GiveCamp UK to offer £120,000 in services to UK charities & non-profits

Aug 17 2011 6:30 PM

Today I spoke to a news editor at my local radio station in Lincolnshire. I’ll be honest, the conversation left me feeling a bit down in the dumps.

The news editor told me GiveCamp UK sounded like a great opportunity for local charities, non-profits and volunteer-led organisations. She then went on to tell me that an event for a good cause does not merit “newsworthy” status.

“Bummer”, I thought.

I got to thinking: what are the unique aspects of GiveCamp UK that make it “newsworthy”?

Is it the fact that almost 250 highly-skilled professionals have volunteered to devote an entire weekend of their free time to providing services to UK charities in need?

Maybe it’s the fact that 15 high profile companies, including online donation providers JustGiving, have committed cold hard cash to the event to help support our volunteers over the weekend?

Perhaps it is the 14 companies that have donated services and high-value items for us to donate to charities and volunteers to thank them for their efforts and help them continue with their solutions after GiveCamp UK?

Maybe it’s the skills that can be offered to help organisations focussing on social good, who are working with people like Ellie Stoneley and Mel Findlater to power through red tape and slow-moving public sector bureaucracy in order to make a difference to our communities.

No? None of these?

OK, so maybe it’s the pressure of funding cuts that, across England, run into the millions of pounds - funding cuts that could force your local charities to fold.

Maybe it is the small attempt that GiveCamp UK can make to address this situation, by using a combination of uniquely skilled volunteers and their free time to try and help the non-profit and voluntary sector.

The area close to where I live has reported cuts that will see over £280,000 cut from local charities this year. Almost 40% of that is from Rutland. Rutland is the smallest historic English county and this tiny county alone faces a reported £107,000 of cuts to its local charities.

GiveCamp UK has been lucky enough to have some hugely successful and reputable technologists volunteer to participate in the weekend. Some of our country’s best technologist are contracted to companies at a cost in the region of £600 per day.

I’ve been told that the average hourly wage for the cross-section of volunteers we have would equate to a tentative estimate of over £120,000 worth of man hours donated over the course of GiveCamp Weekend.

If we take on the projects of 15 charities that means a team with volunteers with a variety of skill levels could offer in the region of £8,000 worth of technology services to each one of those organisations. But imagine if a team were to be allocated 6 of our highly skilled technologists – that would balloon to over £11,000 worth of expertise being donated to a charity, just over the course of that one weekend!

That donation of services could be incredibly valuable to organisations that are relying on government funding to help them to get online and start to process donations via their own websites or smart phone applications. It could also help to slash costly administrative processes associated with paper-based record keeping, invoicing or donor management.

This event is about donating hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of uniquely skilled workers’ time to alleviating the pressure of escalating budget cuts in our local charity organisations.

I wonder if that is considered “newsworthy”?

 

16 Comments

  • Naeem said

    Good news stories just ain't "newsworthy" enough for today's media, £120k in services is a good way of putting it.

    Looking forward to joining you.

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