Work in partnership to get the most out of the internet

Charities need to work more in partnership with others to improve the use of the internet by the sector, according to a new report by the Nominet Trust.

Head of research and development at the Trust, Dan Sutch, said the main thing that came out of the report is that: “Charities need to work in partnership with other organisations looking at new ways to create value.”

Charities’ Use of the Internet was commissioned by the Trust as an internal document to inform its work but Sutch said it decided to make available to the sector as, the information “was too rich to keep to ourselves.”

It concludes that: “Internet use and new technology adoption generally will enable survival in an environment becoming more discerning and more competitive in terms of donating and volunteering, and adoption is therefore in the best interests of organisations in this sector.”

Challenges identified in the report include, a lack of “top team leadership” on ICT issues, the cost of ICT investment, over-reliance on ‘net-savvy’ volunteers, the difficulty keeping up with public expectations and the increasing importance of data security.

social media sites have ranked the lowest in public opinion when it comes to safeguarding personal data.

More than three-quarters (79 per cent) of respondents were either ‘not very’ or ‘not at all’ confident in social media sites keeping their data secure, according to research by YouGov.

The research also showed just 14 per cent were either ‘very’ or ‘fairly confident’ that social networking sites such as Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn would safeguard their data.

Mobile phone providers also failed to win over the British public, with just 26 per cent of responses suggesting confidence in this area.

Steve Durbin, global vice president of the Information Security Forum, told IT PRO this wasn’t necessarily a bad reflection on social media sites themselves.

“I think it would be very easy to interpret this as a statement on the security readiness or integrity of the sites themselves and I think that this would not necessarily represent the facts,” he said.

“I would see the [percentages] acting as a reassurance that many people now understand the risks associated with disclosing personal information in this way and are therefore cautious about what they disclose.”

Not all sectors fared so badly. Medical organisations and financial institutions led the results by a mile, achieving 63 per cent and 53 per cent of votes of support respectively.

But when data goes astray from a health body, it always hits the headlines.

“Sadly we put our trust in the individual who we have trusted with our ailments (and quite often generations before us) for many years and they have no control over where our data is stored or where it ends up,” Mark James, technical manager of eset uk, told IT PRO.

“This data is often passed to third parties for analysis or safe keeping. Clear guidelines and procedures need to be in place to track and monitor exactly where the data is held and who is able to view this information at any given time.”

for more information visit -

http://www.itpro.co.uk/631732/public-mistrusts-social-media-with-data

Good use of technology allows charities to maximize their resources, raise more money, communicate more powerfully and to wider audiences, operate and deliver services to end users more effectively, cheaply, 24/7 and ultimately to change more lives.

Dawn Austwick, chief executive of Esmée Fairbairn, opened the event saying: ‘Today is about how we, as funders, become more effective, help the organisations that we fund, and in turn, allow them to help excluded or hard-to-reach groups to both benefit from technology.’

for more information visit

http://raceonline2012.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/esmee-fairbairn-funders-roundtable/