Agencies for Good

Darshan from Super Being Labs runs an in-person agency workshop. We brought like-minded tech for good agency folks together to connect and share, discussing ways to better support non-profits.

The pandemic hits the social sector. Crisis response briefs start to get shared among tech for good agencies. Some shared by Chris from Nominet. This led to collective conversations to determine who was best to support. Emails started flying around. It all got a bit unwieldy.

John, Gem, Chris and Darshan set up the Covid19TechAction Slack to better manage the conversation. More tech for good people joined. More briefs were shared. More support was offered. We self organised with a collective purpose and the response was organic.

CAST used the space to communicate with digital partners on the Lottery-funded programmes it was running as part of Catalyst. Channels were set up for different funding programme. We collaborated and shared delivery plans, templates and insights from working with charities and each other.

Besides the Catalyst programme channels, conversations had gone a bit quiet. It had been a full year since the first lockdown. A small group of members came together to think about what next for the space. This became the Working Group.

The group conducted some audience research through a survey and interviews with community members. Gemma Drake facilitated a hack day, to help us evolve our vision and purpose. We became Agencies for Good, complete with a set of House Rules.

Shanice Blair joins as Community Manager from Collaborative Future for an initial 3-month pilot to help shepherd and shape Agencies for Good. Shanice runs a set of experiments to nurture connections and collaboration in the community, building trust and relationships between more members.

Read the latest post from Shanice 👀

Agencies for Good: Community Manager Notes