But not yet! Announcing our involvement in Catalyst’s Continuation Project

originally published on WAO blog

From this week until the end of August, We Are Open Co-op is supporting eight charities as a light-touch digital partner. This is part of Catalyst’s ‘Continuation’ programme, allowing charities more time to work on prototypes they started during earlier funding rounds.

We’re delighted to be able to help, especially as we’ve already worked closely with six of the charities — either during the Discovery programme last year, or the Definition programme earlier this year! We’re also very much looking forward to working with the two charities whose work we’re new to.

The eight charities are:

• Action Hampshire
• Centre for Fun and Families
• Ideal for All
• Pennysmart CIC
• The Margate Bookie
• Totnes Parish Churches
• WECIL
• Worcester Cathedral Education Department

We Are Open has produced loads of assets to support charities going through digital transformation over the last year (see some here!), so learning that we will continue is amazing news.

About the Programme

The Continuation Programme is part of the Catalyst and The National Lottery Community Fund COVID-19 Digital Response fund.

Catalyst and The National Lottery Community Fund COVID-19 Digital Response funding is to support organisations that work with those communities that have been disproportionately impacted by COVID-19.

The programme will consist of extension funding and support to organisations, to further develop their solution to a specific challenge and to continue iterations of the work conducted during Development.

Our timeline

We’re kicking off with one-to-one sessions with each of our eight charities. Some weeks have gone by since we last spoke, and we have two new charities in our cohort, so we’re all eager to hear where things are and how we can best be of service.

Once this initial consultation is complete, we will customise our offerings to each charity and do what we can to help them drive their projects forward. We’re thinking some techie sessions for specific things, office hours and direct advice will be the most efficient way to help. We’ll also use some asynchronous methods, as we have in the past, and use Loom videos to share how to use relevant and useful tech.

Open by default

We Are Open loves working openly, so we’re happy that Catalyst remains enthusiastically committed to open working and licensing. We’ll share what folks are working on, hold open discussions, use participatory methodologies and throw some images in for good measure.

If we can help your organisation with any of the above, get in touch! [email protected]