Mark Schueler

CHASE

POWER International were kind enough to let me attend the annual Charities and Associations Exhibition (CHASE) on 23rd February at the Business Design Centre in Islington. The exhibition comprises of a series of lectures or seminars over two days conducted by a variety of experienced and successful people from the charity sector.

CHASE also provides a series of exhibition stalls from a number of companies offering their services to charities, such as Justgiving, insurance companies and even a recruitment consultant.

The seminars provide an excellent opportunity to enhance your skills in the charity sector and they covered a wide-range of topics, from ‘Maximising Donor Development’ to ‘How Good is your Online Presence? All of this for free!

‘How Social Media can Boost your Events‘

This, our first seminar, was an excellent start to the day. The lecture theatre was packed to the rafters; social media is obviously creating a buzz in the charity sector at the moment. Jonathan Waddingham from Justgiving hosted the seminar and I learned quite a lot from the information he provided. I don’t use twitter very much, I don’t like it but I see it as a necessary evil and have helped to develop POWER’s twitter account. I am however on Facebook and I learned quite a few tricks on how to develop your Facebook page and Twitter account and maximise exposure of your events.

One of the main ideas was to target your supporters and segment your audience according to your event. For example, if you are organising a fundraising night in nightclub, it might be a good idea to target the supporters on your Facebook page who like going clubbing. You then create an event link so that your fans can join the event. He suggested making a video about your event and putting it up on youtube.

Apart from more obvious points, like taking videos and photos of events and putting them on your fan page, one great tip I learned was to use Facebook ‘Insights’ to measure the demographic of your supporters. Facebook Insights can provide great market research about the demographic of people who are your fans on Facebook and on who have attended your events.  It gives you statistics such as the age-range and geographical location of your fans and event attendees.

Other ways to publicise events are to create a ‘flashmob’ to publicise a kind of guerrilla event that everybody finds out about a few days prior to the event and then attends. This method gives the event a real buzz, and a hospice charity used this to organise a very successful midnight fundraising walk in their local community.

‘Maximising Opportunities from Challenge Events’

This seminar was conducted by charity challenge and provided good advice that I have used to expand the portfolio of charity challenge events that POWER International currently offers. They talked about their most popular challenges at the moment (including number 1. Mount Kilimanjaro climb, 2. Great Wall of China discovery tour, 3. London to Paris) and gave a comparison of the pros and cons of Open challenges (events that anyone can access and choose the charity of their choice from a list) and Exclusive challenges (events that are specifically set up by charities for their own supporters and members ).

He talked about the current charity challenge event climate, and although this industry has been slightly hit by the recession it has also been bolstered by the increased exposure from celebrity participation in challenges such as Comic Relief’s celebrity climb up Mount Kilimanjaro and Eddie Izzard’s road running marathon in which he ran 43 marathons in 51 days. The knock-on effect of these epic challenges is that the average man/woman in the street will think: ‘If Chris Moyles can climb all the way up Mount Kilimanjaro, then I bloody can’! This is known in the third sector as the ‘Chris Moyles Effect’.

‘Diversifying Your Fundraising”

This seminar was basically tips on how to raise money for charity using methods other than traditional charitable trust and foundation applications. I have to say that some of the suggestions lurched from the sublime (using www.recycle4charity.co.uk- where your supporters can recycle old ink cartridges etc for money) to the ridiculous (’walking on glass’ fundraising events, and muchloved.com- where you can set up a webpage in memory of someone who has died…..really??!).

‘How to get a great job’

This was a great seminar for me as it included very useful methods on how to improve your CV and get a great job in the third sector. It was hosted by Niall Campbell who very kindly offered to look at my CV and suggest changes, and he was true to his word!

I am now in my last week at POWER and while this is a sad prospect I have learned so much. Overall, CHASE provided an excellent stepping stone along this long and winding learning curve that is the road to third sector employment!

My next blog will be an update about what I have beenup to recently. If you would like me to feature more ‘Stories of Change’ from our programmes in Zambia, Mozambique or Laos, as was featured in my previous post, then I would be happy to do so.

Thanks for reading and take it easy,

Mark

This week I have been working on POWER’s stories of change from Mozambique which I have received from Cidia, our Mozambique Country Manager. I have been editing them so that they fit into our regular format for such arcticles. They are very interesting and really showcase the fantastic work POWER’s radio listening clubs conduct in Mozambique.

Many of our radio listening clubs are located in rural districts and the reason why is because it provides people in more remote parts of the country and to have access to the information our radio programmes provide. Why radio,  I hear you ask. It’s because radio is the most effective way to communicate information across a country like Mozambique, which has had its infrastructure severely damaged by years of civil war. The radio listening clubs are a key media outlet for disabled people in Mozambique, providing everything from information about Aids, womens’ and disabled people’s rights, right through to drama and entertainment.

Here is a story from Adelaide in Zambezia province, enjoy!

Talk-Talk

Adelaide says that being able to share disability issues with others has changed her life.

A TRAGIC ACCIDENT 

Adelaide lives in Alto Molocué, Zambezia is 49 years old and is unemployed. She has severe mobility issues due to a disability that affects her lower limbs, caused by an accident during her childhood. When playing with friends on top of a steep hill, she fell and injured herself. Her legs were broken and the doctors made efforts to recover her mobility, but to no avail.

A DETERMINATION TO SUCCEED

Once disabled, Adelaide found difficulty finding employment. To escape poverty, she made objects out of clay, such as pots, vases, anything she could sell in order to survive. Adelaide’s positive and determined attitude is summed up by her maxim:

 ”I am a capable woman, so I never let my disability stop me from doing anything.”

A LIFE CHANGING DECISION

2 years ago, Adelaide transformed her life by joining POWER’s radio listening and women’s clubs in Alto Molocué. Through the clubs she has cultivated relationships with fellow members and established a network of mutual support. “I learnt about what my rights were, was given duties in the station and now feel empowered so that I can help my friends,” she said. She now knows more about domestic violence and the measures needed to prevent infection of Aids and that disabled women in particular are victims of domestic violence. This is a subject that Adelaide feels should be discussed more widely.

We also met Ollie, a representative from realbuzz.com, a healthy living site which promotes challenge events for charities. We met to discuss the possibility of buying 10 places in a half-marathon event and will put the information we received from him to our trustees at our sub-committee meeting in March. We were looking at places for the Silverstone half-marathon which sounds good.

I have also been working on databases, transferring John’s trusts to our main database, not the most exciting task I have been set but a very necessary one! My next post will be about the stories of change I have been editing for our website which feature POWER’s Radio Clubs in Mozambique and the wonderful work they have been carrying out to change people with disabilities’ lives for the better.

Zambia

So this week has been varied. I have been researching more trusts and have been determining their suitability for FEED (Farming Enterprise and Employment for Disabled people) our farm project in Zambia. The budget for this project is £32,000 per year to keep the existing farms going and expanding them to other districts.

Each farm currently employs 80 disabled people althought they have the potential to reach a further 150 people either affected by disability themselves or that have someone who is disabled in their family. The funds are urgently needed in order to fund this project which means that some of the most impoverished disabled people in the world can enjoy self-sustenance and economic stability.

So after contacting lots of ‘Invisible grantmakers’ who feature on a special list and other trusts regading funding applications, the response has so far been a mixture of positive feedback, negative feedback and wrong phone numbers!

But I have been doing more this week…

Ok so its been another hectic week and can’t believe I am now past the half-way point of the World of Difference scheme, sob sob. But it’s not all doom and gloom. Last week I was busy promoting our challenge events, specifically contacting local bike shops about our cycle London to Paris event and even paying one a visit so I could hand over flyers. This was Freewheelin’ and even the guy running the store was interested in taking part.

I have also been promoting our ‘Farms in Zambia’ project, adapting the project summary for the Big Give website, which has now been published. The Big Give is a shop window of different charities’ projects for potential philanthropists.  Our farm project in Zambia will directly help 80 of some the  poorest disabled people in the world manage and develop their own farming communities in two of Zambia’s poorest districts, Livingstone and Solwesi. The farm also has the potential to reach a further 150 disabled people. To find out more, read about our project on the Big Give website here.

Moreover, I have been preparing some of our stories of change for our Newsletter, which concerns  people from our projects who’ves lives have been transformed by POWER and woking these stories into our Newsletter for each country concerned, for Mozambique, Laos and Zambia.

So at this point you may be wondering what I’ve been up to recently. Well quite alot as it happens. I’ve been trying to recruit volunteers to help us send out our spring appeal to over 2000 people. As we are a small charity, with only 1 full time member of staff and 3 part-time members you can imagine this is a difficult task, so any help we can get is appreciated!

I’ve written, phoned, emailed and sent a flyer to all local sixth form schools asking if students would be interested and I’ve put an advert in Your Chesham, a publication that reaches 10,000 homes and so far we’ve had two volunteers which is great already. Incidentally I also contacted the local press if they would be interested in looking at my work for POWER and the fact that I was on the World of difference scheme. Along with getting the volunteer advert published, I managed to get an article printed in Your Chesham, which is a bit of a result. As Sarah our CEO says, raising POWER’s profile is raising its power! Unfortunately I couldn’t get a copy of this article to put on here which is a bit annoying but hopefully by the next blog I will have worked it out!

I have also been in charge of promoting our two challenge events, Cycle London to Paris organised by Classic Tours and the Asics London 10k run. I’ve advertised these events on our website, sent them with the volunteering flyer to sixth form students and contacted gyms, cycle and running clubs. So far I have confirmed two people for the run (including my self) with another 4 interested, plus we have another four already confirmed so that’s going well.

As well as that I have been researching and inputting data about John Abbey’s trusts (see previous post) and major donors into databases, attended the Sub-committee meeting where I aired my views, taking phone calls, updating our schools database and looking at other challenge event possibilities. All in all its been a busy few weeks and I hope to update you all again very soon.

All the best,

Mark

John Abbey

More phone stuff

London Euston, not quite sure what happened to this photo, but just to prove we went there for the meeting!

My friend and fellow World of Differencer, Karla

World of Difference Induction Day – A video we were shown at the end

Phone demonstration

More phone tapping

Viv from Poet in the City (A great charity, I urge you to read about it on her blog) operating the new phone

My friend Stephen Campbell, Fundraising Director of Computer Aid

World of Difference Induction Day

So last Monday my World of Difference experience began in earnest at the WOD induction day. I’d like to say thank you to Vodafone for hosting such a well organised, informative event. We heard from some inspiring speakers, in particular Lucy Caslon, a winner of WOD’s 2008 International programme  who it seemed had so far followed a similar career path to me. We were then given a new phone, (which i am currently using to write this blog), bag, usb stick and notepad. After some handy media training and a group photo we were on our way into the heady world of charity fundraising.

First day at POWER – Trip to London

Next up my first day back at power but this time in my new role as ‘Publicity and Marketing Officer’. Warning this paragraph will contain lots of names and job titles but they are all important to the blog! Instead of going to the offices in High Wycombe, I was told by Jane, my line manager and Fundraising and Communications Manager to meet her in Euston. We then proceeded to meet Stephen, Director of Fundraising for the charity Computer Aid, and a trustee of POWER International, Computer Aid’s Trusts Officer, Carol and a man named John Abbey. John is founder and Managing Director of a company called Abbey Solutions that has been in existence since 1999 and supports NGOs (Non-Governmental Organisations) in the UK, China, Balkans, and India.

One of aspect of his consultancy that we were interested in was his ‘Trust list’ as Jane coined it, a database of trusts both abroad and in the UK handily categorised, user-friendly and on sale to charities.  Jane was interested in purchasing this list,  for the aformentioned reasons and because it would save myself and her alot of time and effort researching all of these trusts, which has taken John 20 years of experience in dealing with charities, charitable trusts and foundations to compile. As part of the meeting with John he also provided us with helpful and indeed invaluable advice as how best to apply for grants from charitable trusts and foundations. This will no doubt come in handy when we need to write many of these letters and attract the attention of influential trustees.

After saying our goodbyes to John and Computer Aid, Jane and I headed off for lunch and to set out a plan of action, including a long list of tasks, more of that in my next post! Ps. I intend to step up the posting to twice a week, starting this week!

Hello everyone and welcome to my blog page. I have to say that I have never blogged before, so this is going to be a bit of a learning curve.  Anyway first things first, you are reading this hopefully because, A) you know me, B) you’ve heard about the work that I do or have heard about POWER International or C) you’ve stumbled upon this page in one way or another and are intrigued, in which case I hope to maintain your interest. Indeed, to keep this blog as enthralling and mesmerising as possible I hope to intersperse it with pictures, videos, links, music and anything else to keep you reading on, and not heading off to Facebook.

I think the best thing to do is tell you a little bit more about me and POWER International in the next post and then in another tell you what I plan to do with POWER over my two month placement and what I have done so far. I’m going to try and limit the length of these posts to keep them as succint as possible so that if like me you have a short attention span you don’t go web wondering

Welcome to World of Difference UK. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!