Thursday the 22nd of June was a really special day for us, here at Volunteer Dundee, as we organised and hosted an amazing and much needed Marketing workshop, aimed to help third sector organisations from across Dundee to get some best practice advice and guidance on how to improve their marketing presence! The session was led by brightsolid’s marketing team, experts who were able to pass on simple, yet invaluable marketing tips to the attendees. The event aimed to share knowledge from the private sector to the third sector. Knowledge which it desperately needs!
How it actually looks like to work for the Third Sector?
Working for the community sector is really rewarding, but at times can be really hard and challenging. Charities have access to limited resources; and usually have a small number of staff doing a large amount of tasks. For instance, someone who might be doing some admin stuff today, can be easily found tomorrow to be doing some marketing or dealing with their accounts. That, obviously, makes the everyday running of a community sector organisation difficult, with staff not having dedicated roles and not being specialised. On the contrary, the private sector has an abundance of resources and therefore access to people with enormous knowledge and expertise. Professionals who are highly specialised and have dedicated and clear roles within their organisations. So one might wonder, why not ask those professionals from the private sector to give up some of their time and offer some of their expertise for the greater good of our local society?
A profitable partnership
That’s, at least, what we thought at Volunteer Dundee, to bring together those two sectors, by building long lasting relationships, though skills and knowledge sharing. So, the idea of the “Knowledge Exchange Network” was incepted, a scheme that will connect the private sector’s professionals, who would provide pro bono some of their time and expertise, with charities that are in need of some specialised guidance. At the same time people who work for charities would benefit by learning new skills and filling in their skill-gaps, creating more sustainable third organisations.
Partnering with BrightSolid
Volunteer Dundee has been lucky enough, since recently moving to our new offices at Dundee’s Technology Park, to have neighbours such as brightsolid who perceive social responsibility as an integral part of their organisational culture rather than just another bullet point on their to-do list. So, getting them to support our cause has been easy. Since our first meeting a couple of months ago, brightsolid have been really keen and motivated to support us in our new venture from kindly offering the third sector some of their expertise. In the mean time feedback from the community sector was outlining how much the sector needed some marketing tips and training to help them get the most out of their public presence.
The next step was pretty straightforward, with a skill on offer and a need in demand, the only thing that was missing was to bring them together by “bridging the skills-gap”. And on the 22nd of June it happened. The workshop was sold out just some days after setting up the event and it was really an amazing and informative session for everyone.
Special thanks to Andrew and Tina, from brightsolid’s marketing team who delivered the workshop and whose guidance helped so many third sector professionals learn something new and “get their organisation out there”!
For those of you interested in finding out what we learned on the day, here is a blog with the key takeaways:
By Nikolaos Xypolitos, Market Research and Business Planning Intern, Volunteer Dundee