For those who’ve already lost the map to the promised land of Destination 2014, Improving Support increases the number of programmes from 6 national hubs to 9 national support services, all on a slimmer budget.

Workforce and ICT have been given additional funding to continue until June because they are not being directly replaced.

The previous regime of 6 hubs of national expertise expired last night on 31 March. Mourners present at the ICT Hub’s bedside said that it had left a “lasting legacy of high quality support materials for the sector.” Hub publications will continue to be free to download from the Hub’s website.

The nine programmes are:
• Collaboration, run by Bassac,
• Equalities and diversity, run by the Women’s Resource Centre
• Income generation, run by Acevo
• Marketing and communications, run by the Media Trust
• Modernising volunteering, run by Volunteering England
• Performance management, run by Charities Evaluation Services
• Campaigning and advocacy, leadership and governance, and responding to social change, all run by the NCVO

Keynotes:
We have to admit that an air of fin de siecle hung over the conference like a damp blanket – not surprising with the future funding of ICT so uncertain. Nonetheless, the Hub’s Nicky Thompson gave a rousing address to the ICT faithful gathered in the hall, praising “Lasa’s Knowledgebase as a quick and dirty solution”. Rather bizarrely, the second keynote speech was given by the Hub’s executioner, Capacity Builders’ Simon Hebditch, who was heard to say:

“…we are working with NAVCA on Business Plans for the Regional ICT Champions who can start on 1st July 2008 or, if they are wanting to be operational earlier, we can do that.”

“…[Capacitybuilders] will continue over the next three years to support ICT development.”

Does that mean a potential lifeline for the Knowledgebase and Suppliers Directory, which are currently not funded beyond 31 March 2008?

Moving along swiftly…

Publications:
The conference also saw publication of the ICT Survival Guide for Trustees by Preponderate’s Simon Davey. We hope to review it here as soon as copies are available from the Hub website or before they turn up on a Brighton market stall.

Presentations:
You can find most of the presentations featured at the conference here. The presenations will be up on the website until the end of March 2008.

A fevered Marc Osten went above and beyond the call of duty to deliver a great “Funding your future” workshop , which you can get here.

ICT Hub Awards:
You can also find out more about the fantastic award winners here. We were particularly impressed with one winner, Get Connected – which provides a free, confidential helpline for young people – and we’ll certainly be checking them out for the blog in the next few weeks.

Question time:
One more time…the panel (left to right: Nicky Thompson, Bill Freeman, John Davies, Simon Davey, Matt Legg) take questions from the floor.

Bill Freeman did confirm that NAVCA has been funded by Capacity Builders to manage a national programme of Regional ICT Champions from July 2008. However, the level of funding is such that regional champions will continue at a part-time level. Since the programme was announced regional ChangeUp consortia in London and the North East seem to think they’re off the hook for funding regional champion’s work. It’s also unclear at this stage just what agenda Capacity Builders envisage for regional champions – which may not be the same as that envisaged by regional consortia!

And lastly…
There are many things that could have been done differently or better, but nothing like the Hub model has been attempted before in the sector, and the Hubs have certainly had their critics. What the hubs did well was to leverage national economies of scale in setting up the Knowledgebase and Suppliers Directory as free resources for all. As a regional champion and a trustee of a volunteer centre, we have to say that some of the resources produced by the Governance, Performance and ICT Hubs have added real value to the sector through their publications. In fact, Capacity Builders likes the Hub model so much it’s decided to increase their number from 5 to 9 and rename them workstreams, that will no doubt see fit to re-invent the wheel.

The 9 new workstreams have just 3 years and reduced funds to bed-in – will they really be as effective as the Hubs? Will the resources they generate add value or duplicate? Will Capacity Builders be around in 3 years time. And what will be the state of sector ICT in 3 years time?

The Hub has been heavily criticised and wilfully misunderstood in some quarters – not least by Third Sector mag – but in our humble opinion has still delivered high quality resources – the Knowledgebase, Suppliers Directory and publications – the equal of anything else bequethed by the other hubs.

As of writing, the Hub’s legacy resources  are currently not funded beyond 31 March, and their future remains in some doubt whilst we lobby Capacity Builders to support their continued development and availability to the sector as free resources.  If you’re reading this and want the Knowledgebase and Suppliers Directory to continue – let us know about it, it’s important that their value to the sector is acknowledged.

As for the future, releases from Capacity Builders indicate that:

Three year investment in regional ICT champions will be provided through NAVCA. The investment will be £300k in 2008/9 and £400k in each of the subsequent two financial years. The work will focus on ‘hands-on’ advice and networking between ICT support providers, working closely with ChangeUp consortia and other support providers.

There will be an initial investment of £150k in 2008/9 in the work of ruralnet to continue to develop the work of appropriate net:gain centres exploring a more market based approach to local provision of ICT support for the third sector. Financial support will be available in each of the following two financial years but these will be tapered grants in recognition of the market based approach of the work.

Whilst the Hub is no more, the London Champion project will continue in some way, shape or form  – so watch this space.

Lastly, as a public service we’re providing a PDF of ICT Hub March 2008 Newsletter  (42KB) for all our readers.

There are two further very short surveys, and the Hub would like your feedback if you have used the ICT Hub Knowledgebase or received/downloaded any of its publications.

• ICT Hub newsletter and website: ICT Hub questionnaire
• ICT Hub Knowledgebase: Knowledgebase questionnaire 
• ICT Hub publications: Publications questionnaire

Your responses will be anonymous, and will only be seen by the Hub’s external evaluators, Paul Ticher and Andrea Eaves.

In partnership with BTEG (Black Training & Enterprise Group) the London ICT Champion is hosting a FREE half day event that will help BMER, refugee and asylum seeker organisations to get the most out of ICT Hub resources – such as the ICT Hub Knowledgebase and Suppliers Directory.

Where and when:
09.30 to 1.30pm on 18 January 2008 at NCVO, Regent’s Wharf, 8 All Saints Street, London, N1 9RL

See map.

Who is it for:
BMER, refugee and asylum seeker organisations.

Workshops include:

• How to Cost and Fund ICT – get that database project funded! This session takes you through the steps of planning, costing and measuring the success of your ICT project.
• ICT Hub Knowledgebase and Suppliers Directory – don’t know where to start on planning that new website or database project? Don’t know which IT companies to trust? This workshop will get you started .
• How connected are you? – introduction to BTEG’s ‘Specialist Infrastructure” project.

We’ll also be distributing free copies of the ICT Hub’s Guide to Managing your Organisation’s ICT and How to cost and Fund ICT.

Booking:
Contact Lynette Grant at BTEG. Email: lynette@bteg.co.uk

The December 2007 issue of the ICT Hub newsletter is now out in the wild and  looks at how technology can help you fundraise through social networking and raising awarenes.

As a public service, the ICT Hub December 2007 Newsletter is available to download from us as a PDF (75kb).  Also, in a change from the previous policy of making the newsletter available to email subscribers only , the Hub has made available a Word version to download from here.

Download the ICT Hub newsletter October 2007 (PDF 98kb) (with thanks to fellow Champ Colin Harrison for sorting the PDF).

The ICT Hub has streamlined its new look ICT Forums to be more user friendly.

Discussion topics include accessibility, databases, ICT support, ICT management and many more.

Please feel free to start a thread, or introduce yourself in the forums.

Hot off the presses from the ICT Hub…

The ICT Hub is seeking to commission an individual or organisation to update the sources of funders research carried out in 2006/07. The successful applicant will be required to source at least 45 funders who have funded ICT initiatives/ projects in the VCS and who were not covered in the first phase of the research. The results from the second phase of the research will be combined with the first phase information and used to populate a searchable funder directory on the ICT Hub website (in development).

The first phase of the research can be found here.

If you would like to received the tender documents for this piece of work, then please send an email with “sources of funders” in the subject field to louise.brown@icthub.org.uk. The deadline for applications is 5.00pm on Friday 28th September 2007, interviews will be held in London on Thursday 4th October 2007.

All the details of this round of the fund are here, where you can also download the application form and guidelines. The deadline for applications is Monday 17 September.

Paul Webster of the ICT Hub said, “We are looking to fund maybe 4 or 5 projects out of a fund of £50,000 – it’s not a lot and timescales are tight, but if you look at some of the work that has been done in the past it has met needs that were looking to be fulfilled and has enable some projects to move onto bigger and better things.”

A summary of previously funded projects is here. London projects previously funded include Hammersmith and Fulham Refugee Forum’s – ICT Skill Up for Refugee Community Organisations.