Digital blog

Connecting Scotland returns with new opportunities for organisations. Device lending schemes and social/transitional housing providers can apply for devices and/or connectivity from 29th August. Read more

A new paper has been published which presents a framework for digital inclusion in health and social care. Co-authored by Aaron Slater, Digital Inclusion Manager (SCVO) and Dr Tara French, Digital Inclusion Lead (Digital Health & Care Directorate, Scottish Government), the paper... Read more

We want to live in a Scotland where everyone has the opportunity to get online, and to do that we need to make sure that digital inclusion is everyone’s responsibility. Read more

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

The pandemic was the beginning, a mass awakening to the numbers of people who were not online.  The cost-of-living crisis will see more people digitally excluded. Read more

Fife Council is the largest employer in Fife and the third largest council in Scotland. It is a mammoth task to support almost 18,000 staff with their digital skills to ensure a digitally confident workforce. To help meet the challenge their Digital Skills and Learning (DS&L... 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

Children and young people are increasingly growing up with a large percentage of their lives lived and experienced either online, or facilitated by online activities and social trends. The most recent OfCom report on children and media use provides a wealth of information about... Read more

Who are the people that we instantly think of when we picture someone without the essential digital skills they need, and at risk of being left behind? For many, the first image that will come to mind is of an older retiree – someone whose working life wasn’t dominated by... Read more

Amazing and inspiring digital transformation work has been happening all over Scotland for years. Join us to be part of a sustainable movement to build a digitally confident and inclusive Scotland. Read more

An inevitable and often dreaded part of digital inclusion projects in healthcare is monitoring and evaluation. The first question is almost always, ‘Who is this evaluation for?’ There are usually three primary intended beneficiaries, the service users, organisational management... Read more

It’s up to all of us to make sure the support is there for everyone that wants it.  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

The digitisation of healthcare services is often reported as a solution to barriers to health and wellbeing services. For example, the Near Me video consulting platform can save patients from having to travel to appointments. But there is a presupposition when solutions such as... Read more

The internet has been called ‘the great leveller’, making our access to services, products and opportunities easier and more affordable. But we are facing, once again, an unprecedented crisis. The cost of living is set to spiral, and millions of families will have tough choices... Read more

Digital inclusion is no longer an abstract concept, but rather a crucial driver of technological innovation. Digital inclusiveness also plays an important role in economic development and not just because young people spend more time online. Evidence shows that digital inclusion... Read more

A changing landscape I joined SCVO in the summer of 2019, and in the three years I’ve worked in digital inclusion I’ve seen a remarkable transformation of digital inclusion. In early 2020 we were largely working with the willing – those organisations that could see the benefit of... Read more

Ever get that niggling feeling that things could be working better, but you’re not sure how to fix them? This can be a real problem with digital, which seems like it’s constantly on the move. Just as you think you’re bang up to date, along comes something new that you feel under... Read more

Maddie Stark of SCVO's Digital Evolution team has been reflecting on reuse and working in the open. As part of my own professional development, I have been participating in Third sector Lab's Open Working & Reuse programme. Open working and re-use is as simple as sharing your... Read more

In this guest blog, George Eckton from Citizen's Advice Scotland writes about how they used Civtech to help them make big changes to their helpline systems with a No-Code approach. At Citizen’s Advice Scotland, the Covid pandemic accelerated a trend we’d already been seeing... Read more

Following the success of The Gathering 2022, John Fitzgerald reflects on the dilemma of holding in-person events. Earlier this month, we launched our new Digital Call to Action at an in-person event, ahead of an online launch a week later. After the in-person event, a few people... Read more

About SCVO The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) is the national membership body for Scotland’s vibrant voluntary sector. We champion the sector, provide services and debate big issues. We’re passionate about what the voluntary sector can achieve. Along with our... Read more

This session was a great opportunity for our Charter Development Fund cohort to share their concerns and build mechanisms to manage and mitigate challenges they might come across in the delivery of their projects. Read more

What worked, what didn’t and what we learned over the last month. Read more

What is clear from this cohort is that digital inclusion support is still a priority for a wide range of organisations. Read more

The landscape of digital inclusion is changing. In the almost-two-years since the first lockdown, the importance of digital services and access has been under the spotlight as organisations pivoted, and changed the way they delivered support to some of Scotland’s most vulnerable... Read more

In this joint blog our Digital Participation Project Manager Aaron Slater and Digital Inclusion Development Officer Claire Sharp explain their approach to digital wellbeing. How did we get here? Aaron: As we approach the end of January there’s one big topic that has dominated... Read more

Over the past 16 months, Connecting Scotland has provided a combination of digital kit, connectivity and support to tackle digital exclusion in more than 50,000 households across Scotland. This has only been possible through the support of people working in more than 800 unique... Read more

The COVID 19 pandemic highlighted the value for everyone to be online so they can carry out everyday activities. Connecting Residents in Scotland's Care Homes was set up to support residents to keep in touch with family and friends and by doing so go some way to help their mental... Read more

Maddie Stark reflects on strategies and tools organisations can use to take stock of their digital progress and help set their priorities. Read more

Scottish Government has sponsored a digital award at the Scottish Charity Awards for the past seven years. In the first year there was much discussion whether highlighting digital as a 'thing' was the right way to go. It should be part of everything that we do, so why should... Read more

Apparently, there is no substantive evidence that the quote widely attributed to Benjamin Franklin “Failing to plan is planning to fail” was ever said by him! Nonetheless, it is a wise adage and still as relevant today as it was in 1790 when Mr Franklin wasn’t saying it. Advance... 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

Every year, about 100 organisations complete SCVO’s Digital Checkup. This is only a small proportion of the organisations we support, but it’s still a useful snapshot of how digital capability in the voluntary sector is changing over time. In this blog I’ll take a look at which... Read more

I think the whole world is captivated by the activities of the sporting superstars performing in Tokyo at the moment. Even those of us who are mainly armchair sports fans had a tear and a moment of joy watching Tom Daley on Monday. But did you know that cyber crime within elite... Read more

Applications for our next SCVO Digital Senior Leaders Programme with Third Sector Lab are open until 20 August - if you manage a charity, social enterprise or community group in Scotland & are passionate about developing your organisation digitally here are some reasons you... Read more

At this week’s DigiShift, we heard from Paul de Gregorio, founder of Rally and a leading digital engagement and mobilisation strategist. Paul’s talk was totally packed with insights, so if you have a bit of time it’s definitely worth checking out the recording on our YouTube... Read more

June is looking like it’s going to be an awesome month… already we have had a few days of sunshine, have celebrated youngest daughter’s “significant” birthday in a restaurant with food I DIDN’T HAVE TO COOK and… there is an abundance of new and exciting cyber guidance available... Read more

The Connecting Scotland programme has done some great things in the last year, delivering amazing outcomes including: 37,000 devices since the program launched to those most in need (That’s over 100 a day!)More than 1,600 contracts issued to organisations delivering support... Read more

Often when we talk about risk and digital, we get into discussions about privacy and cyber security. But there are other, more fundamental questions: Do you do something or nothing? How do you decide what to do first? How about ‘time is money’? All of these questions have an... Read more

Two recent reports help shed some light on attitudes and behaviour towards digital, providing insights on how we can target interventions more effectively. Ofcom have published their annual Adults Media Use and Attitudes Report, and Lloyds Bank have published their Consumer... 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

Hello! I am so excited to be writing my first blog as part of SCVO’s Digital Participation team, to introduce myself and tell you about our Digital in the House programme. Firstly, who am I? My name is Rory Brown, a Community Learning and Development (CLD) worker who has been... Read more

Feeding into wider conversations with Scottish Government around joined up digital strategies and lessons learned between third and public sector organisations has allowed me space to reflect upon the current significance of this for social housing and the two key areas that... Read more

2020 was a year of rapid change for all of us and it highlighted more than ever the need for everyone to have digital skills, as well as the urgency of the push to close the digital divide. In July 2019, WHALE Arts were happy to receive funding from the Digital Participation... Read more

Communication and collaboration are complex issues, especially for remote workers. The rapid switch to tools like Zoom, Slack and Teams can take its toll when the move isn't underpinned by good practice across the organisation. You can view a recording of the session on our... Read more

The Minority Ethnic Silver Surfer Project (MESS) at West of Scotland Regional Equality Council (WSREC), has been running successfully since 2014. Each year the project has evolved due to many factors such as the availability of new technology and the rapid changes in our modern... Read more

I leave SCVO this week and have been reflecting on the remarkable evolution achieved by myself, my team and the Scottish voluntary sector over this past year. evolution (n.) The process by which different kinds of living organism are believed to have developed from earlier forms... Read more

In July 2019, Peebles CAN was excited to receive Digital Participation Charter Fund support to improve the digital skills of our garden volunteers. This was a fantastic project and, fortunately for our community, it began before lockdown giving people the vital skills they needed... Read more

As the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day! Here at Space and the Broomhouse Hub we have been laying our digital foundations for some time, taking steps to ensure equity of access and appropriateness of approach for all our service users. The Coronavirus pandemic has been... Read more

The Covid-19 pandemic has really highlighted that digital exclusion spans across the generations and emphasized the persisting inequalities that exist in our communities. Lockdown had an immediate effect on the way we engaged our service users at Forres Online. Our Digital... Read more

Right across the voluntary sector, organisations have moved faster and further than ever with digital change. But with squeezed budgets and stretched capacity, it can be very hard to know where to start. Here are 10 steps you can try now, that require no additional budget, just a... Read more

Is it just me, or does it feel like we’ve all been sprinting a marathon? There’s no question that organisations have responded rapidly and creatively to the coronavirus pandemic. An incredible amount of work has taken place across the country to ensure lifeline services have... Read more

Three new funds announced today will support people across Scotland to gain essential digital skills and internet access. The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations (SCVO) has been working with Scottish Government, BT, Cellnex and Edinburgh & Lothians Health Foundation to... Read more

With a mere 6 sleeps to go until Cyber Scotland Week kicks off in earnest, it is now time to shine the spotlight on the third sector catalyst network members who are pulling out all the stops to make sure #CSW2021 is epic for the voluntary and community sector in Scotland. To set... Read more

All this week, I have been nagging myself, and promising my colleague and partner in Cyber Scotland Week crime Siobhan Mercer, that I would write a blog on all the brilliant stuff planned… BUT this brilliant stuff doesn’t plan itself and it has been a busy week getting our cyber... Read more

I am sure that any trustee reading this will agree that their role is not for the faint hearted! There is lots to learn and understand about the organisation that you represent already, so you won’t thank me for bringing an additional burden to your door by mentioning cyber... Read more

We’ve all spent so much of 2020 trying to stay in touch with people while we can’t be in the same physical space. For many of us, that has led to a lot of ‘Zoom fatigue’. In my role at SCVO, lots of folk ask for tips on how to make it all a bit less tiring. There are a few things... Read more

From fake pets to brushing scams, Alison looks back at a bumper year of scamming. 2020 has been many things, including what could be described as the “Year of the Scam” (copyright – me... no citation to support this! :-). Cyber criminals and fraudsters have really gone to town... Read more

I work for a charitable organisation providing emotional and spiritual care and support to people in a variety of workplaces in the west of Edinburgh. I signed on to the Design Hop recently advertised by SCVO because I had a sense that I needed to up my digital game in order to... Read more

I signed up for the Design Hops course not really knowing what to expect. I’d read the course brief and it sounded like something that would be beneficial for us as an organisation. In the first session we looked at identifying our key issue, and our knowledge and assumptions... Read more

If there’s anything that COVID-19 has taught us, it’s that we don’t need 18-month long working groups to achieve significant change. That’s why we’re learning from the tech-sector to bring about fast-paced, action-orientated projects that will deliver the same high-quality policy... Read more

The Technology Enabled Care (TEC) Pathfinder project in Aberdeen came about as a result of conversations, between Police Scotland (North East) and ACVO (Aberdeen's Third Sector Interface), about the cyclical nature of abuse and how these experiences are supported by local... Read more

If digital is so brilliant, why do so many organisations struggle to make a success of it?Digital offers faster, slicker ways to communicate. Precious staff time stretches further, flexing around the ways you and your customers work - so that they can ask a question from their... Read more

Asking a potentially controversial question… am I alone in feeling a bit of webinar fatigue at the moment? I know, way back a long six months ago, there was an urge to fill our time productively – we chatted on Zoom, planned on Teams and booked ourselves on lots of educational... Read more

Citizens Advice Manchester provides free, confidential, impartial, and independent advice to people who need it. We want to make it as frictionless as possible to access our service. The easier it is to use it the sooner people will choose it. At the same time people are so used... Read more

“Online groups have been so successful. There’s so many unexpected benefits, we wish we’d done it before.”Vicki, Group Facilitator and Training Coordinator, Saje Saje Scotland is a small charity, working to reduce and prevent domestic abuse in Scotland. Their key aim is to give... Read more

SCVO Digital and Third Sector Lab have run 34 DigiShift calls since late March, reaching well over 2,000 organisations. We knew demand for advice and expertise on digital topics would be strong as lockdown hit. But we had no idea just how many people would take part, and how... Read more

Here at SCVO we have been undertaking a period of reflection, now that the initial storm of the Coronavirus has passed. Way back in March (oh, so long ago now) many organisations, just like ours, nimbly adjusted to the new set of circumstances. 84% of charities changed how they... Read more

SCVO Director of Development David McNeill recently wrote: We know the sector has been ‘Never More Needed'. Now is an opportunity to ‘build back better’ and not return to the status quo. Now is an excellent time for us all to pause, take stock and appreciate how far we have come... Read more

Regular readers of my blogs will have noticed that I appear to be somewhat obsessed with the idea of returning to the office. That is indeed correct, although I am not sure if I am motivated by the need to be around other humans or just further away from my biscuit tin! Anyhow... Read more

I admit that at the beginning of lockdown everyone at Housing Options Scotland was quietly confident that the new “work from home” instructions would be no problem for us. After all we have been remote working successfully for over a decade. Well we all know what pride comes... Read more

DataKind UK helps charities to use data to transform their impact, and most of their programmes are provided for free. In this blog, Executive Director Giselle Cory shares their tips for organisations wanting to become more data-driven. If you’re not sure how to make effective... Read more

The key message was clear. Pick a “no code” tool and get started! What the heck is "no code"? I’ve got to admit I had no idea! I struggled to write the event blurb for our DigiShift on flexible No Code technology - because I had no clue what our event was about! After the event... Read more

The Q&A session with the three expert speakers on our DigiShift on Data-Driven Charities was one of our most active sessions. Scottish charities are definitely interested in why and how to better use their data. Our expert speakers Steve MacLaughlin from Blackbaud made it clear... Read more

Working remotely means you need to find a balance between supporting your staff and volunteers to access your systems, and securing them against cyber attack. External cyber attacks are becoming increasingly indiscriminate. Assuming you will not be a target is no longer an option... Read more

Last week Lloyds Bank published their annual UK Consumer Digital Index 2020, giving us an overview of the digital inclusion landscape across the UK. This annual publication provides insights to attitudes and behaviours of those who are online and offline, a useful resource for... Read more

There has been an awful lot of misinformation and fake news around recently, often accompanied by scams. We held a DigiShift webinar with three industry thought leaders, who each explored a key question around managing risk and the impact of misinformation in the current crisis... 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

Everything seems to have changed so quickly in the last month, but some things are still the same and there is one section of society who seem to be having the time of their lives – the scammers, fraudsters and cyber-criminal fraternity. Never knowingly missing the opportunity to... 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

Govan Housing Association has been running a diverse range of Digital Inclusion projects for the last 4 years; however, with the rise of Coronavirus and the lock down that followed, we faced several challenges in continuing to deliver our Community Inclusion programme. To that... Read more

For the past 12 months, we’ve been working with 29 social housing organisations across Scotland to build a network of Digital Champions supporting tenants across the social housing sector. The impact of the project which aimed to embed digital inclusion within housing front-line... Read more

Irene Warner-Mackintosh, Director of Mhor Collective, looks at how Neighbourhood Networks are keeping inclusion at the heart of a shift to digital. Read more

The internet has become our lifeline during lockdown. Being online has become a huge part of how we now live our everyday lives. We must all work hard to ensure our digital offering is accessible to as many people as possible, so no-one gets left out. “The power of the Web is in... Read more

It’s hard to think of any event in recent times that’s galvanised change the way the coronavirus pandemic has. As a society we’ve adapted the way we access services and interact with one another. We’ve seen service delivery models move to digital platforms to enable continued... Read more

How user-led service design enabled Weekday Wow Factor to develop a fun and inclusive online service very quickly Read more

To Zoom or not to Zoom? That is the question... Zoom has quickly moved from a niche platform to a ubiquitous part of ‘lockdown life’. Along the way, the videoconferencing platform has run into controversy about its approach to security and privacy. So what’s been happening, and... Read more

Digital Service case study: Young Somerset worked quickly and carefully to move their counselling service online Read more

SCVO digital are helping charities think about how they look after privacy and confidentiality as they move their services online Read more

We recently published a blog about the importance of digital during an extended period of self-isolation due to the COVID-19 pandemic. We invited people from the voluntary sector, public sector and housing associations to join us in an online community to start thinking about how... Read more

In the current health climate there is a growing emphasis on social distancing (taking steps to reduce social interaction between people) and self-isolation (isolating yourself from any contact with others). Those who already experience varying levels of social exclusion are... Read more

It goes without saying that things are pretty fluid around working and business continuity practices at the moment, and, as with any rapidly moving situation, it is important to identify trusted sources of information. The UK Government have announced today that they are moving... Read more

At SCVO we support lots of charities to grow their digital capability. As a team we work between Edinburgh, Inverness and Glasgow so we already work remotely as part of our day-to-day practice. But for a lot of charities, working remotely at short notice might be a bit more... Read more

Since joining the Digital Champions in Housing Network with SCVO, staff at Langstane Housing Association have made a huge effort to advertise the new service being offered, and it has paid off. We advertised using our social media page and website, issued a press release... Read more

Like many who attended The Gathering on 19 - 20 February 2020 at the SEC in Glasgow, I’m still digesting all the learning, interesting conversations and following up with lots of the great new contacts I met. I had a prime spot over the two days that allowed me to experience this... Read more

Castlehill Housing Association launched their tenant led digital inclusion activities on 20th February 2020. Digital Motivator, Catherine Coutts, Tenant Participation Officer, and Digital Champion who is also a tenant, Ken Wilcox, tell us more. What digital inclusion activities... 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

Irene Mackintosh, Mhor Collective @irenewarnermack, PhD Student at the University of the West of Scotland It’s always exciting when a new report comes out (or it is to me, but maybe I’m weird), with new statistics to pour over and thoughts to think, and so I was looking forward... Read more