Canadian Volunteering and giving

From the 2010 Canada Survey of Giving, Volunteering and Participating (CSGVP).

In 2010, 84 per cent of the Canadian population aged 15 and over, made a financial donation to a charitable or non-profit organisation, for a total of $10.6 billion. Both the percentage of the population donating and the total amount of donations were relatively unchanged from 2007. The average annual donation in 2010 was $446 per donor, virtually unchanged from 2007. Those who gave the most were more likely to be older, to have a higher household income and a formal education, or to attend weekly religious services or meetings.

At the same time, more than 13.3 million people, or 47% of the population, volunteered nearly 2.1 billion hours in 2010 or the equivalent of nearly 1.1 million full-time jobs (assuming 40 hours per week for 48 weeks) through a group or organisation. Canadians who volunteered did so for an average of 156 hours in 2010, relatively unchanged from 2007.

Those who volunteered the most hours tended to be older, widowed and no longer in the workforce. They were also likely to not have any children at home and to attend weekly religious services or meetings.
However, the highest rates of volunteering were found among Canadians who were younger, were single, married or in a common-law relationship, or had young children at home.

The proportion of the population who made a financial donation to charitable and non-profit organizations was highest in the Atlantic provinces. However, the donors from the Western provinces donated higher average amounts. This pattern is, for the most part, unchanged from 2007.

Donor rates were the highest in Newfoundland and Labrador (92%) and in Prince Edward Island (91%). These were significantly above the national average of 84%. Rates for the Northwest Territories and Nunavut were the lowest in Canada.

Charitable donors from Alberta, Saskatchewan and British Columbia donated about $550 on average to a charitable or non-profit organization in 2010, among the highest in the country. Average donations were lowest in Quebec.

Tuesday Tech: Facebook Timeline for Pages

Blogged recently about Timeline, the latest Facebook change. The grumbling about the timeline format seems to have faded to a muted mutterring as people get used it - and some (shock horror) users even seem to like Facebook Timeline!

Now it is the turn of businesses, not for profits and religious institution. On Tuesday March 6, Timeline came to facebook Pages and eight million brands switched in the first week. (There are 37 million brand pages). My company, People First -Total Solutions was one of the eight million! More than a million Facebook Pages per day have been making the switch since. Some companies have started muttering, complaining about the enforced switch.  All brand pages will forcibly convert to Timeline by March, 30 2011. 

Timeline organises your information chronologically allowing people to move to and from specific dates and timings. The idea is that  the “timeline” profile page layout will allows businesses, brands and organisations to be more visual in the way they express themselves.  


If as a company or not for profit brand, you are still using Facebook as if you were  a person and not a company, they you need to get that fixed first. Do it now! 


What needs to be done to manage switching to Timeline?


Step One: Choose a Cover Photo for your brand
The most obvious feature of the new visual focus is the large (public) Cover Photo at the top of the page. Cover photos must be at least 399 pixels wide to a maximum of  850 pixels wide. Height: 315 pixels.


I have found this a really difficult task. As this is the first thing, people will see, I wanted to be right. Do I show a training scene? Do we use the picture from the top of our e news? Or do I show a more casual shot? The experts are saying that  the picture needs to be  "dynamic and representative".  Facebook have some rules to follow for cover images:

1. No price or purchase information, such as “33% off” or “Find it at our website”
2. No contact information
3. No references to Liking or Sharing
4. No calls to action including “Donate now”, "Buy Today" or “Tell your friends and family”

You change your Cover Photo by clicking anywhere on the Cover Photo. 

Step Two: Update your Brand's Profile Picture

For my personal Facebook, this is easy. I use a photo of myself. For People First-Total Solutions, I oscillate between a picture of me or the logo. Currently it is our logo. You may use a logo, mascot or something else that clearly represents your brand.

Facebook recommends a square image that’s 180 by 180 pixels.

Step Three: Update the About Us Section

On the left hand side is a button labelled  "About ". When you are logged in, click on the about link and when the about page opens,  “edit” buttons will appear. Annoyingly, Facebook won't let me have more than one phone number, and People First have five.

Step Four: Build Your Apps

On the Right hand side are "Apps" which you can use to build your brand. The first "app" are your Photos. This aways is the first app so you cannot move or delete it. All of the otherapps, can be addded or removed easily.

Step Five: Fill Up Timeline

The next feature is the ability to add milestones to the timeline eg when company was founded. or Opened New Office.  When someone visits a page, they can easily scroll through the highlights of the organisation.  





Step Six: Fill Up Timeline

Highlight important posts and milestones on the timeline: There are two ways to do this:

1. Pin a post to the top of your page for seven days. Click on the pencil that appears in the top right corner of the post. It will give you the choice of "pinning, changing date of  post or remove it entirely. 
2. Increase size of a post from one column to both columns. Click the star that appears in the top  right corner of a post and voila!. The post will move down the timeline as new milestones and info is added.

Step Seven: Engaging with Admin Panel

The Admin panel includes: 

• Notifications which tells you key information about vistors
• Messages -people can now quickly and easily send messages 
• New Likes -obvious?
• Insights which tracks users and interactions with the page. Tracking kicks in when your page has 30 "Likes"
• Page Tips giving you Facebook lessons

There are three main options for the Admin Page:

1. Manage: - allows you to edit the page
2.  Build Audience: For example you can invite email contacts from Workshops, outings etc
3. Help-obvious?

There you have it: Using TimeLine

Failure! Don't Quit

I needed this today:




When things go wrong as they sometimes will,
When the road you're trudging seems all uphill,
When funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh.
When care is pressing you down a bit.
Rest, if you must, but don't you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns
As every one of us sometimes learns.
And many a failure turns about
When he might have won had he stuck it out:
Don't give up though the pace seems slow -
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out -
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt.
And you never can tell how close you are.
It may be near when it seems so far:
So stick to the fight when you're hardest hit
It's when things seem worst that you must not quit.

by: Unknown Author

Hunger Games

Anyone off to see The Hunger Games? I have just read the first two books in response to the hype about the film.

It does make me wonder what can we do to prevent such a society developing OR have we already got one where the poor compete for scant resources?

Friday Facts: America’s Aging Population - Increasingly Diverse

National Council on the Aging notes that there are more than 56 million people aged 60+ in the United States.

Language
American Community Survey data shows that 5.5 million older adults (14%) have a primary language other than English. Spanish, Chinese and Russian are three mostly commonly spoken languages.

Almost 40% of older adults who speak another primary language speak English “not well” or “not at all.”

Nationality
Nearly 4.6 million older adults were born outside of the United States; almost half a million came here within the last decade.

Religion
Today, 15% of older adults identify with religions other than Christianity). Moreover, religious affiliation and activity tends to be higher among seniors and particularly amongst those with lower incomes.

Tuesday Tech: Google Privacy Changes

Once upon a time  a new search engine blast onto the internet world. Simple, Very simple. Fast. Very Fast.

Google revolutionized on line searching so much that its very name became part of our vocabulary in the same way as Hoovering and Xeroxing. Then Google rolled out maps, bought YouTube and took on Blogger.com. It rolled out a picture program Picasa. Gmail, Google Calendar and a web browser Chrome followed. Google had moved from simple search engine to complex empire. Then came Google+ aimed right at the heart of the Facebook empire.

Now the Google empire has been "simplifying" and "integrating". The major change was on March 1, 2012 when Google changed its privacy policies. Officially the idea was to amalgamate 60 of its 70 privacy documents into one main Privacy Policy covering all of their different products and services. Here is a video explaining the changes.

The privacy policy integration was not all that has changed.  Effective March 1, Google can collate information it collects across all of its  services to create a complete picture of you. What you search for, the places you look up on Maps and the videos you watch on YouTube are all tracked centrally. Previously, that information was kept  separate. From The Official Google Blog: Our recently launched personal search feature is a good example of the cool things Google can do when we combine information across products. Our search box now gives you great answers not just from the web, but your personal stuff too. 



This means that Google can learn from your web history and search data, such information as your Location, Holiday destinations, Interests, hobbies, Age, gender, sexual orientation, religion and health issues and more.

This is the issue that has galvanized the most reaction. According to a recent Pew survey,  65 per cent of users said it was a bad thing if a search engine collected information about searches and then used it to rank future search results. An even larger 73 per cent said they would not be OK with a search engine keeping track of searches and personalising future search results because they felt it was an invasion of privacy.There has been a suggestion that the Changes are in breach of European law. The changes to Google's privacy policies, which took effect on March 1, sparked concern among 36 state Attorneys General who wrote a letter to Google CEO.

Google has attempted to sell its users on its newly changed privacy policy with a marketing campaign on and offline. Google says it's doing so to make its policies easier to understand--something regulators have pushed for--and to improve the Google user experience by making information from one Google service available to other Google services that might benefit from that data.

What I have done and what can you do:

1.  Go to Google dashboard and log in to see what data Google has on you. You may be surprised: http://www.google.com/dashboard/
2. While there,  disable your Web History.
3. Use duck duck go  http://duckduckgo.com/ as a search engine. It provides a clean interface together with a no-tracking privacy policy
4. Stop using Google Chrome as a browser- instead opting for Opera or Firefox
5. Visit Google's Ad Preferences Page and opt out of personalised advertising

Good luck

Monday Motivation: Lets Not Complicate

I was taken with this. I am not sure where it comes from.

Friday Facts: Where is my remote?

Last year, a study by Logitech, the computer accessory and remote controls manufacturer, revealed that there's a nearly 50 percent chance that your lost remote control is stuck between your sofa cushions. Meanwhile, 4 percent of lost remotes are found in the fridge or freezer, and 2 percent turn up somewhere outdoors or in the car.

Linking to a Facebook post

Ever posted a great post on your Facebook and want to share it with someone else outside Facebook?

Sharing within Facebook is easy. Click: Share.
Sharing outside Facebook is easy but not as obvious.

On the post click on where it says when the story was published. The post will appear by itself with its url in the url box at the top of your browser. Copy and paste this and you have your link!

Monday Motivation: What a Relief??!!!

This makes me feel better about my lot and life:

"Would you like me to give you a formula for success? It's quite simple, really. Double your rate of failure. You are thinking of failure as the enemy of success. But it isn't at all. You can be discouraged by failure or you can learn from it, So go ahead and make mistakes. Make all you can. Because remember that?s where you will find success." 

- Thomas J. Watson, the chairman and CEO of International Business Machines (IBM), 1924 until 1956

How about you..what is your reaction?

Friday Facts: Searching the web by..?

The Pew Internet & American Life Project study, published in Aug. 2011, found that 8 percent of Internet users do not use email or search engines. Somehow, this sizable portion of the online population manages to surf the web some other way… perhaps by typing in URLs by hand?

Wednesday World Changers: Unplugging

March 23 and 24 is US National Unplugging Day when individuals are being asked to unplug from digital communications for 24 hours. Originally conceived in the Jewish tradition, the organisers say:

"Shut down your computer. Turn off your cell phone. Stop the constant emailing, texting, Tweeting and Facebooking to take time to notice the world around you. Connect with loved ones. Nurture your health. Get outside. Find silence. Avoid commerce. Give back. Eat Together. "

The National Day of Unplugging runs from sundown Friday, March 23, to sundown, Saturday, March 24. 

How would you go with this day?

 

Monday Motivation: Opening our mouths-love it!

The Cowling Report Readership rises 30% in February

Thank you for your on going readership of this blog. In February, we increased the number of readers by a third. A lot of that growth was connected to a blog post on major, major changes to the Volunteer Centre funding arrangements in Australia.

While there were a lot of readers and a number of comments privately, not many commented on the blog.

I wonder why?

Other appreciated articles included:


Monday Motivation:Nelson Mandela: Inaugural Address - Published Jan 2, 2012

An older one- No More Free Training? Published Sep 8, 2011

Tuesday Tech: Korman Social Media learnings - a great one for agencies to reflect on the potential perils of Social Media:  Feb 7, 2012,

My blog post on The Facebook timeline continues to be popular. I will be writing soon about the changes for organisational pages with Timeline. First this Tuesday, I need to talk about the Google privacy changes.

Have a great March,

Friday Facts: whos reimbursing Volunteers?

In the Global Volunteer Management Survey, agencies were asked what benefits they provided for their volunteers. The total number of volunteers covered by the survey was 1,103,163 from 23 countries.

The results are listed below.

A few interesting points:

• the biggest was  reimbursement of travel or phone expenses (55.5%)- this means almost half of volunteers do not get one of those benefits
• parking (54.3%) came next
• free meals or drinks were provided to almost half of all volunteers
• 3.5 per cent of agencies pay their volunteers a regular cash allowance
• clothing on the job is  important with  43 per cent of volunteers being allowed to wear casual clothes and 19% getting a uniform
• 27 per cent of the volunteers are funded to do training or development
• a small number get additional benefits like club memberships, childcare and massages

Over a fifth of respondents chose the other category and saw the following as benefits:

• Social Events (2 per cent). One repondent noted that the agency provided socila events as a benefit but volunteers were expecetd to pay for them!
• References (1 per cent)
• insurance coverage which 1 per cent of agencies saw as a benefit (not an essential!)
• one Uk agency said they were not allowed to give benefits
• one said "Just being a part of our organization!" 
• one per cent said things like:  "self fulfilment", "Personal growth opportunities while supporting a cause they believe in"

What do you offer your volunteers - and why?

Nice Experience

I visited a food distribution centre today. The organisation feeds at least 500 households a month.

I was very, very touched when the CEO welcomed me by telling me he had attended my session at a conference in November.

As a result of the workshop, he picked up on of my points regarding measuring, assessing and telling the story of the impact of not for profits.

They made a pitch for funding to a very large petrochemical company and focused on the impact their work was doing to be told by the company rep: this is exactly what our Board is looking for when we are looking to donate.

They got their funding!

It is what makes me like my job.