A live blog post from the Fundraising Using Social media course that we are hosting at the Tyneside Cinema today.
Howard Lake has come up for the day to answer our questions on using the web to fundraise. Howard has run Fundraising.com for the past 14 years and is a fountain of knowledge on the subject.
If you send in a question below as a comment, I’ll try to put it to Howard for you.
Live blog!
February 23rd, 2011Remember Culture – mima
February 18th, 2011Remember Culture – Why Culture is good for Business
Networking Breakfast
Friday 25 March 2010, 8.15am – 10am
The Sponsors Club for Arts & Business and Yorkshire Bank invite you to a networking business breakfast at mima.
Join us for a relaxed start to the day where you can pick up a bacon sandwich and maybe a contact or two over a good cup of coffee and to hear why culture is good for your business in Middlesbrough
Speakers include Martin Johnson of Python Properties, Steve Skipsey of Yorkshire Bank, Adam Lopardo of The Sponsors Club for Arts & Business and Kate Brindley of mima.
Afterwards be the first to see mima’s major new jewellery exhibition from jewellers Lin Cheung, Laura Potter and Ted Noten.
The event is free, please RSVP by 16 March, to Kathryn kathryn@communityfoundation.org.uk or 0191 222 0945 if you would like to attend stating any dietary requirements.
For directions to the venue go to www.visitmima.com
Business Networking Breakfast
February 16th, 2011The Bowler And The Bunnet
Thursday 3 March 2011, 8am – 10am
Tyneside Cinema
The Sponsors Club for Arts & Business invite you to a networking business breakfast at the Tyneside Cinema.
Not many people know that after his fifth and final outing as Bond, Sean Connery turned his hand to directing for the first time. The Bowler And The Bunnet (1967) is a fantastic curio directed and presented by Sean Connery, in which he gives his own view on the Fairfield Shipyard in Govan. Personal, funny and very wry, the film captures the sense of community in the yards around Govan in its own unique style. Sean Connery examines the gap and suspicion in the relationship between management and workers in industry, and shows how one Scottish shipyard is trying to change that and what could well be a blueprint for other companies to follow.
The 30 minute film was shown on television at the time, but has been sitting in an archive ever since. It’s your chance to catch a piece of industrial and film history.
Arrive at 8am for networking breakfast, introductions and the film to follow. If you haven’t got to rush back, stick around for a tour of the Tyneside.
The event is free, please RSVP by 21 February, to kathryn@communityfoundation.org.uk or 0191 222 0945 if you would like to attend stating any dietary requirements.
Sponsors Club’s favourite Tweeters
February 15th, 2011In our session at the Art Members meeting this morning on introducing social media Twitter was mentioned quite heavily. There are loads of great Twitter users who can make your Twitter feed more interesting. If you are new to Twitter following these people is a good place to start. They are all using Twitter in quite different ways, have a look around and see if any of them are worth a follow for you.
Jim Richardson – @sumojim
Howard Lake – @howardlake
Georgia Rakusen – @G_Rak
Cassandra Harrison – @geehowquaint
NewBridge Project – @PopUpInitiative
And Adam mentioned @Betfairpoker this morning as a company worth a follow!
And if you need any advice about Twitter why not message Sponsors Club on Twitter. Or if you have already grasped the basics go read Kathryn’s blog for Arts Professional about Twitter.
Empty Shop, but not for long
February 11th, 2011The masterminds behind transforming Norham House into a thriving arts hive are about to do it again. This time the venue is Commercial House on Pilgrim Street. (You know that dark grey building that juts out over the road? Yes, the one next to the old Odeon.)
Commercial House is earmarked for development, along with Norham House and a lot of other buildings on Pilgrim Street, and as such can’t house any more commercial tenants. So rather than just leave the space empty, the developers Brookfield have turned it over for artists and community projects to use until it’s eventual demise and demolition.
Photo: One of the empty floors inside Commercial House.
There are lots of exciting plans for the building, including a gallery and a digital hub – watch this space.
Shortlist announced…
February 11th, 2011The shortlisted partnerships for The Bruntwood Awards for Arts & Business North 2011 have been announced after judging took place at the offices of headline sponsor Bruntwood on Friday 28 January 2011.
Potts Print (UK) Cultural Branding Award
• Azendi & Northern Ballet
• Finnair Plc & Royal Northern College of Music (RNCM)
• IKEA Gateshead & Shipley Art Gallery
Unilever Young People Award
• Frances Lincoln Children’s Books & Seven Stories, the Centre for Children’s Books
• Irwin Mitchell Solicitors & West Yorkshire Playhouse
• Opal Property Group & Contact Theatre
HFL Building Solutions Sustained Partnership Award
• Bank of America Merrill Lynch & Manchester Camerata
• Brother Ltd & Hallé Concerts Society
• T & R Theakston & Harrogate International Festivals
Sutcliffe People Development Award
• Manchester Airport & Band On The Wall
• MINT Hotel & The Royal Exchange Theatre
Bruntwood and Arup Environmental Partnership Award
• The Co-operative Group & Yorkshire Sculpture Park
• Hanson Aggregates Ltd (part of the Heidelberg Group) & Nidderdale Visual Arts
• Marchday/Lingfield Investments & Vista Projects
The Midland Hotel Board Member of the Year Award
• Terry Bowker for Artlink
• Martin McMillan for Hallé Concerts Society
• Geoffrey Shindler for The Royal Exchange Theatre & Manchester Camerata
The winners will be announced on the evening of 23rd March 2011. Click here for details.
Arts & Culture Apps
January 21st, 2011I was very lucky and received an new iPhone this Christmas. After filling it up with the obligatory apps (Angry Birds, Facebook, Twitter etc.) inspired by this article at BitchBuzz I decided to seek out some cultural apps.
I started out by installing Amazon’s Kindle app, and downloading Oscar Wilde’s The Picture of Dorian Gray – perfect for when I’m next on a long train journey and I’ve forgotten whatever book I was reading. And as it is out of copyright, it was free to download. I downloaded a couple of other free books, just in case :)
After that, I didn’t have much of a clue. iTheatre sounds like a great app – for people that live in London (!) And I know some of the big museums and galleries in the US have apps, but I’m not going across the pond any time soon, and don’t like the idea of a virtual tour. (I’d rather see it myself thank you.)
Typing ‘art’ into the iPhone app store search gives you a search result that has Tetris at the top, it’s not exactly what I was looking for… Typing ‘culture’ into the iPhone app store search gives another game… called Culture. Searching arts and culture is a little more successful, the first result coming back as Classic FM’s free app. There are a few more relevant apps dotted amongst the search, Derry’s bid for Capital of Culture app for instance, but still not for me, (am I being too picky?)
When searching for ‘best arts and culture apps’ on Google I came across a Guardian article of 30 top culture apps – one of which is the Guardian app… Some catch my eye, at number 20 Charlie Chaplin: Short Film Collection at £1.19 sounds like a steal, and number 25, Yours Vincent: The Letters of Van Gogh raises my curiosity since it’s free. It’s good to know that there are some out there but it’s obvious that I’m going to have to look at lot harder to discover these types of apps.
I guess in the meantime I can always fill it with culture by filling it with great music, can’t I?
Anyone for Lady Gaga?
Crowd-funding project in Sunderland
January 20th, 2011My favourite project that is using crowdfunding this week to raise funds is a project based in Sunderland. The Digital Graffiti project is a system that allows users to ‘spray’ light on an interactive wall, which creates art work in real time.
The company behind the project, Sonodrome is a small team of technologists who also volunteer with young people. They are looking for funding to take their equipment on the road to give free workshops at community centres, youth clubs and children’s hospitals.
The fundraising platform that they are using to collect the money is We Fund. They hope to collect pledges worth £3500 in 15 weeks.
Fundraising news this week:
January 14th, 2011Fundraising using social media
You’ve probably got a Facebook page, you may even have a Twitter account, but if you haven’t already considered using the internet and applications in your fundraising mix, maybe a few of these news stories from this week will give you something to think about.
- Kickstarter receives 50 million website hits in 2010, the users pledging $27 million. Kickstarter is a US based company that hosts fundraising projects and allows interested parties to pledge money to those projects.
- And here in the UK SpeedUps raised £2.5 million for start-ups and entrepreneurs.
- PayPal’s new donation tool Fundrazr was launched this week as the Social Media fundraising app. You create a short profile about your cause then share it easily on Facebook, Twitter and email, people can then donate using PayPal.
- And while we are getting all social, there is a piece in the Guardian today on Using social media for social good, just in case you needed any further persuasion.
How do you receive the majority of your donations? And if you use any of the sites or apps above we would really like to hear about your experiences using them, just comment below.
We are also running an event in conjunction with Arts & Business about using social media to fundraise, check out their website for more details of the event in Newcastle.
Sponsors Club Do Dragons’ Den
December 15th, 2010If you don’t already know, Sponsors Club have been doing a Dragons’ Den style event for the past three years.
We hope to do it all again in 2011, so please contact Adam, al@communityfoundation.org.uk for more information on how to take part whether you want to put yourself forward to pitch to the dragons or if you fancy becoming a dragon yourself!
Have a look at the lovely people who took part last year on Flickr.
