We're an e-democracy company based in Bristol and London. We're excited about this project and keen to be involved.
We have specialist experience in designing and delivering large-scale online collaboration services for the third sector and second-tier agencies (Engage East Midlands, JANET, JISC).
We can find and engage people online and we’re also pretty good at integrated online and offline communications campaigns with big media spends (e-Vote Sheffield, for instance).
We’re not in a position to deliver the offline engagement / in-person support and advice services which make up the bulk of the tender. This would need to be done by someone with a national presence and the ability to mobilise knowledgeable, respectable people to key third sector innovators.
We’re also not in a position to shape up the governance and management processes for the prospective consortium required by the tender. We will need a specialist manager who can pull together, oversee and manage our bidding consortium.

Ben Whitnall
ben@delib.co.uk
0845 638 1848
http://www.delib.co.uk

I'm a colleague of David Wilcox based in Edinburgh, but working with communities all over the UK. I work mainly on regeneration projects providing the hands on community engagement for multi-discipline teams. Lately I have been more involved in the strategies of engagement and how it should slot into the wider activities of agencies.

I also develop games for use by communities, agencies and (occasionaly)commercial organisations. Recent examples include games for the Department of Constitutional Affairs on Public Engagement and for the Department of Ccommunities and Local Government on the Digital Challenge process (both with David). I have also developed storytelling processes for Community Cohesion studies in Lancashire and an Organisational Network mapping approach for use with partnerships UK wide.

Hi all,

I am interested in exploring and supporting the potential of the online/offline crossover in this project - about using both worlds connectedly, intelligently. Happy to help out with parts of the project about this.

More information about me here:
http://www.edmitchell.co.uk/blog/?page_id=4

Thanks Ben. I'm excited by this project as a way to develop ideas and practice crossing boundaries (sector, disipline, online-offline) to help people innovate and do good stuff.... and to do that collaboratively. Over the years I've worked a lot with Drew Mackie on collaboration processes, and games to support those http://www.usefulgames.org.uk. I'm also working online, as chronicled at http://www.designingforcivilsociety.org. Slogans for this project? How about ... If we keep on doing the same old things in the same old ways, we'll get the same old results. And - if someone has already worked out how to do it better, build on that. If you have, share it.

Very pleased to be involved in this group and look forward to meeting you all properly.

ruralnet|uk is a rural regeneration charity and it owns a trading subsidiary called RNUK Ltd which is where we do all of our non-exclusively-rural regeneration work. http://www.ruralnetuk.org/index.htm

We are a networking organisation operating online and offline. We set up a FirstClass-based collaboration system in 1998 aimed at rural regeneration organisations: http://www.ruralnet.org.uk/home.shtml This has grown and now links up members of around 20 non-rural networks. See http://www.networksonline.org.uk/default.htm

We run the biggest rural regeneration conference of the year. This year ruralnet|2007 will be held at the Belfry in Warwickshire. See http://ruralnet.typepad.com/conference/

We are in the process of moving all our online services to Web 2.0 (traumatic and motivating!). Prototypes of the first two manifestations of this are at: http://www.i-see-t.org.uk/xpress and http://www.i-see-t.org.uk/inforurale

We plan to have our Experts Online service transferred by 28/6/07.

We run an annual collaboration event for our partners (actual, past and potential). This year it is on 28/6/07 in Rugby. Please let me know if you'd like an invitation (it's free).

We have quite a lot of experience running large-ish government and European funded programmes. The current one is net:gain - www.net-gain.org.uk This is a capacity buidling project with an annual budget of around £1.25m.

Personal stuff:
www.ruralnet.typepad.com/pride2007
www.gpscycle.com
www.ruralnet.org.uk/~s.berry

Regards

Simon
17/4/07

Engage East Midlands' Sector Development work -
"In the past, voluntary and community organisations were seen as needing knowledge and skills delivered to them. But now voluntary and community organisations are able to support each other, and they have an enormous amount to offer the private and public sectors too. We are on the cusp of a new period when the third sector really is a pillar of society that stands as strong as the pillars of government and business. We have a tremendous opportunity to shape society in a way that we have never been able to do before."

Working together has always bought many rewards proving to be beneficial to all the individuals and organisations involved; for example students may establish study groups to share and learn from each other to achieve better exam results.

Collaboration is the name given to activities carried out jointly towards a shared goal. Engage East Midlands believes that working in a collaborative way has tremendous potential that would have a positive impact on the voluntary and community sector.

Some organisations already acknowledge collaboration as a way of working. 45% are involved in between two to five working arrangements, source: RS4 - Collaborative Working and Mergers (Version April 2003). However these organisations are likely to be large charities and therefore small to medium sized charities within the voluntary and community sector need to become aware of the benefits of collaboration.

Engage East Midlands commitment and belief in collaboration has been proven through the innovative work piloted around Cluster Development. In the future this work will expand to include other related subjects, like not-for-profit management, leadership and other joint working methods that would further benefit the voluntary and community sector.


Engage East Midlands, supported by the East Midlands Development Agency and the Charities Aid Foundation, has pioneered the use of cluster development as an approach to economic development normally used in the commercial sector.

A preliminary study was completed to demonstrate that many voluntary and community organisations in the East Midlands had the potential to develop more strongly if they did so together, in clusters of related organisations. Clusters are groups of organisations that share the same infrastructure, clients or skills base. Cluster development helps these groups

share information and costs;
lobby together;
provide more joined up services.
As one voluntary group member who took part in the research said: "I think clusters will help us in sharing knowledge and experiences and try to keep people from reinventing the wheel in each of their little corners. At the end of the day, we will all gain because perhaps we won't have wasted resources or repeated projects."

For further information contact: jasvinder or visit www.vcscollaborate.org

Research Function -

Third Sector Research and Intelligence Support Needs

Third sector research has two dimensions: on one hand there is research undertaken by the sector on community issues; on the other there is research on the Third Sector itself.

The role of Third Sector research is not only to provide an independent (professional & academic) lens to look at the issues of main social concerns – social & economic research - but also to explore the various dimensions of the Sector itself by examining the role it is playing in the social, economic, cultural and political development of society.

For example, whilst some infrastructure organisations such as Voice East Midlands would carry out research on health inequalities for BME communities in the East Midlands, it would also research the role of BME social enterprises in the economic and social regeneration of minority communities.




Functions Addressing Third Sector Research needs

The needs outlined above can be divided into the following four functions:

 Research funding and commissioning function: Provide advice and mechanisms to regional funders on pooling and coordination of funds for the Third Sector research; allowing sector stakeholders and funders to coordinate and rationalise their funding of research by and on the Third Sector.
 Regional research function: Manage and carry out research and consultations on behalf of the Third Sector and stakeholders that meet expectations of rigour and stakeholder/beneficiary involvement.
 Research coordination and dissemination/knowledge management function: provision and management of a knowledge base; facilitating collaboration and information-sharing (for example, facilitating joint identification of gaps in knowledge and research needs; facilitating access to and use of Third Sector research; and brokering collaborative research initiatives.)
 Research capacity-building function: promoting effective research by providing support to local and regional infrastructure organisations to be able to better initiate, carry out, and use research.