News

In our last article, we wrote about three civil society organisations, and their perspectives on NoCode as a tool to improve their digital services. NoCode refers to a collection of apps which allow you to develop digital services without having to write code. Instead, you assemble it from building blocks. NoCode may lack some flexibility […]

Mark Wilkin, from Mimecast Cyber Resilience, has 15 years’ experience of running forums. He’s succeeded and failed in the hobby, commercial and charity sectors. Recently, he volunteered advice to the charity Surviving Economic Abuse. We listened in on their conversation so we could share eight pieces of his advice with you. 1. Manage your community […]

Your youth group is planning a three day trip to Dartmoor. As group leader it’s your first time leading a trip like this. You feel anxious. There’s a lot of risks. But it’s a great opportunity for your young people, some of whom have never left the city. Instead of the trip you could stay […]

Since April 2020 charities across the UK have been rushing to migrate their face-to-face services online. They’ve applied their safeguarding knowledge to a new context with enthusiasm and commitment. But best practice guidance has been dispersed and sometimes hard to find. Until now. DigiSafe is a step-by-step digital safeguarding guide. It’s written for charities designing […]

This blog is the second of a two part series following on from a set of workshops carried out for Catalyst and The National Lottery Community Fund COVID-19 Digital Response grantees on the subject of impact measurement. Bobi Robson’s first workshop and blog opened up our thinking about ‘why’ we should measure impact. This blog […]

‘Measuring impact strikes fear into many across the charity sector.’ This is the first line of a 2014 article in the Guardian, How to measure your impact as a small charity. Why, seven years on, do we still have a fearful relationship with measuring our progress and impact? Is it that for too long the […]

In a recent Catalyst Support and Training circle meeting, I mentioned that I had seen an increasing interest in ‘impact evaluations’ over the last year. I thought it would be helpful to explain what is generally understood to be an impact evaluation, and what it involves. Cause and effect – what caused the car to […]

Hybrid working is our new reality. The consequences on our teams are huge. Hybrid work is a flexible working model. It occurs when an organisation allows its employees to split their time between the office and another location. According to the 2022 Charity Digital Skills Report, the majority of organisations (62%) now have hybrid working […]

Hybrid working makes internal communications even more important Effective communication is critical to any nonprofit’s success. People need access to the right information at the right time to do their jobs. But over the past 18 months, hybrid work changed the dynamics. When some folks are in the office and others are remote, we can’t […]

Work is no longer a place we go; it’s a thing that we do. Now that employees have more freedom and flexibility, leaders need to step up. Remote or in-office, we need to help our employees to work together from wherever they are. Here are three strategic actions to create a collaborative hybrid working culture. […]

Over the years, we’ve talked a lot about user-centred design. But should the user really be at the centre? In the real world, there isn’t a single end user.  Human beings are complex and live in an interconnected system. What happens when we become aware that services should not solely be designed to meet the […]

…Imagine: all the smiles, all the chit chat, all the cups of tea and all the biscuits… all the relational wellbeing developed everyday by almost 200,000 UK charities. Well, the tap has been turned off.  Deepr, a Catalyst partner, are working out how to turn it back on, online. And they’ve some early ideas to […]