Charities can register now to take part in the Everyclick.com Charity Challenge, for the chance to win a Clear Channel national outdoor advertising campaign at 1,500 UK poster sites. For more information please visit http://charities.everyclick.com/charities

The competition, which runs from 14 January - 14 March 2008, will tally the amount money charities can raise for their cause by using Everyclick.com.

Everyclick.com and Clear Channel are challenging charities to raise as much money as possible for their cause over a three month period by inspiring their supporters to use Everyclick.com’s search engine, which gives money to charity every time you search. The winning charity will recive a national outdoor advertising campaign on over 1,500 sites across the UK.

Charities can register for the challenge on Everyclick.com, where they will be asked to supply details of the size of their donor base. This information will place the entrants in to one of three categories: small, medium or large charities. Everyclick.com will then keep a tally of how much is being raised for each charity entrant throughout the three month challenge period, which starts on 14 January 2008 and ends on 31 March 2008.

The average amount raised by each supporter will then be calculated to find the winner in each category. A panel of independent sector experts will then select one of these three finalists to win the overall prize of a free national outdoor advertising campaign. The panel will judge the entrants on money raised and the innovative and imaginative ways they have encouraged their supporters to use Everyclick.com. The two runners-up will receive free advertising on Everyclick.com.

Everyclick.com works like any other search engine, allowing users to search for information, news and images but users can specify which of the UK’s 170,000 charities they would like to support through their clicks. Everyclick.com then makes monthly payments to every registered charity. The Charity Challenge comes at a time when a new, improved version of the Everyclick.com site is being launched, which taps in to the social networking phenomenon and encourages users to become “fundraising teams”.

Everyclick Facts

• Everyclick.com is a search engine that has been purpose built to automatically donate 50% of its revenue to charity
• Launched in June 2005, it has to date 82,000 registered users and 1,200 corporate users
• § Everyclick.com is a Hitwise Top 10 Award winner, winner of the Netimperative “Best Start Up of the Year” Award and is ranked as the eighth most visited search engine in the UK
• The site is free to join and free to use, there is no cost to the use or the charity
• All search results are powered by Ask.com
• A special agreement with Charities Aid Foundation (CAF) everyclick.com enables uses to support any of the UK’s 170, 000 charities. The money is allocated by intelligent software and is distributed to charities every month by CAF

The Charity Commission has produced a short report about charities working in the human rights field. Human rights was only recognised as a charitable purpose in its own right in 2002, with currently just 206 charities registered under this head, although the number is rising.

Report RS16, ‘Charities working in the field of human rights’, from http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/publications/rs16.asp.

An item on Third Sector Foresight’s forum gives a useful short rundown of why a SWOT exercise (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) shouldn’t be just the all too common quick flipchart brainstorm.

“Making your SWOT sweat”, with five things to watch out for, at http://www.3s4.org.uk/forums/157/topics/51.

Charities Evaluation Services has launched the PQASSO Quality Mark, an external assessment service for this quality standard developed for voluntary and community organisations.

Organisations will be able to apply, for a fee, for this accreditation early in 2008. More details at http://www.pqassoqualitymark.org.uk.

A new report from the Governance Hub, ‘Mentoring for Chairs’, describes different mentoring schemes used in a pilot programme and the lessons learned through this.

Downloadable as a large pdf (2MB).

Proposals to reform disability employment services that help disabled people who have complex issues to find, retain and progress in work are out to consultation. The Department of Work and Pensions is particularly interested to hear from disabled people, employers and organisations who represent the interests of disabled people.

Deadline 10th March, http://www.dwp.gov.uk/resourcecentre/des-consultation.asp.

A new complaints handling unit is to start operating as part of Charity Commission Direct in spring 2008, which will also handle reports from auditors and others on potential problems within charities, according to Plaza Publishing news alert (http://www.plazapublishing.co.uk/whistleblowing.html).

This follows a pilot this year centred on complaints about large charities.

The November bulletin from Arvac, the community organisations research group, has four articles looking at the state of the sector in the four parts of the UK.

In pdf, 235kb, from http://www.arvac.org.uk/docs/info_bulletin.html.

The Resource Factsheets for Community Development Practitioners produced by Rural Community Network (Northern Ireland) have been updated and expanded. They aim to provide a practical resource for community development workers and facilitators.

See the downloadable publications page at http://pub.ruralcommunitynetwork.org/cgi-bin/unitetools/pdf/display.pl.

(Source: NICVA eNews)

A publication written for social enterprises on the commissioning and procuring of public services, for Social Enterprise East Midlands, will be of interest across the third sector.

‘Social Enterprise and the Public Sector, a Practical Guide to Law and Policy’ can be downloaded, as a large pdf (2.57MB) from http://www.seem.uk.net/Templates/Internal.asp?NodeID=89942.

(Source: NCVO Sustainable Funding Programme)

One World Trust’s ‘2007 Global Accountability Report’ assesses thirty of the world’s most powerful organisations in governmental, corporate and third sectors for their transparency, participation, evaluation, and complaint and response mechanisms (as per the Global Accountability Framework). The non-profits fell behind in the latter area.

See OWT web site at http://www.oneworldtrust.org.

The Association of Volunteer Managers has launched a campaign to defend the right of volunteers to be reimbursed childcare costs, after the alarming statement from the Department of Business Enterprise and Regulatory Reform that they would “represent a significant benefit in kind” (see earlier news item).

AVM believes that BERR has got it wrong, and is out of line with other government departments, and that this should be pointed out to them. A sample letter and contact details are given at http://www.volunteermanagers.org.uk/save-childcare-expenses-volunteers.