It
may sound obvious, but information and communication technology
is changing the way people communicate and expect to be communicated
with. Right across the spectrum from multinational corporations
to social enterprises, academic institutions to governments,
organisations are using ICT in an increasingly sophisticated
way to run their operations and communicate with their employees,
customers and beneficiaries.
And there is exemplary practice in the voluntary sector; the
case studies the ICT Hub has collated strongly suggest that
charities, social enterprises and community groups are showing
great initiative in the way they are approaching ICT. This
ranges from finding new ways of communicating with their beneficiaries,
to harnessing new technology to ensure that their operations
run more efficiently and effectively than ever before.
Once seen as being reluctant to engage with new technology,
and lagging behind the public and private sectors, attitudes
within the voluntary and community sector are starting to
change. Our newly published research into the attitudes towards
ICT use in the voluntary sector confirms that the sector is
taking increasingly positive steps.
The research follows on from a survey we published in 2004,
revisiting the same organisations to see how their attitudes
toward ICT have changed, and examining what opportunities
and challenges these changes have created for those organisations.
Whereas previously ICT was seen as an additional extra to
the core business, with sector leaders reluctant to dedicate
enough funding towards it, we are now seeing the beginnings
of a shift towards a more strategic understanding of ICT.
While this understanding is still relatively low, more organisations
have ICT expertise on their boards or within their senior
management team and fewer are relying on unpaid ICT advisers.
And organisations without this expertise need to be aware
that if they do not understand new technology themselves,
there is help out there that they can easily access. This
includes the ICT Hub itself, as well as various local ICT
support projects.
Top
Effective web use
Unsurprisingly, our new research confirms the importance
of the internet, with 82 per cent of respondents claiming
that it was “vital” and 14 per cent saying it
was “fairly important” to their work. This compares
with 70 per cent and 23 per cent respectively, back in 2004.
However, despite the acknowledgement of the importance of
the web, and the often exemplary practice in the sector,
there is still a largely untapped potential for voluntary
organisations to communicate with their users and reach
more people. Advances in communication now mean that people
from all walks of life are being linked together in ways
not possible before.
People are becoming increasingly adept at passing on news
and information. Online news sites actively encourage and
enable people to leave feedback and blogs so other readers
can receive witness accounts of situations – bringing
an immediate sense of reality to the audiences.
Our findings show that although many voluntary organisations
use e-mail and basic websites, not many use interactive
services of any kind. Our recent Foresight report Campaigning
and Consultation in the age of new Participatory Media
found that take-up of new technology to support campaigning
and consultation has not been widespread in the sector.
Yet it also concluded that these technologies could change
the landscape of campaigning and consultation – and,
worth noting, that there will be winners and losers in this
new technological age.
Voluntary organisations must now begin to exploit these
opportunities and utilise the online social networks that
are springing up to help generate ideas, policies and advice.
Some organisations, such as the Ectopic Pregnancy Trust,
are already doing this. For example, they introduced an
online forum where women who had experienced or were worried
they might be having an ectopic pregnancy could go for advice
or empathy. One concerned woman was persuaded to go to the
doctors via a conversation in the forum – without
this opportunity to network and discuss the issue online,
she would not have been able to access others with similar
experiences.
Not all engagement with ICT will be quite as dramatic, but
the power of new technology means that voluntary and community
organisations of all shapes and sizes need to engage with
it. This supplement raises a range of issues that we in
the sector need to consider, from mobile security to cybersquatting
and the financial implications of failing to register domain
names.
By accessing the information and support available to help
you make the most of ICT, the voluntary and community sector
could be leading the way – and ultimately delivering
even better services for the individuals and communities
we work with.
Nicola Thompson is head of the ICT Hub
For further information visit www.icthub.org.uk
or call the
Hub’s helpdesk on 0800 652 4737
Top
|
