Digital blog

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

Orkney Housing Association has been an active member of the Digital Champions in Housing project; working to embed digital skills support into our day to day interactions between front-line staff and tenants, helping them to benefit from being online. One example of this embedded... Read more

I have been aspiring for years to bring Orkney Housing Association into the 21st century and undertake everyday tasks more digitally. It got me thinking, how much post do I receive through my own letterbox each week? Answer – hardly any! I receive text reminders for dentist... 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

There’s nothing like the turn of a decade to prompt you to step back and look at longer-term changes. The pace of digital change is notoriously fast, and getting faster. What does this mean over the longer term? And why is 2020 particularly important? Looking at the last 20 years... Read more

It seems that every week brings news of a different cyber attack – including those that impact our lives at individuals. (I am writing this on the week of the Travelex attack, when I had a friend travelling who’s only mention of payment was via the Travelex system). Cyber... Read more

In Scotland, 43% of the workforce are lacking in Essential Digital Skills. Although this is slightly ahead of the UK average (53%) we still need to improve. People who don’t have these skills are more likely to be older, female, be a part-time worker, have a disability or be... Read more

“We don’t build houses, we build communities” That’s what one of our Digital Motivators said to me at a meet-up this week. What’s a Digital Motivator? Good question! Earlier this year we started a new project working with the social housing sector in Scotland. This project felt... 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

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