Charity recruitment service Charityjob has created an online discussion community for charity sector staff. CharityConnect is a site where “you can interact with your peers, share experiences and challenges and celebrate successes”.
The site features content covering a range of charity sector issues and disciplines including fundraising. There is no charge to join, and members can contribute blog posts to share expertise and engage in conversation.
Charityjob describe it as a “safe space for charity professionals” as it is “carefully monitored”.
Members can join groups to focus on issues that are of interest to them. The site then recommends further content from within these selected groups to ensure content remains relevant.
They can also connect with other members, and follow their updates.
Community Engagement Executive at CharityConnect Anna Bland explained:
“We want to help people throughout the sector be even more efficient at your job by providing a group to help with every aspect of your working life.”
Champions
The site is still in beta, but has already recruited over 470 members from across the charity sector in its first few weeks. It has also sought out ‘Champions’ to help contribute content and spread the word about the site.
Fundraising section champions include Laura Croudace, Stephen George, Lizzi Hollis and Michael Winehouse.
Groups
Members have already set up a number of discussion groups, covering topics such as PR and communications, disability, trustees, mentors, and policy/research.
The site has also been used to promote new initiatives and networks, such as Charity Women which has been established “to discuss challenges and opportunities facing women in the charity sector”.
Fundraising groups include:
- sole fundraisers
- fundraisers of Scotland
- legacy fundraising
- corporate fundraising and partnerships
- payroll giving
- International Fundraising Conference
Members can of course propose new groups for approval by CharityConnect.
Recent fundraising topics
The fundraising groups have covered a range of issues already, including:
- The future of digital fundraising
- Gender balance in the sector
- The problem of getting core funding
- Payroll giving
Other charity digital communities
Charity staff and fundraisers have been using digital communities since the late 1980s and early 1990s. Originally these were email-based listservs. The first one in the UK was admin-develop, created for university development (fundraising) staff in 1994. It was followed in 1995 by UK Fundraising’s FundUK, the UK’s first digital discussion forum for all charity fundraisers. Originally an email discussion list, it migrated to the web to become UK Fundraising’s Forum.
Other digital discussion fora have followed including:
- The Charity Place, a Ning-based forum created by Rachel Beer in 2008
- ThirdSectorForums, created by Ross McCulloch in 2008
Now fundraisers alone have a wide choice of fora, with dozens of specialist groups running on Facebook groups and LinkedIn groups. UK Fundraising’s discussion forum moved to a LinkedIn group in 2009 and now has nearly 12,700 users.
Just over a year ago, for example, Fundraising Chat was established by Lucy Caldicott and Lesley Pinder as a Facebook group, having originally been created as a monthly Twitter chat for fundraisers.
Other networks, such as the advisors group to fundraising think-tank Rogare, use Slack for private discussions and content sharing.
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