There is a great debate over on The Guardian’s Voluntary Sector Network today around the fees that the NLA (Newspaper Licencing Agency) obliges charities to pay for collecting – and circulating – its media coverage. Vicky Browning, Director of CharityComms lays out her charge  (full transparency: I am a trustee of CharityComms) and David Pugh, Managing Director of the NLA posts his counter argument.

This discussion simply must be had – and right now – against the backdrop of a newspaper industry facing unique scrutiny into its journalism, practices, and revenue-generation moving forward. It is interesting that, as David writes, the NLA provides a useful revenue stream to British newspapers. Well perhaps things are changing.

Commentators such as Clay Shirky point out that newspapers are no longer the fixed ‘bundles’ they once were – and the proliferation of means of sharing online content for example (actively promoted by publishers) encourages readers to “forward each other individual URLs without regard to front pages or named sections or intended navigation.” Is it really likely (nay enforcable) that someone who shares a link on Twitter to a news story will be tweeted by the NLA moments later asking a fee for breaching copyright? This is the reality for charities sharing their successes both in offline and online media with its own staff, partners and funders.

And the idea that charities provide content for a newspaper – filling its pages with comment and opinion (and sometimes wholesale articles in cases of copy-and-paste churnalism) – should then be charged for the obligation of having to demonstrate its impact to its own funders, seems slightly off-kilter.

Dare I take umbrage with The Guardian itself, and suggest that when it chooses charities for its Christmas appeal, these charities are charged if they wish to circulate copies of their coverage to colleagues at work. Ditto if charities are shortlisted for, or win, a Guardian award, The Guardian will charge them for circulating copies of this news at their workplace. As The Guardian Media Group is a shareholder in the NLA, this is in effect what is happening.

Charities are being told to be shrewd with their funds, to do more with less – and this goverment has stressed that in order to attract and sustain funding, non-profits must be transparent in the demonstrable impact of their work.

We aren’t selling cars or gadgets; we’re trying to save lives, support people’s independence and plug holes in the public sector. If we are silenced from doing this by prohibitive taxes on effectively being victims of our own success, the funding will simply dry up and we will be no more. You won’t hear from us.

Forgive my dramatic doomsday last line…but, seriously, together we have to find a better way.

Please support CharityComms’ campaign by blogging, commenting, and raising awareness with journalists, and their paymasters. When tweeting you can use the hashtag #copyrightfees.

I thought I’d give a little New Year plug to the two ladies of The High Tea Cast; an irreverent, savvy, audio magazine aimed predominantly at (I’d suggest) young women – but not exclusively so. The immediately accessible monthly podcast combines music and popular culture chat, and great interviews with cool young leaders in fashion, food and third sector projects.

Co-creators Sam Sparrow and Leanne Rice welcome their audience in each month with occasionally naughty banter that makes you feel like an old pal - Loose Women this ain’t.

Anyroad, 41 minutes into the latest edition, Sam - who heads up volunteering at non-profit Catch 22 – sets about persuading co-conspirator Leanne to lend her free time to some worthy community ventures in 2012. It’s a great introduction to some charity volunteering resources and platforms, and a lovely way to start the new year as we should all mean to go on; finding ways our skills can help others and doing something good. But it’s never preachy – always in the inimitable authenticity of The High Tea Cast project.

Nice one ladies. You can also subscribe via iTunes.

Two years ago (my, how time flies) I blogged about the ‘anti X-Factor’ song vying to oust the latest interchangeable factory-produced popster from reaching the coveted Christmas number one slot. By the following year, the ‘alternative X-factor’ single was as sure a thing as the festive fame-seeking track it wanted to undermine. There were covers, originals, and artists often associated their tracks with a non-profit – adding a seasonably-tinged charity angle to the competition (and not hurting sales).

One self-penned ditty by musician Tim Hain – knocked out hurriedly last year – slipped the net and omitted the charity link-up. Oops. But this year Tim is rectifying this and reviving his tongue-in-cheek jibe at the “X-factory“ as a fundraiser for Whizz-Kidz.

Tim is no stranger to the X-Factor. Despite being a seasoned songwriter and performer (having collaborated with legendary US producer Narada Michael Walden) he entered the competition himself in 2009; the same year as the Rage Against The Machine chart battle. It’s safe to assume Tim didn’t get too far in the programme…

“Sorry, it’s a no” is his amusing rebuttal to the way “artists” are selected and manicured by the show’s production team, and contains other ”X-factor rejects” including disabled actor and singer Asta Philpot. Asta, who has arthrogryposis, courted his own controversy (largely with a non-disabled audience) in the BBC’s One Life series back in 2007, where he dared to reveal disabled people want, enjoy – and seek – sex, just like anyone else.

Give the video a watch – it’s well crafted, affectionately amusing, and is easily the only Xmas single containing a man with arthrogryposis cheekily offering to “show you his tricks”. Asta and Tim believe that the X-Factor doesn’t really give artists (disabled or non disabled) a genuine chance to shine as individuals. Meanwhile every copy of “Sorry, it’s a no” downloaded from iTunes will help Whizz-Kidz support more disabled kids to lead active, independent lives and reach their own ambitions . Surely that’s worth 79p, eh? It’s “yes” from me. Happy Christmas.

Buy it now on iTunes: http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/sorry-its-a-no/id407490172

I’m particularly proud to say that last night Whizz-Kidz won the Party Conference Innovation award at the Public Affairs News Awards; in front of a starry audience of MPs and sector professionals in public affairs, government relations, policy and communications. It took place at the 8 Northumberland venue, near Trafalgar Square.

Shortlisted to the final four nominees by a 24 strong judging panel, success was particularly meaningful as the winner was voted for live by the audience, using interactive keypads.

We won the award for our use of self-podcasting tool Audioboo at the Labour and Conservative Party Conferences earlier this year.

Two young disabled Whizz-Kidz Ambassadors Jamie Green and Max Sampson, both 17 and wheelchair users, turned interviewers as they quizzed Labour and Conservative MPs and MSPs, as well as big-hitting journalists like Jeremy Paxman, Andrew Marr, and Sky’s Adam Boulton. The young people eked out a very human and fun-loving side to politicians used to dissociating themselves from everything fun.

After selling-in the ‘boos, we picked up media coverage for our ‘scoops’ in Society Guardian and Scottish current affairs magazine, Holyrood.

All the interviewees adopted the audioboos in good humour, some were very candid, and many tweeted their followers that they had met us; helping to raise awareness of our work.

You can listen to all of our winning ‘boo interviews on Whizz-Kidz’s audioboo channel: http://audioboo.fm/Whizz-Kidz.

Congratulations too to our fellow finalists Open Road, InHouse Communications (sorry Katie!) and the Institution of Occupational Safety and Health (IOSH).

Want to know more? I’ll be presenting on this (now award-winning) piece of work, and talking about how to engage your charity’s users as ‘producers’ at the next NFP Tweetup on 24 November 2011, at The British Heart Foundation. Hope to see you there if you can get a ticket - they go like hot cross buns!

Those brave champions of mediocrity, blandness, the white, and the wealthy (The Daily Mail, natch) published a particularly bile-fuelled attempt at a dirty protest on Saturday [FreezePage link] - spinning two separate stories into a maelstrom of middle-class mind-masturbation.

It shouts in the header, “Outrage as Tesco backs gay festival… but drops support for cancer charity event“. No hysteria there.

As Marketing Week revealed over a month ago, Tesco has called time on sponsoring Cancer Research UK’s Race for Life events after a decade of support. In charity terms this has been an immense corporate partnership – helping to raise hundreds of millions of pounds through advertising, marketing, event participants, and community support.

I feel it’s probably about the right time for another firm to inject new blood and passion into Race for Life, as CRUK shakes off its own problems with recruiting places this year (amid the common criticism of its refusal to let men take part in memory of lost wives, mothers, sisters, and so on – which would increase participants considerably incidentally).

Seperately, Pride London recently announced that Tesco is to be one of the Gold Sponsors – as well as Smirnoff who actually carry the mantle of headline sponsor (a fact omitted by The Mail) – of WorldPride 2012. As Pride’s website states, Tesco also invested in last year’s Gay Pride event – operating a family-friendly entertainment area.

The Daily Mail, however, let its filth and fury fly – reporting on these two unrelated and incomparable announcements as if they were either / or decisions; throwing in a large measure of homophobia courtesy of quoting that liberal organ The Catholic Herald.

I think this story gets my goat particularly because as usual there is no attempt to contextualise or rationalise charity and corporate relationships within the wider sector, nor to look at trends of supporter fatigue or brand renewal. No attempt at journalistic digging at how usual it is for companies to marry themselves to a charity for a decade. But then The Mail despises the fact that charities operate as businesses to deliver vital services, so that doesn’t exactly surprise me.

Full disclosure: my own employer Whizz-Kidz continues to receive a huge amount of pro bono and financial support from Tesco that has helped us deliver more services to disabled children; and the supermarket remains a stalwart provider of work placements for our young disabled kids who aren’t being given breaks by other companies. Their employees also raised over £65,000 for the charity through fundraising events alone last year.

Tesco – like any huge corporate – can be knocked for any number of things; but accusing them of ditching one newspaper group’s (and Catholic homophobes’) notion of charitable support and neglecting others is patently inaccurate and (to use a topical phrase) exercising willful blindness.

4 November 2011 UPDATE: Well, I did it – bar *one day* where I was sat on the head table at a friend’s wedding; managing to remain polite but limiting myself to three drinks all night. However, little was I to know when I took on the challenge this was to be a very hard month for me; as serendipity would have it it was the focus of sobriety that helped me see it through.

My father was diagnosed with, operable, cancer but at a late stage – and in the last week has lost his entire nose, his neck lymph nodes, and a facial nerve in surgery to excise it. Just a tiny bit of chemo and six weeks of radiotherapy to go. I have really appreciated the support of those of you who knew about it and have wished him and our family well. His unwavering positivity has been an absolute inspiration to me, and I want him to know I’m proud of him (he knows).

Watch this space for my dad sharing his story actually – and possibly some fundraising activity for Rarer Cancers, Changing Faces and the fantastic St George’s Hospital, Tooting. Feel free to donate to them, or the charity my wife works for – the equally excellent Maggies.

The challenge – 30th September 2011

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ll probably have noticed my penchant for local independent sushi and Musetti coffee bar (yes, you read that right), Impression Café, in Victoria. This place – and its proprietors – are just the best, and I could wax on about it for ages, but this isn’t the space. I always err towards local, family and small businesses if I can, because I lament the once-heterogeneous city streets now lined by chain store after sodding Tesco after bloody Starbucks.

I’m also going through a bit of a health kick (aided by my sushi lunches, and the unseasonably warm weather encouraging me to run outside). So, big hat-tip to Ross Bailey for giving me a heads up on a campaign that combines a) getting a tad healthier, and b) sticking up for independents.

Sober October (also using the hashtag #booksnotbeer) is a campaign “for book lovers” devised by Stefanie Posavec and Kristen Harrison (the latter of Arty Peeps – who have created the website for free).

The idea is simple: work out the money you save from abstaining from alcohol during October – and spend it in an independent bookshop of your choosing when the month ends. It doesn’t have to be the whole month the website concedes, but count up the cash every time you would have bought booze – and use this to buy books for yourself and others in time for Christmas.

I love the simplicity, ethos, and low entry barrier for Sober for October (not to mention that is doesn’t mind you ‘cheating’, which is great for me as I have a good friend’s birthday and a wedding in October, for which it would just be rude not to partake in an alcoholic toast or six).

pic by Flickr user Kate Pugh

I’m choosing Copperfields to support; a nostalgic second hand bookshop in Wimbledon – the only independent bookstore in the area (and one of the only independent shops in Wimbledon full stop).

So, if you’re looking for a reason to ease up on the alcohol – why not consider going sober for October yourself? But play the game – don’t spend your savings on clothes or – ultimate sin (!) – on a popular online shop that rhymes with “Schmamazon”…And I promise not to spend mine on sushi. Deal?

The whole article is published at askCHARITY blog.

It’s party conference season, and at Whizz-Kidz we’re always looking for new ways for our young people to engage with MPs and decision makers. This year we downloaded Audioboo’s free app onto a smartphone for 17 year old ambassador Jamie to capture some great audio material at the Labour conference.

I hoped for some nice content we could share on our website and social media – but when I pitched the set of 20 ‘boos to Clare Horton at Society Guardian, one interview with Ken Livingstone captured her imagination.. Read the whole story over on the askCHARITY blog.

Pic: Flickr user, judygr

Inspired by a Telegraph journalist who knows who she is and has paid for her sins (no really) – oh and readers of the Daily Mail – I just thought I’d address this pesky recurring question about charity workers getting erm a salary. Whilst there are clearly some serious internal questions that charities can ask themselves (e.g. are there ways they can partner or cross-collaborate to have more impact on the users of services), to argue that charity sector workers should by default get paid peanuts (or simply ‘volunteer’) is provovative at best and naive at worst.

As most of us now realise (my Grandma permitting…no I take that back, even my grandma gets it), to have a scaleable and sustainable impact on service users charities have to have an infrastructure, be able to forecast their income, and attract skilled and innovative staff. And I’m afraid this last little point does require paying a reasonable and competitive salary – especially if the staff live in, oh I don’t know, say 2011.

The alternative is hiring staff that are either incredibly independently wealthy, or retired. Nowt wrong with these two demographics per se but I don’t think we can rely on them to run all of this country’s non-profits on their own. And organisational diversity is a cool thing, folks.

I’ve previously argued charities need to work smarter and diversify income, but the charity worker salary argument is a complete red herring and stops us having a more intelligent debate about delivering the best services and plugging holes in the public sector – in the context of a shrinking state and a tightening public purse. #salariesnotsushi

Regular readers of this blog may remember me talking last year about Cancer Research UK’s efforts to give supporters more choice over where their money goes. CRUK’s MyProjects initiative uses ‘crowdfunding’ to appeal to donors’ interests and preferences – handing the decision over to us as to which of their research we want to fund. The projects get off the ground by us all chipping in what we can – the same principle that runs sites like Wikipedia for crowdsourcing knowledge.

I’m therefore excited to see the emergence of SoLoCo – launched in Beta a few days ago during Social Media Week in Scotland – purporting to be the UK’s first proper crowdfunding website for the third sector.

At present, there are 11 projects – all Scottish based – bidding for our cash, including erm SoLoCo itself as it seeks funding for three salaries for two months, required to kickstart the running of the initiative. The other projects range from funding community radio to youth schemes and even an online newspaper to prioritise debate on the Scottish independence referendum.

However, SoLoCo invites charities from across the whole of the UK to offer up their projects – for free, as long as they match the following criteria:

1.  The project benefits the community
2.  It has a UK bank account
3.  It is based in the UK

SoLoCo promises a strict process of verification to ensure all schemes are legitimate and include a project timeline.

It’s clearly early days, but the site looks stylish and intuitive, with big clicky buttons guiding the visitor through each project’s details to where they can donate safely and simply, using PayPal. I also like how SoLoCo has encouraged charities to add rich content like video and images to bring their projects to life and really ‘sell themselves’. Another nice touch are suggestions for charities on how to advertise, such as setting up a Facebook page and using email marketing.

The future?

Hats off to co-founders Kirsty Burnham and John Ayscough, as they employ a big idea (which counts the President of the United States among its champions) to encourage micropayments of the many to fund local projects which don’t generally attract large grants to keep them afloat. I for one wish SoLoCo success, as it points to a potential future for many charities in this age of depleting statutory funding and, arguably, the ‘traditional donor’.

As this somewhat “no, really?” piece in The Guardian last week states, donors are more interested in giving to charities they have a stake or personal interest in, as opposed to the pull of any ‘grand narrative’ of giving.

Speaking of which…it’s almost time for Children in Need again isn’t it?

You can buy a Coca-Cola virtually anywhere in developing countries, but in these same places up to one in five children die before their 5th birthday.

On 20 September, as part of a series of free events with Sounddelivery, I asked Simon Berry what his innovative movement ColaLife is trying to do to tackle this.

Simon explained how he is using social media (from Twitter, to facebook, to blogs and audioboo) to help raise awareness of his efforts to use Coca-Cola’s distribution channels to carry ‘social products’ such as oral rehydration salts and zinc supplements to save children’s lives.

If you couldn’t make it over (or even if you did), I’ve captured the event using Storify over on my posterous blog (wordress wasn’t playing ball, so I couldn’t post the html here). For this, and future events, you can follow live on Twitter and ask questions from afar using #soundtalks.