YouthNet blog
An insight into youth issues, volunteering trends, charity life and more from the UK charity YouthNet
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Monday Oct 29, 2007
Welcome to the pony club?
I went to a training seminar on Friday afternoon for corporate fundraisers from a mix of different charities. During the coffee break I was stood gazing out the window when another (male) fundraiser wondered over and asked me if I felt, like him, a little out numbered.
Looking round the room I could see what he meant. Out of around 40 delegates, there were 3 guys (myself included). What's more, I would estimate that 75% of the audience were white females, under the age of 30.
A colleague at a former employer coined a term for this huge gender and class generalisation – "the pony club". I think that's a big assumption (and pretty degrading to be honest), but it can't be denied that the majority of corporate fundraisers do fit the same demographic (and I include myself 100% in this group).
I've noticed a similar trend with CSR and Community Investment professionals as well – from my experience most entry level CSR roles are held by women under the age of 30, although the percentage of women seems to drop sharply as you move up in seniority (which some of you won't be surprised about).
So why is corporate fundraising (and I suspect fundraising in general) so dominated by women? In fact, why are there so many white, traditionally middle class corporate fundraisers (and I'm slap bang in the middle of that group)?
Sociologists – over to you.
I'm going to do a completely unscientific study and keep a tally of the gender and ethnicity split at the next few seminars I go to – if you're really lucky I might even put the results up on this blog (unless I get a life in the meantime and find other things to wonder about).
Posted by Sam Thomas ( 9:46 AM ) Link to this post Comments[2]
Monday Oct 15, 2007
Without trust, we've got nothing
Last Thursday I spent the morning with 100 or so people holed up in a hot room in Westminster talking about security, openness, access and diversity. I know, the excitement never ends.
We were all there for something called the Nominet Best Practice Challenge. A bunch of organisations – including YouthNet – were up for awards based around these four topics. Nominet wanted to reward organisations doing interesting things, but also take these examples of good practice to the Internet Governance Forum event in Rio next month. That way, they could potentially be replicated in other countries.
We didn't win our category ('openness') – our clever friends at MySociety did. Other winners included NetCraft, who have created an anti-phishing toolbar, ChildNet for its internet safety resource Know IT All, and Computer Aid International which refurbishes old PCs and sends them to developing countries.
Some strong themes came through in the morning, not just in the awards but in wider conversations. Security is seen widely as the key issue with regards to the development of the internet in the UK, encompassing concerns around child protection and exploitation, fraud and privacy. These and other problems risk eroding the public's trust in the internet as a safe platform to shop, bank, find information and network.
And once the trust goes, we're all buggered.
This is part of an outbreak of awards activity for YouthNet.
Last month we won the Best Use of Technology Award at the Charity Times Awards and next month we're up for Community Project of the Year at the Computing Awards.
(As an aside, the Charity Times Awards website hasn't been updated since well before the awards dinner; I can't begin to explain how much this annoys me. Most organisations learned that golden rule of web production years ago – websites need to be maintained regularly. More grist to the mill for those who think magazine publishers Still Don't Get It.)
Posted by Dom Waghorn ( 12:39 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Wednesday Oct 10, 2007
Public funded pornography
Heard about the latest internet filth?
"This film is degrading to women and encourages casual sex and normalises certain kinds of sexual behaviour" says the guy from MediaWatch.
'I'm no Mary Whitehouse but this is just disgusting" says the woman from the National Confederation of Parent Teachers Associations.
To tell the truth, getting these guys to bite must have been like shooting fish in a barrel – a bit like having Family and Youth Concern comment on our smutty website TheSite.org.
But what, pray tell, has got their goat?
You can see for yourself below.
It's a viral campaign to promote awareness of HIV and Aids among young people, put together by the BBC and the Terrence Higgins Trust. It's trying to counter some alarming statistics – 41% of 16-24 year olds believe they are at 'no risk' from HIV, despite a consistent increase in cases over the past 10 years.
We're promoting the campaign on TheSite.org. Some people might find it a bit lowbrow; others might think it's funny. It's hardly disgusting.
Posted by Dom Waghorn ( 3:23 PM ) Link to this post Comments[0]
Thursday Oct 04, 2007
Is the voluntary sector up for the fight?
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, along with three other Foundations, have come under criticism from a range of charities recently, by funding MTV's ThinkMTV.com.
According to The New York Times, several charities had applied to some of the funders to support their own social networking sites – and been turned down.
Whilst I completely agree that the infrastructure of the voluntary sector desperately needs investment, I don't see that funding a commercial organisation is necessarily a problem.
As I've mentioned before, the lines between charities, social enterprises and businesses are blurring at an ever-increasing rate – and it's no longer a case of "charity good, business bad". MTV's reach into the youth audience is unparalleled by the non-profit sector – if they can use this to inspire young people to affect social change, why shouldn't they have the support of charitable foundations?
The bad news for fundraisers is that increasingly we will compete with commercial organisations like MTV for resources and funding – in addition to the increasing number of other charities out there doing great work.
How will we differentiate ourselves? I'm not sure that talking about our values, or the "ethos of the voluntary sector" is enough any more. We need proven expertise and excellence to rival the skills of the commercial sector.
Posted by Sam Thomas ( 9:14 AM ) Link to this post Comments[1]
