Case Studies

In this section we showcase some of the projects which have been successful through the assistance of iT4Communities volunteers.

They show the variety of successful IT volunteering projects completed around the country. We hope this will inspire more charities and volunteers to register and make IT work for charities and voluntary organisations.

The Phoenix Youth Centre

The Phoenix Youth Centre provides a range of activities to about 1000 young people aged between 10 and 25. Their computers were causing them a great deal of stress when they contacted iT4Communities for help.

Folly Farm

The Folly Farm Centre near Bristol is a green conference and environmental learning centre whose website was launched in 2008. With the appointment of a Centre Director, it was decided to focus on the website further by expanding and developing its content, and embarking on a brand new SEM (Search Engine Marketing) programme. iT4Communities found two volunteers to help.

Community Link Up

Link Up is a registered charity which supports and promotes friendships between people with a learning disability and others in the Harrow community. They aim for individual friendships and support them with group activities. Two iT4Communities volunteers got them on track with improved IT systems.

Yewande Olowokere

Yewande Olowokere has been a regular volunteer with iT4Communities for the last few years. Here she tells us why she got involved and what she gets out of it.

Time for Families

The relationship between prisoners and their partners is under enormous strain during a prison sentence. Time for Families runs relationship courses in the prisons for the offender and his/her partner which have a powerful impact on the participants. However, without effective IT they had no way of knowing how powerful their impact really was. Read how Yewande Olowokere built them a monitoring database.

St Francis Hospice

In 20 years, the IT system at St Francis Hospice in Essex has grown in an ad-hoc fashion as different budgets allowed different bits of software and hardware to be added. It's a familiar story for charities and Sara Glover, Director of Finance & Support Services, knew a full strategic review of the IT system was fundamental to running the hospice successfully. iT4Communities put her in touch with Chris Harvey who, with 40 years experience, was the ideal person to help.

Film It!

Film It! run team-based film-making workshops throughout the UK. They aim to engage hard to reach young people on topics of relevance to them. However, their work was being affected by the sheer volume of spam e-mail they were receiving. Regular iT4Communities volunteer Esther Regenwetter was able to help with only a few visits to the charity. Read about the project.

Home-Start Oxford

Home-Start is a national organisation providing support and friendship to families in local communities. Their Oxford branch wanted a friendly, attractive website and volunteer David Ramos was happy to help. Read about the "outstandingly attractive" new site

 

Hammersmith & Fulham Action on Disability

After the launch of their new website HAFAD wondered why so few people were visiting the site. They needed help fast and contacted iT4Communities to help make their site a success. Read how volunteer Shehzad Azram provided advice on improving the website only days after they'd made their request.

Theatre Royal Stratford East

After over a hundred years providing entertainment the Theatre Royal Stratford East had a major revamp bringing it into the 21st century. They were keen to update their website to the same high standard and wanted some professional advice to give to their team of web designers. Although based in Australia, volunteer Jason King was able to respond quickly providing an online health check and written report.

Depression Alliance

When a new Chief Executive joined the Depression Alliance - the UK's leading charity for people affected by depression - she quickly realised that they needed to review their IT systems. Volunteer Ian Rumford spent six days auditing the charity's systems and identified a number of problems which he then set about solving...

Learning Through Action

After commissioning an audit of their website this young people's charity were keen to make the site easier to use and to ensure that it complied with DDA and accessibility guidelines. Volunteer Ian Cooper was looking to develop his non-technical skills and working in partnership with Learning Through Action staff developed a "fantastic" new website with lots of new features.

Through the Roof

Through the Roof is a Christian charity working with churches to promote accessibility for disabled people in all areas of church life. They were experiencing problems with their small network and wanted advice on making it more robust. Read how volunteer Adrian Wilkinson helped.

Consortium of Street Children

Although they were happy with the design of their website this charity, helping children worldwide, found it difficult to make updates to the content. The site was based on a bespoke CMS and volunteer Lai Chu was quickly able to get to grips with the software and make improvements to the site allowing the Consortium to display their sponsors much more prominently on the site.

The Friends of the Flitch Way and Associated Woodlands

When this Essex-based conservation group contacted iT4Communities they had no website. They were keen to publicise their work and had a lot of photographs to showcase. They needed an attractive site that was simple to update. Volunteer Paul Campbell implemented a CMS-based site and taught them the basics of maintaining it. Read about their experiences

The Police Foundation

This research charity were experiencing lots of problems with their IT system and were constantly fire-fighting. They contacted iT4Communities looking for independent advice on how to plan for the future and how to choose an IT support provider. Regular volunteer Adrian Wilkinson assessed their systems and recommended new hardware and software. He helped them find suppliers and then installed the new systems.

The Wayside Day Centre

The Wayside is a drop-in day centre for the homeless in Glasgow. When an arrangement with a local college to provide IT training came to an end they contacted iT4Communities for help. Two volunteers quickly came forward to help keep the project going.

Halton Citizens' Advice Bureau

Working with a paper-based system Halton CAB were concerned that they weren't providing important help and advice to those most in need of it. iT4Communities volunteer Panikos Panayi - an IT professional of over 20 years experience - built them an online referral system from scratch. The new system allows them to prioritise cases across the district and for partner agencies to make referrals through a secure system. The project made such an impact that it won an award in our 2006 IT Volunteer Awards.

The National Pyramid Trust for Children

This national children's charity wanted to help to build a new, attractive website which they would be able to maintain themselves. Volunteer Andrew Kell worked closely with staff, providing them with a number of options for the site and showing them how to do updates. The charity were so impressed with Andrew's help that they presented him with an award at their annual forum.

The Aldgate Advice Centre

The Advice centre provides help and advice to homeless clients. The sheer volume of clients visiting the centre meant that there was often a two or three hour wait for a five minute consultation. The solution was an IT-based information system, simple enough for clients to use, giving restricted access to appropriate websites. Volunteer Stephen Mohan describes how he used his project management skills to co-ordinate specification and implementation of the system.

The Relatives & Residents Association

When Aniuska Dominguez moved to London from her native Cuba she was keen to use her web development skills and gain experience working in a British office environment. Through iT4Communities she got in touch with the London-based Relatives & Residents Association who wanted a website to promote their services and help with fundraising. Read how everyone benefited from the project.

The Chaseley Trust

This charity operating a nursing home for people with severe physical disabilities wanted a website to promote their services. They investigated their options and realised that they couldn't afford professional help. Volunteer Bob Hawthorne showed them software that they could use to easily build and maintain the site themselves.

Women in Prison

This UK-wide charity working with women in prison or at risk of going to prison needed help to automate their paper-based systems. iT4Communities volunteer Manji Bhudia worked with them to develop a database which could be used across two projects within the organisation. Manji continued to help the charity after the initial project was complete making further refinements as required.

The AIRE Centre

This human rights charity based in London contacted iT4Communities for help with their Linux-based network. Their equipment was outdated which made the task more complicated. However, volunteer Charles Johnson put in a lot of effort to stabilise the system and make it less vulnerable to viruses.

Relate Brighton Hove Worthing & Districts

This local branch of the relationship charity wanted to upgrade their IT systems but didn't know what they needed. iT4Communities put them in touch with volunteer Martin O'Donnell who began with an audit of the systems to identify problem areas. Read about the results

Money Advice and Community Support

When this financial advise charity knew that they would be moving premises they requested advice from a IT professional volunteer. Martin O'Donnell initially carried out an IT audit then helped with planning purchasing and installation of new equipment. The project resulted in a much smoother office move than expected.

Progressio

This development charity works for justice and to eradicate poverty throughout the world. They already had a website when they contacted iT4Communities but needed to add an interactive form to the site. Volunteer Aniuska Dominguez wrote PHP scripts to create online campaign forms and added a MySQL database behind the scenes to store the information generated. Read more about the project.

National Phobics Society

Based in Manchester the National Phobics Society provides advice and support to people affected by anxiety disorders. Volunteer Fayzal Balu originally got in touch to help with networking a few PCs. However, he soon became a regular IT advisor and a valued part of the team, providing advice on internet, database and other issues.

Chisenhale Dance Space

As an arts organisation Chisenhale Dance Space chose to use Macintosh computers rather than the more common Windows PCs. When they experienced problems they contacted iT4Communities for expert help. Antonio Corral volunteered to help and became a regular visitor to the charity to troubleshoot any problems they'd experienced since his last visit.

EnviroAbility

This environmental charity in Ross-on-Wye operates a number of recycling projects. Through their work they provide real work opportunities and experiences to people with learning opportunities. Volunteer Glyn Swattridge helped them build an accessible website to showcase their projects and went on to become a Director of the charity.

Ashford & District Volunteer Bureau

This volunteer bureau supporting VCOs in Ashford, Kent wanted help to rationalise their IT systems and to clean-up their PCs. Volunteer Kevin Groves networked the PCs, tidied up the systems and advised on their long-term requirements.