Trustee Opportunities with Bright One

Jan 24
By Tove |
Posted in BrightOne News | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

 

If you’ve been looking for an interesting and rewarding trustee role in a friendly small-sized organisation, look no further! We are thrilled to announce that we will be offering the opportunity to become a Bright One trustee. This is a very exciting time for us and we are looking to get trustees onboard in order to develop and expand. Details below:

 

Trustee role description

  • To actively contribute at board meetings and help to monitor the implementation of decisions taken at meetings
  • Contribute to the setting of policy, objectives and adherence to, thereafter
  • Help facilitate change and manage conflict
  • Ensure the financial stability of the organisation and ensure sound risk management
  • Contribute to the development of the organisation’s mission and vision
  • Raise the public profile of the organisation
  • To represent the organisation as necessary
  • To regularly assess the environment and develop the organisation’s business strategy
  • To review and agree any major changes to the organisation
  • To ensure the organisation uses its resources exclusively in pursuance of its charitable objects

Person specification

  • Experience of holding a strategic vision over a 2-3 year period
  • Ability to exercise independent judgement and challenge constructively
  • Good communication skills across all levels
  • Excellent planning and organisational abilities
  • Understanding of the voluntary sector (desirable)
  • An understanding and acceptance of the legal duties, responsibilities and liabilities of trusteeship
  • Commitment to the organisation and willingness to devote the required time and effort
  • A problem-solving ‘can-do’ approach
  • Significant experience in at least one of the following areas:
               Business Management
               Operations
               HR
               Finance
               Marketing
               Legal
               Governance
               Fundraising
               Volunteer Management

 

Terms of appointment

Trustee appointments will be reviewed annually.

Trustees will be required to attend quarterly board meetings and there is also an annual AGM which trustees should attend if possible.

Communication between meetings takes place via email and phone calls.

The role requires dedication of between 8-10 hours a month (dependent on activity).

 

Interview process

Shortlisted candidates will initially have a phone conversation with a member of the current management team, followed by an in-person interview.

Application deadline is 10 February 2012, phone interviews will take place w/c 17 February, in person meetings will take place before the end of February, and a decision will then be made early March.

Notice: Bright One is currently not a registered charity, but forming this trustree group is one of the first steps and this group will be named trustees upon application to the Charity Commission.

 

If you are interested in being a trustee for Bright One please email your CV and cover letter to Tove Nordstrom at tove.nordstrom@brightone.org.uk

Bright Works Featured on The High Tea Cast

Jan 20
By benmatthews |
Posted in BrightWorks, News | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

The High Tea Cast is an irreverent, savvy, monthly podcast combines music and popular culture chat, and great interviews with cool young leaders in fashion, food and third sector projects.

This month, Co-creators Sam Sparrow and Leanne Rice take a look at some worthy community ventures in 2012, finding ways their skills can help others and do some good.

We’re delighted that they picked out Bright Works and had some lovely things to say about the platform. Listen for yourself:

The High Tea Cast Reviews Bright Works (mp3)

Thanks for the great feedback, ladies!

You can listen to the podcast at The High Tea Cast here or  subscribe via iTunes.

Oh, and you can find out more about Bright Works here.

What Makes a Good Microvolunteering Task for Bright Works?

Jan 19
By Tove |
Posted in BrightWorks | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

 

Our microvolunteering platform Bright Works has recently had some great new projects uploaded that we are very excited about and they keep on coming in so there are plenty of tasks to get involved with if you’re interested in volunteering!

With new charities and other organisations contacting us about adding tasks to Bright Works we’re getting an increased amount of good questions in regards to what types of tasks are suitable for Bright Works. So we thought we’d answer some of them in order to help anyone who might want to know a bit more about how best to use Bright Works and how to get the most out of microvolunteering.

Ready to submit your project? Just fill out this simple form

Want to help these great charities with your PR and Marketing skills? Sign up now!

 

What makes a good microvolunteering task?

  • All Bright Works projects and tasks should consist of work to be done entirely online
  • The task description should contain all information needed for volunteers to complete the task.
  • Your contact details are provided in case the volunteer should need to contact you to get started.
  • Consider including links to useful sites with any background information.
  • Giving a deadline adds some time pressure for volunteers to work to, so your task has a better chance of being completed.
  • Define the key experience/skills the volunteer will need to have. This will help us find the best person for the job.
  • Include a clear description of the task, and explain any specific actions you want the volunteer to take.
  • Tasks should be a minimum of 15 minutes or maximum of 4 hours to complete
  • Be clear about the duration of the task. If you expect it to exceed 4 hours, you should split the work between two smaller tasks. Divide your project into as many small tasks as you can. This makes each one easier to manage, and allows more volunteers to get involved.

Have you got any examples of good microvolunteering tasks?

  • Find and list 20 newspapers/magazines/blogs in the charity’s related area, including contact details
  • Write and distribute a press release for an upcoming fundraising event
  • Produce a how to for uploading videos to YouTube or other video-sharing platforms, such as Vimeo
  • Produce a how to for using social media to recruit volunteers, attract donors and promote success stories
  • Set up a Twitter feed for the charity
  • Set up a Facebook page for the charity
  • Write copy for a certain page on your website
  • Write up case studies or success stories for the charity
  • Design a new logo for our charity

Any other tips?

  • Make the task interesting – there are lots of tasks on Bright Works, so you’ll need to capture the interest of volunteers!
  • Make the task specific – define exactly what you need done and what deliverables you expect, so the volunteer has a clear idea of what they need to do
  • Make the task achievable – Our volunteers are fantastic, but they’re volunteering in their spare time. Don’t expect or ask for the world!

 

We hope this helps! Feel free to add more tips and comments – how could we improve these tips? What kind of tasks would you like to find on Bright Works? Let us know!

Bright One joins calls for charities to be exempt from copyright licensing fees

Jan 18
By nickstanton |
Posted in BrightOne News, News | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Each year over 1000 charities collectively pay the Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) £1.3m for the privileged of seeing their name in news print. They’re not paying to get into the newspaper (that’s our job in charity PR) instead they’re just paying to see it. Often paying to see something they had a big hand in writing. I’m sure many of us have experience with the NLA and its pricing structure, I do and that figure still surprised me.

This is why ChairtyComms, the membership body for charity communicators, yesterday began a campaign to exempt charities from copyright licensing fees. This campaign is backed by NSPCC, Cancer Research UK, British Heart Foundation and us here at Bright One.

We’re supporting this campaign because times are tight for all charities and. I know of at least one large charity press office which was having to cut back on weekend newspapers and some of the more expensive broadsheets at the same time as having to pay their NLA fees.

This makes little sense for the NLA which is owned by eight publishers of national newspapers, including News International and the Guardian Media Group. In the example above the charity’s NLA license was not huge so by cutting back on the broadsheets published by the NLA’s owners they were seeing the amount of money from this customer fall.

The NLA pricing structure for charities, which was agreed in 2003 with the NCVO, does give charities a discount and personally when I’ve dealt with the NLA they’ve been very helpful and understanding. The problem is what was mentioned above: 90% of the coverage charities monitor is of themselves, they’re not using it for commercial gain and have often played a big part in writing any piece. The current system misunderstands the way charity communicators work and treats them like their commercial (and profit-making) colleagues.

For those interested in the campaign see charitycomms.org.uk/charity_media_licensing and Vicky Browning, CharityComms Director, explains their position very well in this Guardian Voluntary Sector blog guardian.co.uk/media-licensing-charities-exempt. For anyone worried about your own licensing CharityComms has put together a great guide charitycomms.org.uk/guidelines/charity_media_licensing.

New Bright Works Projects Waiting for your Support

Jan 16
By benmatthews |
Posted in BrightWorks, News | 2 Comments

 

We started the year off with a slew of updates to Bright Works, our microvolunteering platform that lets causes connect with skilled volunteers in a now even simpler, effective and easy way. Now that the site is working better than ever, new projects have been added. If your New Year’s resolution was to give more back, here’s some great opportunities to start:

Small Charities Coalition and Charities Trustee Network’s ambition is to provide practical and applicable help to both the operations and governance of small charities. On Bright Works, they are looking for help revamping their website by adding photos, case studies and quotes from attendees. Do you have experience with CMS Typo3 and a few hours spare? Get in touch.

A1 Positive Recycling is an Exeter-based not-for-profit social enterprise that aims to establish an alternative technology education centre for the South West to train adults with learning difficulties. They are looking to build up a positive management team to help lead the organisation through the next stage in its development. Find out if you have what it takes.

Young Professionals in Human Rights is a network to share resources and experiences and promote innovation within the field of human rights. The group is looking for talented and innovative volunteer communications and web managers to help take their online presence to the next level. Could this be you?

The Lord’s Taverners is one of the UK’s leading youth cricket and disability sports charities. They are looking for help with several facets of a direct mail campaign. Do you have expertise you can share in this area?

These, and a dozen other projects, are currently active on Bright Works. If you haven’t already, sign up and see if there are any tasks you can help out with.

Happy New Year – Bring on 2012!

Jan 10
By Tove |
Posted in BrightOne News | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

It is January, it is 2012, and we would like to wish all our volunteers, charities, supporters and friends a Happy New Year. Bright One has had a great year in 2011 but we are very excited about 2012 as it’s looking to be even better!

Some of our highlights from last year would be working with over 20 great clients, involving more than 60 fantastic volunteers, launching our microvolunteering platform Bright Works and picking up the Discover E-Volunteering competition prize. And we’ve got lots to look forward to in 2012.

The financial and political climate in the UK has resulted in difficult times for the third sector with the number of people employed in the voluntary sector falling by almost nine percent according to new figures published yesterday. This is a worrying report but the World Giving Index 2011 by the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) shows that there is an increase in charitable acts globally – people are more likely to give time and ‘help a stranger’ but the giving of money has fallen. The decrease in monetary donations can probably be blamed on the global economic crisis but the data from CAF presents a positive attitude in regards to the giving of time. According to the report, 28% of Brits volunteered in 2011 and this commitment to giving time rather than money may well be an indication of where we are heading.

With spending cuts and a decreasing work force charities are in need of support and volunteers are a great help. A proposed new tax relief scheme could possibly increase donations and volunteering by businesses and individuals interested in volunteering can find opportunities through several channels – here are a few we’ve listed.

Here at Bright One we will try to help out whenever possible and we will also continue to develop Bright Works – the new version is now live and we’re accepting new projects. So if you’re a charity looking for help or a volunteer looking to help out, get involved!

And if you’d like to attend an exciting new event where you’ll be able to mingle with some great people from the UK communications industry you should come along to the PR Prom taking place on Thursday 23 February in Shoreditch Town Hall in London.

We’re also very much looking forward to new projects in 2012 and we’re hoping to provide training sessions, work with new great clients and have new enthusiastic volunteers joining us.

What are your wishes for 2012? Let us know in the comment section below or drop us a line if you’d like to chat about our plans for the new year – we look forward to hearing from you!

- Tove and the Bright One team

New Year, New Updates to Bright Works!

Jan 5
By benmatthews |
Posted in BrightWorks, News | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments

 

Happy New Year to you all ;)

To kick things off in 2012, we’ve got some new updates to Bright Works, our microvolunteering platform that lets causes connect with skilled volunteers in a simple, effective and easy way.

Here’s the run down:

Slippy Tank

We’ve upgraded the platform so that we can now have projects that run outside of the main screen. This is rather affectionately known as a “slippy tank”.

Think of it like Google Maps, except you can locate projects on the site by clicking on these pink markers:

So if you need to find a project that interests you, simply navigate using the pink dots and you’ll find something that suits your skills and passions.

We’re aware that this makes finding individual projects tricky, but remember that each project has it’s own unique url, so note that down if you find something you like. We’re also working on search and bookmarking functionality, so keep an eye out for them in the near future.

Submit Projects

Now that we’ve got the slippy tank, we can publish more projects!

Up to now, we were only sourcing project for Bright Works from Bright One’s curent client base. This was so that we could test the platform, work through any bugs or kinks in the process that we found, and ensure that the whole experience was right for both charities and volunteers.

There’s still lots more things we’d like to do, but now we’re delighted to be accepting applications from charities from across the world.

It’s easy to get started, just fill in this application form.

Hide the Dashboard

The Dashboard on the right hand side of the page is your key to all the useful things happening around Bright Works – tasks that you’ve taken on, tasks that have been verified, tasks you’ve completed, and other useful alerts.

But while you’re scrolling around for tasks and projets you can help out on, you might well want to hide the dashboard. Simply click on the “hide dashboard” link at the bottom of the page and it will roll up to the top so you have the whole page to look at.

Check out that view!

New Tour Video

Thanks to our rather wonderful friends Sam and Louise, we’ve got a video tour on the site that quickly and easily explains how Bright Works, er, works. What do you think?

Other Updates

There’s been a few other tweaks behind the scenes, including an upgrade to the software that Bright Works is built on and some slight tweaks to the help and FAQs, but we won’t bore you with that.

Instead, why don’t you sign up to Bright Works and get started on helping charities with their projects?

Or if you’re a charity, why not submit your project now?

And we’re always looking for your feedback and ways we can improve, so leave a comment below or fill in this feedback form if there’s something you want to let us know about.

We look forward to hearing from you!

- Ben and the Bright One team

Bright One Seeks Project Managers

Jan 3
By Tove |
Posted in BrightOne News | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

It’s a new year, and with it comes new opportunities and challenges. If you’ve been looking for an interesting and rewarding volunteering role we’ve got one for you!

In order to expand and grow in 2012 Bright One is in need of knowledgeable and experienced individuals to assist with clients and project management. We are looking for volunteers who would like to make a difference by using the experience and skills they have already.

Specifically Bright One is in need of voluntary account consultants to oversee and manage live projects with charity and not-for-profit clients, managing them and a dedicated volunteer team efficiently while delivering realistic targets on time and on budget. Many aspects of the position do not require you to come into the office every week and many tasks can be completed remotely for those with time constraints and other commitments.

Working with your Bright One account team you will:

  • Manage the scoping of the project and briefing process with the client
  • Manage team resources and where required assist with client deliverables
  • Retain good working relationship with client on a monthly basis (day to day responsibility will lie with the account manager)
  • Ensure client and project goals are achieved
  • Deliver project according to pre-set objectives and metrics
  • Oversee project and provide input at crucial milestones
  • Contact relevant people for progress reports, agreeing next steps of plans and dealing with any issues that may arise with the account team or client
  • Maintain a great working relationship with the clients

 Relevant skills and competencies:

Essential:

  • Experience of project management
  • Experience of managing a small team
  • Good time management
  • Working to deadlines
  • An understanding of PR and Marketing in any capacity
  • Able to commit a minimum of 2 hours per week

Desirable:

  • PR and Marketing experience specifically in the charity sector would be useful but it’s not essential

To Apply

To apply send a CV and Covering Letter to sarah.jason@brightone.org.uk or for more information on Bright One contact ben@brightone.org.uk.

Interviews will be held in January 2012

Digital is Dynamite

Dec 14
By sophiemunro |
Posted in News | Tagged , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

The buzzword is digital and the result can be dynamite; the question is how do you use the former to generate the latter? The answer is: using traditional customer-oriented marketing in a new-fashioned way!

In line with various white papers on the subject, the key to driving engagement with your supporters and service users is to create a more personalised experience on and offline. In this digital age where the internet is the first port of call for information, Bright One is looking at the internet’s role in building charities’ brand experiences.

The ‘Social Graph’ uses personal information that people put online and looks at how they relate to their social connections. This commonly uses the social networks that you are probably on: Facebook; Twitter; perhaps LinkedIn – as well as scoping the rest of the internet. It gives you the ability to target markets via both their own online social activity (such as Likes) and that of their social connections. Take Facebook for instance: there are fans or ‘Likers’ of a brand, and their friends. The latter is a whole new target group for your brand – ready set with accessible contact details.

The ‘Social Graph’ potentially allows you to reach a larger number of people. It also allows you to use your markets’ online information to target them with personalised messages, which are statistically far more effective than generic messages. The British Heart Foundation is just one charity including this approach in their strategy; is it time for you to take notice of the tangible results that social media can generate too…?

Bright One and Bright Works – First Impressions

Dec 14
By benmatthews |
Posted in BrightWorks, Case Study | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

 

This is a guest post from one of our new Bright Workers, Jessica. Want to join her? Head over to Bright Works now!

If it wasn’t for Twitter I wouldn’t have discovered Bright One. In my follow-happy early days as a novice tweeter, I scoured Twitter for any organisation that consolidated my two main interests; charities, and PR. And Bright One appeared.

I read the description of Bright One as a ‘volunteer-run communications agency for social ventures’ without really taking it in (more fool me). It wasn’t until recently that the ‘volunteer-bit’ really sunk in. I spend 50% of my working day volunteering for a homeless charity, so I know the importance of a voluntary workforce, especially for start-ups and businesses that need low overheads.

Volunteering has given me a mass of experience and boosted my CV in so many ways, and most importantly has given me a sense of purpose and a feeling that I have really made a difference. I’ve volunteered with quite a few different charities over the last few years, so the idea of volunteering with an organisation that can put me in touch with even more causes in an easy and accessible way seemed ideal.

The Bright Works app is perfect for me. I volunteer in the mornings, and work as a Receptionist in the afternoons, which is generally very quiet apart from the odd visitor and phone enquiry. It means that I can spend time online exploring other interests (don’t tell my boss…) and trawling Facebook for hours on end is hardly the most fulfilling of pursuits.

So as long as the project isn’t too extensive and I can pick it up/put it down at will then I can do it!

I’m looking forward to the Bright Works app adding the same sense of purpose to my afternoons that I already get from my voluntary work in the mornings. I’m also looking for more experience so I can one day get my dream job of working in PR/Marketing for charities, so Bright One ticks another box there.

Join Jessica and our other Bright Workers in completing small tasks for charities – whenever you can and wherever you are. Head over to Bright Works and sign up now!