It’s not as well-known amongst charities as it could be, but Google has a programme which gives non-profit organisations free credits that they can use for pay-per-click advertising on Google. It’s called a Google Grant, and it allows eligible organisations to spend up to $10,000 per month on AdWords campaigns, putting their organisation into the Sponsored Links that appear at the top and side of the Google search results pages.

The great news is that this programme is not only open to US charities: non-profits in the UK (and many other countries) can also apply and be awarded with Google Grants. Google’s website is chock full of information on which types of organisations are eligble, help on applying, as well as explanations about how AdWords and the Google Grant account work.

UK Charities: find out more and apply for Google Grants UK here

With thanks to fellow UK-NetMarketeers Simon Redgate, John Duffy and David Pearce for the tip-off

Later this month I will be leading some WordPress training workshops as part of the Social Media Exchange Express. Those lovely and talented peeps at SoundDelivery have put together a great programme of hands-on sessions for people who want to learn more about how to do pretty much anything in social media. From Twitter to podcasting to wikis, Facebook to blogging to video editing – and a lot more in between – if you want to learn how to do it and come away from the day with some concrete work under your belt, this is right up your street. The day will be broken up into bite-size chunks Pick & Mix stylee, so you can choose to attend up to 4 different sessions on different topics.

I’ll be running 2 workshops on WordPress: one for beginners, one a bit more advanced. The beginners session will include:

• What the heck is WordPress and what can I use it for?
• Getting set up on WordPress (the technical bit!)
• Choosing a design for your WordPress blog/site
• First steps into publishing on WordPress

The advanced session will focus on:

• Using WordPress as a content management system for your website
• Expanding WordPress’s features and functionality with plugins and widgets
• Enhancing your WordPress site with rich media

The date is Wednesday 29 September, so put it in your diary and sign up here.

See you there!

This year Diamond Light Source (the UK’s rather fancy and very shiny synchrotron scientific facility) is exhibiting at The Royal Society’s Summer Science exhibition, and they decided they’d like a microsite to help educate people about the talks they will be giving at the exhibition, as well as keeping the dialogue going with visitors, reporting on each day’s highlights and showcasing photos taken at the show.

Because they wanted to be able to easily update the site remotely from the exhibition, and to allow scientists (not just web people) to be able to contribute without needing training, we opted for Squarespace as the platform for the site. The ability to upload a zip file of photos straight from the camera, and have the system automatically unzip and resize them all was a real plus.

I designed the site to match their exhibition stand, and also incorporated some Flash and interactive elements that help people understand more about what the heck a synchrotron is. Have a play around in the Machine section of the site yourself: it’s not quite the same as playing with a real particle accelerator, but it’s definitely a lot safer for us non-scientists!

We’ve also incorporated some audio interviews with the scientists who use the synchrotron and who will be at The Royal Society talking to visitors about their projects. There are some really interesting stories – my favourite is Joanna Collingwood’s study of metals in the brain, and their role in disorders such as Parkinson’s disease and Alzheimer’s.

I certainly learned a lot on this project… and as a side effect became slightly addicted to playing with the particle accelerator interactives (my fave is the Vacuum). If you’d like to find out more, The Royal Society exhibition opens this Friday and runs until 4 July. Or visit the microsite now… and try not to get addicted like I did!

My latest website overhaul project is for Hackney’s youth charity, Off Centre. They are a lovely organisation which helps young people who live, work or study in Hackney deal with issues such as violence, depression, neglect, sexual health, family breakdown and all the other things that can have such a huge and lasting impact on people. I was really excited to be working with them on a new site, as they have a real opportunity to make a positive difference by using the online medium to reach and communicate with young people who need support.

Having just gone through a rebranding, they wanted a new website that reflected the new brand ID as well as the vibrancy and energy of Hackney, one that would appeal to their core audience of inner-city 13-25-year olds. The site had to feel like a place that young people could identify with, a place where they would feel welcome, and most importantly, a place that didn’t feel clinical or too far-removed from the environment where they live. We opted for an urban illustrative design, allowing the colours of the new brand to stand out. Because Hackney is such a culturally-diverse area, the illustrations also ensured that no specific race, age, social or ethnic background was depicted photographically, meaning anyone in their core audience could identify with the site.

Filled with helpful information, activities and explanations, I think the new site will be a rich resource for Hackney’s young people. I think it looks really amazing, if I do say so myself! It’s definitely one of the sites I’m most proud of, for many reasons.

Oh, and in case you’re interested, the site was built on the Squarespace platform once again, because it’s so easy for non-techies to use. We’ll also be plugging in a few 3rd party tools such as Eventbrite and Polldaddy to flesh out the functionality.

On Tuesday 6 April, I’ll be acting as host at this month’s NetTuesday event: Digital Storytelling. If you’ve ever wondered how you can add audio slideshows to your online communications, come along and learn from the lovely guys over at SoundDelivery, who will be the evening’s speakers. They will be highlighting examples of charities and other third sector organisations who are using audio to reach out to their audiences online.

But we won’t just be talking about audio slideshows, we’ll actually try to produce one on-the-fly – so make sure you bring your throat spray and practice your articulation!

Next Tuesday I will be speaking about how you can create professional-looking websites quickly, at low cost and with high quality. Sounds impossible? Not anymore. The latest breed of web-based applications and tools have totally revolutionised the web industry, and next week I will be sharing my experience of working with these tools.

I will also do a live demo of Squarespace, showing just how easy and quickly you can put together a great little website. In fact, I am hoping to be able to create a full website within the 55minute session, so I’m setting myself a big target! If you are in London next Tuesday and want to see how it’s done, learn more about to the tools out there, hear my tips and pitfalls to avoid, then pop on over to NetSquared and sign up. Everyone is welcome so please do stop by!

Today marks the launch of my latest Squarespace website: a charity website for the Confectioner’s Benevolvent Fund (aka Sweet Charity). As they are a small UK charity, the challenge on this project was to create a great looking and functioning site on a tight budget, complete with multiple author/editor roles, embedded Flash and an event calendar. The fun part was using their brand name and industry in a creative way to form part of the design. The result of this is the bag of sweets that pours onto the pages, with different types and formations of sweets representing the different page contents conceptually. The client loves the concept so much that they will be using it on their offline marketing material, which makes us both happy.

We’ll be working together in 2010 incorporating the new look into their e-mail newsletters, and I will also be advising them on how they can use some of the latest gen online tools and web apps to streamline their internal workflow, allowing staff more time to focus on the important things: fundraising and helping people who need their assistance. It’s within organisations like Sweet Charity that I feel these web apps stand to make the biggest difference: they are free or low-cost, quick to implement and learn, and they can replace manual or time-consuming activities, usually without impacting on other internal technologies. In a busy charity, there’s never enough time to do things, so anything that can save time or make people’s jobs easier is a godsend. And there’s nothing I enjoy more than making people’s work lives a little nicer.