Digital blog

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

Last month, visitors to this site may have enjoyed a blog about the journey SCVO has been on to create a digitally confident third sector in Scotland by my colleague and Head of Digital, Sally Dyson. As a Digital Participation Officer, a large part of my role is to support... Read more

Sacro is a Scottish community justice organisation which works to create safer and more cohesive communities across Scotland. Sacro provides a wide range of services spanning all aspects of the community justice continuum. These range from conflict resolution to prevent disputes... Read more

We have been running a digital lending library at Govan Housing Association for almost three years and have found that it is a brilliant way to reduce barriers to digital participation. To date our library consists of 22 iPad, 15 laptops, 3 Digital SLR Cameras, Audio Recording... Read more

Over the past few months we’ve been working closely with colleagues at Glasgow Kelvin College to develop a brand new qualification for the housing sector in Scotland. This new qualification, Certificate in Digital Inclusion Project Management, is a credit rated qualification at... Read more

One of the issues facing those interested in digital inclusion research is the incredible speed at which new publications emerge: the sheer quantity of pertinent information, both coming from the field of practice and from academic study, can be overwhelming. Over the last few... Read more

Sarah Neary, Digital Participation Officer at West of Scotland Housing Association, shares her chat with Lily - a tenant she's helped get online. Lily, 83, has been receiving home visits from our Digital Participation Officer to learn more about her iPad. Here she tells us what... 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

I’ve been lucky over the last few months to be a member of SCVO’s Digital Champions in Social Housing project. It’s been great to meet other people passionate about supporting our residents and our organisations to get better at digital. I’ve also been lucky enough to receive... 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

Back in August we were delighted to welcome 19 new Charter Fund organisations on board, and earlier today we joined one of them, The Marie Trust, as they hosted a ministerial visit by Kate Forbes, MSP. Kate Forbes MSP with Frances McKinley, Chief Exec at the Marie Trust The Marie... Read more

This year our Digital Participation Charter Fund had an incredible level of interest and the standards were very high. With a limited amount of funding it’s always disappointing not to be able to invest in everyone. Fortunately, as part of our involvement in the One 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

We’ve always been impressed with how committed housing sector staff are to their work, but we were blown away when one Tenant Participation Officer attended our second Digital Motivators Bootcamp in Inverness on the 9th and 10th September with a recently broken ankle - they were... Read more

Southside Housing Association is participating in SCVO’s Social Housing Digital Champions Network. Having joined the SCVO’s digital motivators group back in April, I’ve had the pleasure of meeting digital leaders from across Scotland’s social housing sector to discuss and debate... 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

Digital technology has long been celebrated for making the world smaller through its ability to connect people all over the world, with the click of a mouse or touch of a screen, in an instant. However, the feedback we were collecting during our IT sessions was uncovering... Read more

The next decade could bring some of the most profound social, economic, political and environmental changes in living memory. In 2030, Scotland’s population will be larger and older. The rise of artificial intelligence and automation will have radically changed the jobs market... 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

In the spring of 2017 the Scottish Government Digital Participation Team approached North Ayrshire charity CLASP (Community Led Action & Support Project) to deliver a digital participation project. As a result, that summer I started as Digital Participation Officer to set up and... Read more

We were delighted to recently announce the seventh round of funding for the Digital Participation Charter Fund, shared between 19 organisations and benefiting over 3,000 people. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations’ (SCVO), in partnership with the Scottish Government... Read more

The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations’ (SCVO), in partnership with the Scottish Government and BT, has been delivering the Digital Participation Charter Fund over the past five years, supporting 169 projects across Scotland to get people online and develop essential... Read more

This was how we had internally billed the second in a series of workshops bringing together funders and charities across Scotland. Our aim for this stream of work is to develop high level principles and models for re-focussing how funders and charities work together across... 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

A radical new UK collaborative has launched today (Thursday 11 July 2019) in response to the clear call from civil society groups to increase and improve their use of digital tools and techniques. Catalyst - incubated by the Centre of Acceleration of Social Technology (CAST) – is... Read more

This is the second of our two-part report on the Digital Participation Charter pilot research - to read part one click here. Charter Commitments We asked participants to give us specific examples of how they had met, somewhat met or exceeded their Charter commitments. “We have... Read more

Currently one in five people in Scotland lack essential digital skills. These are the skills of communicating, handling information and content, transacting, problem solving and being safe and legal online This equips everyone to fully participate in modern day to day life. The... 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

J.P. Morgan and Good Things Foundation have today launched ‘Power Up’, a £1.3 million project designed to support people in underserved communities to build the digital skills that they need to qualify for in-demand jobs. Power Up will support activity in Bournemouth, east London... Read more

Last week saw the release of the Lloyds Bank 2019 Consumer Digital Index and the Ofcom Adults: Media use and attitudes report 2019. These two reports contain key insights into the ways that different groups engage with the word through digital means, as well as highlighting those... 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

Around 1 in 5 adults in Scotland do not have the digital skills that they need to make the most of new digital technology. The divide is becoming narrower but deeper, and the people who don’t have digital skills are also likely to face other types of disadvantage, such as poverty... Read more

In Part 1 of this blog, we looked at what insights we gained from a year of running a digital checkup and offering support calls. In this post, we look at what we learned about how this worked as a service. Just over a year ago, we went live with a beta version of our online... Read more

Find out how our first Digital Motivators in Housing Bootcamp went and how you can get involved in our future cohorts before applications close on 31st May. "I heard there are more smart phones than toothbrushes in the world!" This was just one of the many interesting discussion... 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

Every year ‘Digital Leaders’ recognise the work of organisations and inspirational individuals working to make the most of the digital world. Last year Gillian Docherty- CEO for Scotland’s Data Lab was the overall winner. The fantastic work taking place across Scotland is well... Read more

For many of us the digital age has brought about new and ever more convenient ways of going about our day to day lives. Whether it’s doing our online banking, ordering the weekly food shop or buying presents for that family member whose birthday we forgot; digitalisation has... Read more

Diane Webb - Digital Policy Lead at Renfrewshire Council - writes here about sourcing an affordable laptop for a young man starting an apprenticeship. This brings to life the challenges outlined in reports such as “Switched on, digital access for all”, recently published by the... 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

My late mother was fascinated by the digital age even though at that time it hadn’t gained the public consumption traction that it has today. We were all just dipping our toes in, googly-eyed with awe at all the shiny new technology that promised a life of ease and connectivity... Read more

A popular grants scheme which helps charities boost their cyber resilience has returned for 2019. Funded by the Scottish Government and managed by the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO), the scheme will support charities with grants of up to £1,000 to help them... Read more

Two years ago, I applied for a post in Govan Housing Association as their Digital Inclusion Worker. Coming from a CLD background the advert used all my favourite words; empowerment, inclusion and informal education, but I still remember my first thought being “Why would a... Read more

For so many of us being engaged digitally seems like such a natural part of our day. We check the weather and the news, we engage with people we know (or would like to), we bank, we shop…all elements of our everyday lives. But, often the people who could benefit most from being... Read more

Below is a blog by the team at North Ayrshire Women’s Aid, outlining their activities which have been supported by the Digital Participation Charter Fund: 'The Universal Women project began in March 2018, initially as a way to support the women in our service cope with the... Read more

The term “digital by default” trips off the tongue very easily in modern society, however for many members of our communities, going digital can be a very daunting task indeed. Having been appointed as Parkhead CAB’s new Digital Advisor at the end of 2018, I have been working to... Read more

Camphill Blair Drummond offers a home, meaningful activities and opportunities for personal development to adults with learning disabilities and other special needs. Back in April 2017 an email came into the community which introduced the Digital Participation Charter Fund. At... Read more

Maximising benefits and minimising risk or: ‘The invisible thin line between the individual’s rights and our duty to protect’ Towards the end of January, practitioners from across the third sector came together as part of SCVO’s One Digital agenda to focus on the issue of... Read more

At Big Hearts, we use the power of football to engage families and individuals in the local community who are most at risk of social isolation. This includes our work to support Kinship Carers – primarily grandparents caring for grandchildren full-time – and isolated older people... Read more

Officially launched on 30 January by Kate Forbes, Minister for Public Finance and Digital Economy, the seventh round of the Digital Participation Charter Fund is now open and SCVO Digital looks forward to supporting further development of essential digital skills across Scotland... Read more

It's 2019 and the Digital Team at SCVO have kicked it off in style. We are working with some great partners to develop a network of digital champions working in social housing around Scotland and we're looking for organisations to join us. These digital champions will be in roles... Read more

A new round of funding designed to help people get online and develop essential digital skills was launched today (30 January) by Minister for Public Finance and Digital Economy Kate Forbes at Big Hearts Community Trust in Edinburgh. Over the past five years, the Scottish Council... Read more

With a year to go until Windows 7 reaches the end of its supported life, John Fitzgerald outlines the steps charities should be taking now. Read more

Last week I had the pleasure of facilitating SCVO Digital’s Storytelling Success: Describing your Digital Journey event at the William Quarrier Epilepsy Centre in Govan, Glasgow as part of our digital participation practitioner events programme. We were delighted to host... Read more

The latest research from Lloyds Banking Group identifies that 52% of charities have basic digital skills, a rise of 4% from 2017. This is coupled, at the other end of the scale, with the number of charities reporting as having none of the basic digital skills reducing from 10... Read more

Today the Lloyds Banking Group publish the findings of the latest UK Business Digital Index survey, including a dedicated report for the charity sector. It is hugely encouraging to see the results demonstrate the progress being made by charities in adapting to our digital world... Read more

The UK’s first Charity Digital Code of Practice has launched today following an extensive consultation and input from across the sector. The Code, which has been produced to provide charities with practical advice on incorporating digital technology into their work, has been... Read more

An SCVO colleague has been shortlisted for a prestigious award that recognises women in tech across the UK. Sally Dyson – Head of Digital Participation and Evolution at SCVO – is one of 200 women shortlisted in WeAreTechWomen’s TechWomen100 Awards 2018, which seeks to recognise... Read more

Sue Holland-Smith of Dundee City Council shares how Get Online Week worked for them. Here in sunny Dundee we have been on a bit of a Digital Skills journey over the past year or so. We have been developing our Digital Champions model through a series of Champions Gatherings... 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

A new Call to Action from the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) reviews how the third sector in Scotland has developed digitally since 2016. Based on the learning from work with leaders from over 80 organisations, the report states that organisations should not... 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

The last weeks have been pretty immersive (read: chaotic). With Mhor Collective, One Digital and SCVO, we’ve been working with some fantastic third sector organisations to understand the challenges they face when addressing issues of digital inclusion, and- hopefully- work with... Read more

Over the past four years, the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations’ (SCVO) Digital Participation Charter Fund – supported by the Scottish Government and BT – has provided funding to 150 projects across Scotland to get people online and develop basic digital skills... Read more

“You can’t get out of homelessness these days if you are digitally excluded” “You can’t have a conversation about how to do things better, without digital emerging. You can’t stop it.” I’ve heard these two statements at events over the past few weeks, from prominent leaders in... 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

This Wednesday (12th September), 100 children and young people will be heading to the first-ever First Ministers Question Time (FMQT) Next Generation in Glasgow. The event will give children and young people the opportunity to scrutinise the First Minister in person ensuring that... 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

Over the past four years, the Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations’ (SCVO) Digital Participation Charter Fund - supported by the Scottish Government and BT - has provided funding to 150 projects across Scotland to get people online and develop basic digital skills. This... 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

Google is opening Scotland's first Google Digital Garage on the high street in Edinburgh and launching a digital skills training programme in Glasgow as part of a major new investment in Scotland to help upskill local people. The Google Digital Garage, a high street training hub... 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

The Workplace Equality Fund is a £750,000 fund to support third sector organisations and private businesses, with a base in Scotland, in reducing employment inequalities, discrimination and barriers in the workplace. The fund is managed by the Voluntary Action Fund and grants of... 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

Last Monday I was delighted to join the SCVO Digital team in a new role as Digital Participation Officer. I received a warm welcome from my new team members and have been enjoying getting to know everyone over the last week. I have joined the team following six years in... Read more

Street Assist (SCIO) was founded in April 2016 by myself and a group of volunteers who wanted to make a difference at the same time as supporting and assisting people who had become vulnerable through circumstance. The project delivers a non-judgemental, safe environment for... Read more

Lloyds Banking Group, encompassing Bank of Scotland, has launched the third iteration of its UK Consumer Digital Index. It is based on the data of 1 million of its customers and this includes 9,000 1-2-1 interviews. The news is mixed. Overall, as other analyses highlight, the... Read more

I launched DFID’s Digital Ninja network from East Kilbride in late 2015. Back then, it was clear that digital was becoming essential to increase the department’s capabilities. Why? Better digital skills are a UK civil service-wide priority: being able to use modern digital tools... Read more

Below is a blog by the team at Lairg and District Learning Centre, and their experience of the Digital Participation Charter Fund: "It’s been a whirlwind of a year at Lairg and District Learning Centre, with our team of fantastic tutors delivering a huge range of community based... Read more

The pace of change has never been this fast and will never be this slow again*. So, how do we make sure that we keep up? A question which exercises me often. One of the ways is accepting that we can’t. Sometimes we need to use something for a while, take a break, reflect and... Read more

Like all project managers I’m kept busy with the day to day. It can be hard to find the time to sit back, review and reflect. I am therefore super excited that through the One Digital project (funded by the Big Lottery Fund) we have been able to part fund a PhD studentship... Read more

This week we’re opening our 12th Digital Drop-In , funded by the Digital Participation Charter Fund. Through the Drop-In we provide people with friendly, informal help and support with basic digital skills, with a range of partner agencies across Edinburgh. People are free to use... 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

We live in an increasingly tech-driven world with digital mediums having made their way to the centre stage impacting our daily lives. Digital technology presents huge opportunities, however its success cannot be achieved without connection with people. At Airdrie Citizens Advice... Read more

With 21% of adults in Scotland lacking basic digital skills, tackling digital exclusion is high on the agenda. But where do you start and who is in a position to help? This photo, taken during the recent visit of Fiona Hyslop, Cabinet Secretary for Culture, Tourism and External... Read more

The thought of ‘Going Digital’ for many people can be a turn off, a daunting task or even classed as a chore. However, with all the current changes to the Welfare System and many services migrating online, Glasgow North West Citizens Advice Bureau (GNWCAB) took the opportunity to... Read more

Today (28 March) The Welcoming hosted the formal launch by Culture Secretary Fiona Hyslop of a further £200,000 to support Digital Participation Charter Fund projects. We say it over and over but forgive me the opportunity of saying it again – getting people online and developing... Read more

SCVO are thrilled to announce that Citizens Advice Scotland today signed Scotland’s Digital Participation Charter, making it the 500th organisation to commit to work alongside the other signatories to ensure that everyone in Scotland can pick up the basic skills required to make... 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

FOTA: How we use Good HQ It’s nearly six months since Friends of The Award in Edinburgh & the Lothians (AKA FOTA) claimed their page on Good HQ. They now have five reviews from a range of people that support the charity, including volunteers, members and service users. We caught... 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