If you're a fundraiser, someone new to the profession or if raising funds is part of your wider role then it's hard to ignore the potential of online tools and social media. For many charities their online giving strategy starts and stops with a donate-button on their website, often with little thought put in to how they'll encourage people to part with their hard earned cash. 

Our Third Sector Lab Online Fundraising workshop is here to help. Hosted by Sara Thomas, Fundraiser with MND Scotland and former Be Good Be Social speaker, the half-day workshop will give you everything you need to get started fundraising online.

Part of the GCVS Learning and Development programme, the training workshop is just £65 for members or £85 for non-members. The workshop runs twice on Thu 23rd February 2012, allowing you to choose between a morning or afternoon session.

What Sara will be covering:

· An introduction to online fundraising tools – how to get started & notes on best practice

· Incorporating online fundraising into your overall fundraising strategy

· Practical workshop – how do we make this work in your organisation?

What Sara wants participants to bring:

· Enthusiasm

· Curiosity

· Any questions that they have about online fundraising, especially ones specific to their organisation.

What Sara wants participants to take from the session:

· A clear idea of the range of online fundraising tools available

· To feel confident about getting started, or feel more secure in their existing knowledge

· To feel confident about integrating online/digital fundraising into their existing strategy

· Ideas for the use of online fundraising that’s specific to their organisation

· To come away with practical tips about digital fundraising that are drawn from case study and real life experience

Book online now.

£65 GCVS members, £85 non-members.

You can choose between a morning or afternoon session.

Thu 23rd February 2012 9.30am - 12.30pm

Thu 23rd February 2012 1.30pm - 4.30pm

You can contact Stacey on 0141 332 2444 or stacey.anderson@gcvs.org.uk if you'd prefer to be invoiced or to have a booking form sent to you.

This workshop is part of a range of social media training workshops available at GCVS in partnership with Third Sector Lab.

Well it seems a fair few of you got in to the Christmas spirit and read my blog post about Shelter Scotland's Blantyre project. Over 20 gifts were received just in time for Christmas, staff at the service had feared they would not be able to provide a gift for every child.

Linda Dickson, Service Manager at Shelter Scotland’s Support Service South Lanarkshire, said:

“We are overwhelmed by the level of support we have received and it just goes to show the positive impact social media can have. Homelessness can have a devastating effect on children’s lives and Christmas can be a particularly difficult time for them and their families.

On behalf of everyone at Shelter Scotland I would like to send a heartfelt thank you to those who donated a gift and made Christmas Day a very special time for the families and children we work with."

I've become slightly addicted to the wonderful If This Then That (ifttt). In essence, ifttt is a way to put the internet to work for you by creating tasks that fit this simple structure: if this then that. For example:

TThere's tons of ifttt Channels (DropBox, Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, YouTube and more) which define Triggers and Actions, the basic building blocks for creating ifttt tasks.

I thought it would be interesting to have a play about with ifttt tasks and I came up with @WeegieWeather - an ifttt powered weather channel for Glasgow. This ifttt powered twitter account tweets when certain parameters are met, utilising the Yahoo Weather Channel as a trigger. So you'll get a tweet to let you know if it's going to be snowing tomorrow, if it's about to turn to rain in the afternoon, if it's bikini weather tomorrow, if it's going to be clear skies and so on. I've added a fair few weather triggers so weegies need never get caught without an umbrella or sun cream again.

I take no responsibility for the accuracy of the tweets as they're powered by Yahoo Weather not me. Don't moan to me that your picnik at Kelvingrove Park got rained upon if the tweets said it was clear skies.

A rather nice ifttt trigger/action I've set up means the @WeatherWeather twitter avatar should always reflect the weather right now in Glasgow. I used Creative Commons images for this:

Cloudy day (Clydeport crane) shot by Kristian Dela Cour.

Rainy day (Gibson St umbrella) shot by Neil H.

Snowy day (Glasgow uni) shot by Ian Dick.

Anyone can create their own weather channel for their city based upon the ifttt recipes I've shared. I'd love feedback on this and I'm especially interested to hear from other people using ifttt.