Here are some examples of how ICT could help you achieve your goals:

1. Better service delivery

• Make it easier for people to communicate with your organisation, using email, telephone, your website and text messaging.
• Reduce missed appointments by using text messaging to confirm times and remind clients.
• Use remote monitoring systems to ensure the safety of tenants or residents.
• Take laptops and other mobile equipment to community centres to provide computer and internet access to support community activities.
• Use text messaging to create an anonymous sexual health service for teenagers.
• Provide Internet access at your community centre for those people who don’t have it at home.

2. Better access to information for managers

• Collect, manage and report performance information to help run your organisation better.
• Prepare information for monitoring and report to funders.
• Identify trends, problems and possible solutions.

3. Better financial management

• Accounting software records income and expenditure and helps take care of VAT, tax and PAYE and the requirements of the Charity Commission.
• Use spreadsheets to manage project budgets and produce reports for trustees, managers and funders.

4. Better client records

• Keep client contact information in a database on your network to support shared work inside the organisation as well as with partners, funders and other outside bodies.
• Use remote access services to enable staff to access up-to-date information when visiting clients.
• Monitoring data can be collected from the client record system rather than collated manually.

5. Better information for your community

• Computers and the Internet can help to collect, manage and publish useful information to support telephone, online or face-to-face advice services.
• Information can be provided 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
• Online information can support community campaigns, such as accessing government statistics to back your case or tracking the voting record of your local MP on a key issue.
• Using an interactive website means members of your community can check information and update it when they see mistakes

6. Better staff development

• Encourage staff and volunteers to use the Internet to keep up to date with key issues in your field.
• Encourage staff and volunteers to share ICT skills and ‘top tips’ to help the organisation run more smoothly.
• Online learning courses can be a flexible, lowcost way of improving capabilities and knowledge within your networks.
• Share knowledge with peers informally through email and online forums.
• Subscribe to specialist online information resources such as magazines, or news from professional bodies.

7. Better fundraising

• Use the web and email to identify potential funders and research your bids.
• Set up a payments system on your website to make it easier for people to donate money.
• Use free checklists and professional advice from fundraising sites to improve your fundraising skills.

8. Better external communications

• Use desktop publishing to design and print leaflets, flyers, stationery, newsletters, annual reports, posters, t-shirts and postcards.
• Set up and run websites, email lists or online discussion forums to promote your cause or make links with potential partners.
• Deliver high-quality presentations using a laptop, digital projector and PowerPoint.
• Run campaigns and mobilise support using print, email and the web.
• Use video to overcome literacy barriers.
• Run a local radio station through a website.
• Tell local stories and raise awareness of local concerns through a community website, using podcasts, bulletin boards or photo-sharing.

9. Better internal communications

• Share information and work files with colleagues on a server.
• Use remote access, email, Internet telephone services and video conferencing so that staff and volunteers can be flexible and work on multiple sites.
• Make sure induction packs, internal policies and other key documents can be found easily using an intranet.
• Help trustees, volunteers, partners, funders and other stakeholders feel part of your decision-making process by using email, bulletin boards, etc.

10. Better administration

• Manage your information in a more methodical way and spend less time finding things by using a shared file server.
• Use mail merge to save time when sending out large numbers of documents – whether in the post or by email.
• Use shared calendars and email to schedule meetings.
• Save time and money by sharing resources such as printers, rather than transferring information from PC to PC.
• A web-based timesheet system enables remote staff to log time spent on projects.