been a week where the nefarious use of personal data by Cambridge Analytica has dominated news headlines. What you might have missed is that this week Scotland is hosting a celebration of the use of data (in its broadest sense!) for good. Dozens of events are taking place as... Read more

We know that charities are still not fully engaged with cyber threats and the risks they pose; phishing scams, ransomware and accidental loss of data. But now, with policies changing and GDPR looming, inactivity to these threats could soon come with sanctions. Over the last six... Read more

“We need to be much more proactive with the positive narrative around the vital work of the third sector. It’s not about ignoring the bad; it’s about getting a balance right" - Nicola Sturgeon at The Gathering, 21 February 2018. The media reporting of the Oxfam Scandal and the... Read more

In developing this website, we went through the following process: Define a project scope Document user needs Investigate existing usage patterns and audience profiles (analytics) Requirements gathering ("As a ... I need/want/expect to ... so that ...") Information architecture... Read more

Anyone who knows an infantile adult or a surprisingly sure-headed teen knows that maturity is only loosely aligned with age. More likely indicators of maturity include knowing your strengths, working on your weaknesses and being clear about your purpose and direction. So it is... Read more

We were in need of a new website. Does this situation sound familiar? Our existing website had over 1,200 pages and posts, it was running WordPress with a bespoke theme and many plugins in various states of maintenance, the design felt dated and it was difficult to find content... Read more

Comic Relief have just opened applications for their third round of the Tech for Good Programme. This aims to support organisations to develop or scale digital solutions which deliver new or improved services to beneficiaries. Funding for up to 12 projects, each with grants of up... Read more

Last week, I spoke at Social Media for Social Good on harnessing the power of online reviews. As Community Manager at Good HQ, one of the first questions I’m asked is “how do I encourage people to write reviews?” There are some easy wins when you first claim your page, like... Read more

Last year SCVO supported a group of senior leaders from a wide range of organisations to launch a Call to Action for a Digitally Confident Third Sector in Scotland. More than 100 sector leaders discussed, debated and contributed their experiences, hopes and fears at an... Read more

Being cyber resilient is both the prevention of cyber breaches and also making sure that if a breach occurs you are able to respond without losing business continuity. A cyber breach isn’t necessarily a ‘hack’, but it is any incident in which data is lost or stolen, including... Read more

Here in Team Digital we recently had a discussion about exactly how secure public WiFi is (life in Digital can get pretty intense!). The debate centered around whether a public, but trusted, WiFi provider was essentially secure if you were only accessing sites with HTTPS enabled... Read more

During #DLweek, SCVO digital connected with charity senior leaders to celebrate and inspire digital change. Catch up with the key elements of the day via Sally's special recipe for success. Read more

"What new apps are you using?" (or a variant of this) is one of the most frequent questions that the @digiscot team is asked. So often in fact, that we started cataloguing the many apps and useful digital tools that came across our desks. Some we trialled, some we just logged... Read more

Skyscanner OneDay workshops At Skyscanner, we take one day each year to close down our 11 offices around the world and give everyone the chance to get involved with an activity that benefits their local community, we thought long and hard about what to call this initiative and... Read more

You could not fail to miss the coverage of the worldwide ransomware attack over the weekend which particularly affected the NHS. The scale of the attack, and its impact on public services, is unprecedented. However, similar attacks happen on a daily basis and third sector... Read more

Don't be afraid to embrace the possibilities Read more

Embracing digital has opened up the possibilities for doing more with less Read more

We can give ourselves a licence to do great things Read more

Incredible success of #myunfilteredlife campaign is beyond our wildest hopes Read more

First in a new blog series on why digital change matters, ahead of November leadership event Read more

Third sector organisations engaging in vital work around cyber security in Scotland are encouraged to apply Read more

One Digital meetups open for business across Scotland Read more

Part three of our digital participation special series Read more

After 8 months of the One Digital project Beth reflects on what it means to be a digital leader. Read more

Karen Herbert, CEO of CVS Falkirk explains in real terms what digital transformation means for a TSI Read more

Shelagh Young, Director of Scotland for Home-Start UK on third sector leadership and the Silicon Valley innovators Read more

Neil Clapperton, CEO of Grampian Housing Association explains the relevance of working towards organisational digital change within the third sector Read more

Find out how Fiona Lamont will embed digital skills with members of the Chill Out Club in Hamilton Read more

Jacqui Taylor, CEO of Lifelink explores digital connectivity projects as an Action Learning participant Read more

Annmarie from Stornoway describes how she went from technophobe to Digital Champion Read more

In the next of our One Digital blogs, find out how Lauren Gilmour from Engage Renfrewshire will use digital to triumph in her new job Read more

Vote for the Scottish Charity Awards People's Choice award and use Good HQ to tell the world why. Read more

Sally explains why Digital Leaders Salons are great events for third sector folk. Read more

An introduction to Team Digital's new Director and our exciting programme of activity Read more

With the One Digital training well under way, find out more about our initial findings and what the different sides to the project are offering Read more

One Digital are using Action Learning Sets to support third sector digital development Read more

Four reasons why action learning is key to charity digital leadership Read more

Seeking charity leaders for innovative new project to transform organisations Read more

Sally looks at how charity trustees can help their organisation make the most of digital Read more

Trustees & third sector leaders needed to help charities with digital Read more

Do you provide assisted digital or digital inclusion training services? Then this event is for you! Read more

It's a new beginning for the Milo database. Read more

A recap of the successful launch of Google for Nonprofits in Scotland Read more

Help us keep third sector organisations safe in cyberspace. Read more

The search is on for the best use of digital by a Scottish charity or social enterprise. What are you waiting for? Read more

Those nice people from Google came to our Edinburgh office this week to launch Google for Non-profits in Scotland. As a self-confessed Luddite, I went along to hear more about the range of free digital opportunities available to third sector organisations. https://twitter.com... Read more

We built ourselves a new website in a day. Here's how it's done Read more

Sue Scotland highlights the need for technological innovation in health and social care and your chance to get involved. Read more

How would you feel if your Marmite started talking to you? Read more

SCVO’s Let’s Get Digital project is set to help organisations across Scotland grow and increase their digital skills Read more

Digital is changing our world. Here are three big themes for third sector leaders to think about Read more

Here's a quick primer on an important part of Scotland's third sector digital infrastructure Read more

Your mission, should you choose to accept it: summarise this post in 140 characters or fewer Read more

It's easier than ever to get a great website up and running. Here are two excellent free tools to get you started. Read more