About
Why the work is being done
Mission: To reduce the time, cost and effort for the sector to adopt high quality, ethical digital interventions to shared challenges.
Objective: Develop, identify and embed cost effective, sustainable shared infrastructure
Key results (For each of the 4 products: Notifications, Search, Open referrals, Resource hubs)
- 5 service users have tested and provide feedback to validate further investment of time and resources into the products
- We understand the costs associated with sustaining the products (hosting, maintenance etc)
- We have identified a model for full cost recovery
- The product has a clear product roadmap and prioritised requirements list
- A service recipe has been published that provides details on how to reuse the product
Problem to solve
Notifications: How might we reduce the time, cost and effort for the sector to send SMS notifications to service users, often as confirmations or reminders?
Search: How might we reduce the time, cost and effort for the sector to create a branch-finder search or geographical search on their website?
Resource hubs: How might we reduce friction for professionals seeking help from charities to find the resources they need.
Open referrals: How might we create prototypes that store, consume and publish data about referrals using the Open Referral standard?
Who are the users and what do they need to do
[Notifications],
Digital leads: As a digital lead within a VCSO, I need to send notifications to my users/clients via SMS so that they can receive up to date, personalised information about the service I’m providing them.
[Resource Hubs]
Digital leads: As a digital lead within a VCSO, I need access to a product that will allow me to tag and publish my resources in an accessible way so that professionals can get the help they need.
[Search], [Notifications], [Resource Hubs], [Referrals]
Digital Agencies / Suppliers: As a digital agency supporting a charity, I need to understand what existing solutions there are available so that I can offer the most cost-effective solutions to my client.
Funders: As a funder when funding digital in the charity sector, I need validated tools and resources that will enable me to make funding choices that are responsible, ethical and sustainable.
Hypothesis
- Shared technical infrastructure will provide a cost-effective means for charities to scale their operations in order to support more vulnerable communities.
- Charities are working with digital partners to develop bespoke versions of these solutions already
- Charities have the willingness to reuse an existing platform
- Charities have enough technical expertise to install and use these solutions
Dependencies
- Finding charities and digital agencies that have the will, time and capacity to test these services
- CAST has capacity to provide the necessary support to charities to enable them to test the services
Next steps
Phase 1 - testing with charities
Initially we will focus on the products that charities are able to adopt directly - those being Notifications and Resource Hubs.
Resource Hubs has a small number of charities using the product and CAST will also be included in that number. CAST will identify 5 charities and work with Agile Collective to configure and set up the portal for each charity use-case. CAST will create a Service Recipe for the product.
Notifications has been tested with 10 charities. We will interview 5 charities about their experience using the product and create a service recipe based on their needs.