All Posts by Chris

7 Burngreave New Deal: Community Based Partnerships

Since last Monday’s post “Are grants bad news for community projects?“, I’ve reviewed the evaluation of Burngreave New Deal for Communities (BNDC) and it seems more relevant than the national evaluation.  As a local resident, involved in BNDC, I write about what I know.

Grants can do good and I do not deny the good done with the £50 million spent in Burngreave over the New Deal decade.  However, with all that money to invest, the programme systematically failed to engage with the local economy.  We need to think about communities in economic terms and build models based on economic activity that puts grants in their place.  What is their place?  I’m still working it out!

If there is potential to support local economies online, those who develop online services need to understand local economies.  So, in this and the next five emails I shall comment on the six lessons learned according to the Burngreave New Deal for Communities: End of Programme Evaluation, January 2012.  Here’s the first lesson learned:

“there is a need for community based partnerships to establish processes and mechanisms for collaboration before embarking on delivery; a year zero in which BNDfC has been able to establish a robust partnership might have helped overcome some of the difficulties experienced at the outset of the programme”

Burngreave NDC did not build local community based partnerships in year zero or at any other times over the 10 year programme.  Why was that?

What Went Wrong?

Let’s go back to the beginning.  NDC was an imposed programme.  The government informed the city of Sheffield one community could receive ND funding.  The local strategic partnership, which I think at the time was called Sheffield First (the charmed circle that makes up these partnerships recycle themselves so many times it’s impossible to remember what they called themselves in any given year) met behind closed doors and announced a shortlist of communities.

At this stage you would think they might have talked to people in these areas.  We asked them and they refused to do so.

Way back in 1997, after a 2 or 3 years of hard work we launched Burngreave Community Action Forum (BCAF).  It had support from active residents and met quarterly with over 60 people attending each meeting.  A year or two before NDC, BCAF founded a charitable company called Burngreave Community Action Trust (BCAT).  BCAT employed four staff who delivered BCAF’s community plan.  What would BCAF/T had said had Sheffield First invited  them to a conversation before making their decision?

Maybe the forums in the other shortlisted areas would have provided evidence that swayed them to a different community.  Or a conversation at that stage would have established commitment to BCAT as a community based partnership.

The Real Issue

One or two years later, BCAT might have been able to play this role (with support it might have been sooner).  On the day NDC announced Burngreave as the lucky recipient of its largess, a vocal group of residents turned up at a BCAF meeting and told us BCAF/T was not going to get its hands on the money.

Sheffield First did hint that BCAF/T was the reason they chose Burngreave but it was clear that first evening, BCAF/T had a lot of work to do to show people BCAF/T was their organisation.  In fact, many other organisations had designs on the money and feared a community united behind a single representative body.  This was never about one local group getting the money at the expense of others, it was about control of the money by local people or the local authority.

BCAF/T knew about the divisions in the community.  They were the reason we founded BCAF.  Council policy caused many of the divisions over the previous 10 or 20 years.  They used grants to divide the neighbourhood and £50 million simply widened the gaps.

I don’t know whether these are the difficulties referred to in the first lesson.  It is interesting, with all those resources NDC was unable to resolve these differences.

Have you experienced relationships undermined by funding?  Share your comments below.

3 Solvitur Ambulando

Last Friday I introduced solvitur ambulando (Latin: solve it by walking) and this time I shall develop it a little.  Whilst walking is  not a technique that will help you solve your community development problems on or offline, it can be really helpful.  Walking solves problems to do with your:

So, over to you.  Do you walk and if so what problems has walking solved?  If you don’t walk, what do you do?

0 Who are the Right People?

Last time I listed several approaches to driving the right people to your website.  Before I describe these approaches in more detail, I shall ask: who are the right people?

Knowing your market will inform the decisions you make about how you drive traffic to your site.  There are lots of helpful tools but remember you are communicating with human beings.  No tool can do that for you.  Tools facilitate communication but they don’t do it.

I remember when I was a child, we used to tease my mother because she had a telephone voice.  I’m sure many people have heard friends or family who sound completely different when they are on the phone.  My mother wished to project a certain image when she used the phone.

Was she right?  It depends.  One school of thought is you need to be authentic, to be yourself.  Certainly, being natural in your communication helps build relationships.  On the other hand first impressions count.  Being laid back may be one of your endearing qualities in real life.  I’m not convinced it is always a positive online.

The term avatar is used online in two different ways.  They can be images (sometimes animated) generated by software that give you an online identity.  The other usage is in marketing, where avatars are your imaginary customers.

It helps to know what the people you are writing for are like.  I find my avatars emerge slowly as I write for them.  Other people are able to imagine elaborate avatars in advance.

You’re using online media to communicate, not with a machine but a real person.  Remember one person opens and reads your emails.  Usually this person is someone you have not met and so their avatar stands in for them.  They are an imaginary friend and you need to write to them as you would to a real life friend.

So, try to write your content (blog post, email, website, social media …) as if you are writing to a friend.  You won’t get it right for everyone but if you have one or more avatars they will help you find the right tone for your writing.

‘I bumped into my imaginary friend the other day.  Haven’t seen him for 50 years.  He’s put on weight.’

One way to improve your writing is to invite comments on your content.  This will help you to assess the impact of your writing.  So, invite comments and respond to them. Here are my invitations for this post but feel free to comment on whatever you like.

How do you communicate online with people you haven’t met?  Does online media help or hinder?  What are the pitfalls?

5 Donations: How You Address the Problem

This is the second of six posts about seeking donations online.  In the first post about your charity’s situation, I outlined some approaches to describing your cause, mindful of your target audience.  In this post about donations how you address the problem I show how you can make a number of responses to the same situation.

After you describe your charity’s situation, the next step is to describe what your charity actually does.  If you want your visitors to leave your site in droves, this is where you place your aims and objectives.  Remember, this is a website, not a funding application.

So, you need to build a relationship with your visitors.  You can do this on your site or there are other options, eg email lists.

If you have a number of landing pages, you can prepare distinct content for visitors with different interests.  After all, you’ve gone to the trouble of identifying them as members of particular groups.

So, if you are a cancer charity, to continue with the hypothetical example in my last post, what do you do for this type of visitor?  Let’s run with just two types of visitor.  They might be (1) a bereaved relative of someone who has died of cancer and (2) someone interested in cancer research who wishes to support it.

Let’s say the charity provides support for families of people with cancer.  A type 1 visitor may be interested in the support the charity offers.  They may be someone who needs support or someone who has had support and wants to show their appreciation.  The type 2 visitor may be more interested in how support functions as a part of treatment for cancer.

Implications for Your Website

Can you see the problem with using a single home page? It either limits you to addressing one type of visitor or else you have to crowd the page with several arguments, not all of which may be compatible.  Extra pages cost next to nothing and they mean your site can offer a range of visitors what they need.

One other point.  You need to be clear in your own mind about the distinction between your situation and how you address the problem.  There may be more than one response possible to a particular situation.  You may be working alongside other charities that offer services complementary to yours.  So you need to be mindful not only of what your visitors need from your site but also that you are clear about what you do and what you don’t do.  Your visitors might appreciate some guidance to an alternative site if yours is not the right one.  Whilst you might lose a visitor to another site, you may also be demonstrating your integrity.

Share in the comments examples of where the same activity can be described in different ways to different audiences.  If your website does this, it would help readers of this blog, if you can add a url.  Can you think of examples of more than one charity offering complementary approaches to the same situation?

2 The Hidden Life of Websites

Even though we’ve all seen pages that don’t fit the home page, about page, a few info pages, contact page model – do we think of them as integral to website design?  The hidden life of websites comprises all the pages we discover as we explore the site.  Here are some examples of pages that are not so easy to find because they’re not on the main  menu.

1. When you first arrive at a website, you arrive on a landing page.  Some websites have many landing pages, others have one, usually the home page.  The website owner who knows their markets can design several pages that address each market’s needs directly.  So, you might Google a keyword or phrase and follow a link to a relevant landing page.  Or else you follow a link from a particular site to a landing page designed for visitors from that site.  How do you know it’s a landing page?  You might think you’re on the home page until you hit the home button and find yourself somewhere else entirely.
2. Funnel pages often follow on from landing pages or if you follow a link to a particular offer.  Sales funnel offers may be described on one or over several sales pages.  It’s a funnel because other readers will join them from other pages.  They might tell you more about a product and then channel you to point where you must decide whether to buy a product or subscribe to an email list or sign a petition or …  Funnal pages keep you reading and you wouldn’t believe the time and effort that goes into them!
3. The final funnel page is sometimes called a squeeze page.  There you have to decide to sign up or leave the site.  It will always have a form on it and usually a heading and minimal copy or a video.
4. And there is the success page you visit following your purchase or subscription.  This page will thank you and sometimes you can log into part of the website previously inaccessible.
5. Blogs are another part of the site where there may be more pages than you can find in the main navigation.

These pages are designed to do a job.  A website is not a static picture; it is a programmable machine.  Your challenge is to work out how to structure information so that it supports your purpose.  This works equally well whether you are selling something, seeking supporters for a cause, sharing information or displaying artwork.

If you can think of page types I’ve missed, share them in the comments.

2 Are Grants Bad News for Community Projects?

Last Monday I wrote about Burngreave New Deal for Communities (NDC).  What has NDC to do with web design?  I’ll show you how online and real life activities can support each other.  This Mutuality category is mostly about real-life community relationships and as it develops, you’ll see how it hangs together with online content.  Sources of finance for community projects are crucial to their success and sustainability.

NDC offered £50 million of grant money to Burngreave over 10 years.  Grant money (and sometimes loans and contracts) can be counter-productive.  I support many grant aided initiatives but I’ve seen over and again the negative effects they can have on community initiatives.  NDC was a massive  programme and I think it demonstrates some of the reasons grants can be problematic.

Some Problem Caused by Grants

I’ll develop these in future posts.

1. Grants do not build relationships.  These days a lot of effort goes into monitoring and evaluating grant funded projects.  The Government monitored NDC very closely .  But monitoring and evaluation does not build relationships; too often it abdicates relationships because the funding body undertakes no financial risk.  If the government can afford to spend £1.71 billion on a programme it can afford that sum whether or not the programme is a success.  When the programme is over the funding body walks away with its statistics and has no further interest in what it has funded.
2. Grants create dependency.  Dependency has real consequences for sustainability.  Too many community projects apply for grants before they build their business.  If their activity is not viable  before funding, it is not likely to be viable once the money runs out.  Projects become viable in various ways; trading is one but is not practical where the activity does not easily draw down revenue, eg additional teaching in schools.  So, the NDC programme suggested existing authorities would invest mainstream funding once an activity was proven.  This could happen in theory but is it likely if there is no mainstream commitment before funding is invested?
3. Grants obscure the difference between vision and practicality.  It’s easy to have a good idea but more difficult to show the idea can be sustainable.  A big injection of cash too early can obscure the fact that an activity is not viable.
4. Grants offer false social proof.  Once one grant is approved, other funders will follow suit.  Before you know it a good idea has lots of support before it runs into the sand because it is not sustainable.
5. Grants create divisions within communities.  During the nineties Sheffield City Council had a policy of funding ethnic minority economic regeneration centres.  These divided neighbourhoods in two ways.  (1)  Each ethnic group (including White British) had their own centre.  There was plenty of funding in those days.  Where are they now?  (2) Most of these centres was internally divided between those who controlled the assets and those who did not.
6. Grants are not sustainable.  Many good ideas flourish for a few years before the money runs out.  NDC was a ten-year programme and now, 3 years or so on from its closure, there is little to show for its work.  Whilst a few people and families can point to interventions that helped them, the neighbourhood as a whole has nothing to show for the investment.
7. Grants undermine the purpose of recipients.  This is sometimes called ‘mission creep’.  What happens is someone has a good idea and then their fundraisers find the closest fit between the idea and the grants available.  Before long the community group  finds it is mainly doing stuff for the funding body and not their own agenda.  Call me fussy but if I’m not being paid I’d rather work for my group than for a funding body.

Do Grants Ever Help?

OK I do believe grants have a role, where an idea has proven its viability.  Until then we should be more cautious about offering grants without evidence of viability.

Next time: I’ll focus on NDC and its national evaluation.

Do grants help or hinder community development?  Have you examples to support your view?  Share your view in the comments below.

1 Can Mice Solve Problems?

What better topic than the question: can mice solve problems?

Here’s an extract from an argument I had with my niece. She is much cleverer than I am but this time I  believe I am right.

The original heading for this post was to be:

Solvitur Ambulando

This is Latin and it means to solve a problem by walking.  There are several ways to understand this.  You could say it means you need to start working on a problem to solve it.  Get started and solve it on the hoof.  There is some truth in this, we can easily spend too much time thinking when to get started will actually solve the problem.

However, the point I really want to make is much simpler.  Got a problem?  Go for a walk!  It’s partly about taking a break, simply thinking about something else will help.  Also, I think there is something in the rhythm of walking that helps.  If you’re stuck designing a website, or anything else, a good walk will often result in a solution to your problem.

Anyway, can you help with my argument with my niece?  Watch this video and then comment on the dialogue below:

My niece: “That is one badass, determined, hungry mouse. One can only admire it’s persistence.”

Me:  ” I like the bit where it stops, gives up, wanders off and then works out how to do it. Solvitur ambulando!”

My niece:  “I reckon it just got lucky, that, or it needed to regain it’s strength.”

Me: “Why do you think mice can’t solve problems?”

My niece: “Not saying that exactly. It’s just that that particular mouse didn’t look very thoughtful at any point.”

Me: ” It solved the problem! is it supposed to sit down with its fist on its forehead?”

My niece: “Luck. Sheer and utter luck.”

What do you think?

7 How to Help the Right People Find Your Site

Remember it’s not just about getting traffic to your site, it needs to be the right traffic.  There are several ways you can help the right people find your site.  You need to understand these approaches; their strengths and weaknesses and how to optimise them.  In this post, I’ll review several approaches and then add detail in future posts.

Direct Entry

This is where people type your url into their browser.  It can be very important, particularly for local websites.  You can publicise your site through posters, leaflets or business cards.

Search Engines

If you type the name of your business or website into a search engine, does it come top of the list or at least on the first page?  Ideally it should but if it does, all it means is you have a distinctive name.  No-one will find you by this route unless they’ve already heard of you!

It is more challenging to find the keywords people are likely to use for which you will be in the top 10, that is the first page that comes up.  But if you do appear on a page searched for by hundreds or thousands of people, you might see a significant increase in traffic to your site.

Back-links

If you place a link on your site to another site, it is for them a back-link.  The immediate advantage of receiving a back-link is increased traffic to your site from the site that links to yours.  There are lots of reasons why another site might back-link to yours.  Ideally, you want your back-links to be relevant to your site.

Back-links don’t only bring more visitors to your site, they also attract search engines.  Once you have a few back-links, search engines will find your site and you may begin to appear in searches people make for certain keywords.

So, a blog might review your site or product.  Or a site might represent a common interest and have links to lots of sites like yours.  Or else someone who shares your market might include your site as a link because your service or product complements theirs.

Sometimes you might also want a link to a site that links to yours.  If two sites link to each other, this is known as a reciprocal link.  The advantage is increased traffic to both sites.  However, a mild disadvantage is that search engines don’t count it as a link.  Remember that you need some back-links that are not reciprocal!

Email Lists

Email lists can help people find your site although they are usually used to return people to your site when you want to alert them to new content or a new offer.  They can bring new visitors to your site but they normally do it indirectly.  If you tell your list of some new development on your site, your recipients will sometimes forward it.

Social Media

There are various ways of linking between your website and your social media.  If you have a lot of followers on Twitter, for example, it is worth exploring how you can encourage them to visit your site.

Pay-Per-Click

We’ve all be irritated by a Google search where you click on the first link on the results page and discover it’s an advert. Close inspection of the results page shows the adverts have a very pale pink background.  Grrr …

I’m not a fan of adverts but they can increase traffic to your site.  The big advantage of ads is they show you where there is a market.  Broadly if there’s lots of competition, this is a market where you too might make money.

Don’t forget you pay for ads.  Normally I would use other methods before I tried pay-per-click.

Do comment and share how you encourage people to visit your site, especially if its something I’ve missed!  If there are any approaches about which you would like more information, adding a comment will influence how soon I post about it.

6 Donations: Your Situation

Over the next 6 posts, I shall introduce guidelines for making a case for your charity online.  They build on my post “How to Draw Down Donations”, which summarises the six steps towards making a case for donations. So, when appealing for donations your situation is paramount.

Why charities?  Well, in the UK charitable status is one way organisations demonstrate accountability.  If you’re seeking donations, you need to consider registering as a charity.

Making a case for donations is one approach to generating income online and it might not be right one for your organisation.  My aim is to help you work out your ideal approach.  If you choose to explore donations further you will need professional help.  I may be able to help you find the expertise you need.

Presenting Your Situation

Anyway, on your website the first thing you need to present is your situation and why you need financial help.  Whatever your cause, here are a few things you can consider when presenting your case online:

1. An account of your cause is likely to be on the first page your visitor encounters.  This is often called a landing page and it should be designed as your visitors’ first encounter with your site.  First impressions are important and the page will need to be search engine optimised.  I shall explain these terms in future posts.
2. You may need more than one landing page.  Depending upon the nature of your cause, you may need to present it in different ways for different audiences.  So, a charity supporting research into cancer might appeal to people who have cancer, people bereaved because of cancer, people interested in research into cancer, medical professionals and so on.  Each of these may need to arrive at a different landing page.  They will have access to the same site but they need to know the site is for them.
3. Stories are immensely powerful and you may find you need a different story on each landing page.  Getting this right is important.
4. Broadly there are two types of story.  You may want to tell a story about your cause so, continuing with my example, it might be a story about someone’s battle with cancer or about a research project.  The other type of story is about your organisation.  Why this charity started, the issues and problems it has faced.  Don’t underestimate the value of the second type.  Often people value insight into what’s behind the scenes and it is likely to build trust with your site visitors.  Sometimes these two stories can be combined.
5. Be clear about the overall purpose of your charity and what it does for the target visitors to this particular landing page.  You don’t need lots of statistics and evidence at this stage.
6. Every page should have one clear action step for its reader.  They read the story, what do you want them to do next?  Most likely to read on by clicking through to another page.  You can lead your visitors through a series of pages that will eventually arrive at your target action step.  I shall show you how to test your website about its effectiveness in moving visitors to the point when they must choose to take your desired action (or not).
7. But what is your target action step?  Are you going to rely on visitors spending enough time on your site to persuade them to donate?  Or do you see more value in building a long-term relationship?  So for a major crisis in the news, you might ask for a donation on the landing page with a small amount of copy.  Otherwise, you may wish to build a long-term relationship with people who will donate several times.  These two are not mutually exclusive.  Someone who donates to a crisis appeal may also make a good long-term supporter.  If you are seeking long-term support, the best way is through email lists, something else I’ll discuss in more detail later.

Have you used landing pages, and action steps on your site?  If you already have a landing page, I offer a free review here.  Or write a comment about your thoughts or experience.

3 Traditional Site Structure

We’re all familiar with the layout of a traditional website.  When we ask someone to design a site for us we have expectations based upon the layout we’ve seen thousands of times.

So, there is a Home page with a brilliant graphic on it, perhaps a few extra pages on various themes depending on the purpose of the site, perhaps in a drop-down menu and then there will be an About page, a Contact page and possibly a few other odds and ends.

Not all sites share this structure.  There two reasons why we think most websites follow this layout.

• We don’t see the entire layout of a site.  If we enter the site through its Home page, we assume everyone enters the site in the same way.  We see the pages in the main navigation and assume they make up the entire site.  It’s similar to the reason people tend to overestimate the amount of built up areas in Britain.  People estimate way over 8 or 9% because we usually don’t experience the deep rural areas.  Roads and railways connect settlements and so we mostly see the built up places they connect.
• The other reason we don’t see websites in their entirety is because we don’t expect them to be functional.  We expect pages to be static, simply displaying information.  We don’t expect websites to drive businesses although that is what many websites do.

In this Structure category, I shall explore what makes a good website, the pages it needs and good practice for page layout.  These first few posts are an overview of some basic site structures.  Later on I shall look at various aspects in more depth.  Next Tuesday, the hidden life of websites!

Do you have a favourite site structure?  Why do you use it?  What are its advantages and disadvantages?  Share your experiences in a comment.