Torchbox

On Saturday, Jemma Notley, Rachel Gardner, Helen Wilkins, and I had a fantastic time at Breast Cancer Now's Pink Ribbon Ball. It was such a special evening, raising money for an amazing charity and hearing inspiring stories from people affected by breast cancer and about how Breast Cancer Now has played a crucial role in their journeys. It was also lovely to catch up with the brilliant BCN team—Dan Papworth-Smyth, Dr Cath Biddle (formerly Baillie), and Deanne Gardner. Thank you for making it such a fun night! This event reminded me why I love working with charities; the impact of organisations like Breast Cancer Now is truly life-changing.

Give a warm welcome to our new co-owners, Laura, Arran and Alice. 👋 Laura brings over ten years of agency experience, where she supported clients across various business sizes and sectors. She has a passion for working on purpose-driven campaigns and has expertise in helping organisations to succeed on social platforms. With six years of experience as a Delivery Manager, Arran will guide teams throughout the agile delivery process to deliver high-quality digital products effectively and efficiently. Alice joins our SEO team, bringing charity-side experience from her time at WWF, where she worked exclusively on the Earth Hour UK campaign across website content, social and partnerships. This experience has developed her bigger picture thinking, which she's already started applying to client projects. Think you've got what it takes to be our next Torchboxer? We'd love to welcome you to the team! Check out our available job roles: https://lnkd.in/eArVY9EK #EmployeeOwned #Team #Hiring

We're delighted to see MND Association's 'Love Inside' campaign win gold at The Drum Awards! 🏆 Congratulations to everyone involved. It's a privilege to have supported Amy Hughes and the Motor Neurone Disease (MND) Association team. Read our write-up here: https://lnkd.in/eqPCq8Fw

Our long-term partnership with Mind has focused on improving collaboration across their federated network of 100+ independent local Minds. Through Connecting Minds, built on Wagtail CMS, we've created a powerful platform that continues to drive meaningful engagement, with nearly 300,000 page views and 67,600 sessions in the past year. The resources and people directory remain among the top five most visited pages, showing how effectively the platform connects the federation. This week, they'll host their annual federation-wide virtual conference entirely on Connecting Minds for the second year running. Learn more about the project here: https://lnkd.in/eAW9p8EK #Mind #WagtailCMS #NonprofitTech

18 months of exploring AI-driven innovation in the charity sector has revealed countless exciting insights, but one stands out above all: when we automate the right processes, we create more space for human creativity and strategic thinking. Want to see what this looks like in practice? Join our webinar on November 20th where we'll share: • How charities can stretch limited budgets further through AI automation • How to identify which processes are ripe for automation (and which aren't) • Practical steps to implement AI tools, even with minimal technical resources • Ways to build an AI-first operating model that enhances rather than replaces human creativity If you're eager to explore how AI can support your team's innovation journey, join us at 2pm GMT on November 20th. We'll share insights and key learnings from our exploration and provide real solutions for you to try within your role. Feel free to share this event with your network! Register here: https://lnkd.in/eZHwWDgG #NonprofitSector #Innovation #ArtificialIntelligence

Getting started with Wagtail CMS just got even easier! While the Bakery Demo has been great for exploring Wagtail's capabilities, we know developers need something different when they're ready to build their own sites. We're excited to introduce the Wagtail News Template, specifically designed to get you off the ground. Out of the box, you'll get a high-performance, production-grade Wagtail site, complete with fully-featured frontend, and even dark mode! Read Jake's full guide to the starter kit here: https://lnkd.in/eJAH9hz6 Want to see it in action? Watch Jake's live demo of the new template from our most recent episode of What's New in Wagtail CMS. You can find the YouTube link in the comments section below, starting at 34:20. It's impressive how quickly the site comes together! #WagtailCMS #OpenSource #CMS

In our latest blog post, Director of Public Sector Practice, Ellie Ashman, shares learnings from her time as Product Manager for GOV.UK Registers. These insights offer valuable considerations for anyone working on data infrastructure initiatives, digital transformation in government, or building platforms that serve collective public needs. Drawing on different mindsets and approaches, Ellie explores: • The reality of poor data quality in public services and why it's often accepted • The challenges of moving from established systems to new solutions when the rewards are uncertain • How data infrastructure can act as the connective tissue between systems • Why today's data infrastructure needs both clear purpose and environmental responsibility • How storytelling acts as the essential glue that holds things together, and the substrate that your vision grows in • The need to talk more expansively and imaginatively about the possibilities and futures a different data culture could bring Read Ellie's blog: https://lnkd.in/esQvwVMR #DigitalGovernment #DataInfrastructure #PublicSector

A simple measurement framework for a charity website: I find it surprising how often I see charity website decisions being made based on feelings rather than on data. But then, it's also not surprising: charity websites are complex, meeting many different needs. Some might be totally focussed on fundraising and mobilising support - but others will try to meet a huge range of objectives like delivering services, recruiting volunteers, providing online learning or courses, selling services to businesses, providing support to health professionals, and lots more. And all of these needs will have their team of stakeholders for whom this is the most important thing. In that context, it can be really hard to have a coherent viewpoint that allows you to review the success of the site against all the ways it's trying to contribute to the charity's mission - and to prioritise between all those. But it is critical to get a clear picture of how everything fits together - to enable the right conversations about priority, about which areas we should focus on, to help inform the roadmap, and to get all those stakeholder teams aligned. Without it, a digital team can struggle to navigate all the competing internal stakeholder requests. So I try to keep things really simple and apply a framework like this to help make sense of things, drawing a direct line between the overall organisation strategy at the top, all the way to the tactical bits of work at the bottom. - Charity vision: what do we exist to do? What's going to change because of us? - Website mission: how will this platform support and enable the delivery of the charity's vision? - Strategic objectives: aligned with those from the overarching charity's strategy - what are the key pillars of our approach? - Metrics: what are the indicators that show us how we're doing against those objectives? - Sources: where will the data come from? How will we be able to report? (And if there are any blockers - what are they? Technical? Capability? Communication? What needs to change to allow us to track this?) The key is to keep it simple. It's easy to get overwhelmed by data, so do the work to figure out what we really need to report on. And prioritisation can be hard. But if we collaborate to create this with people across the organisation, and then create meaningful and insightful reporting on those metrics - ideally empowering teams to engage with this reporting themselves in real time - we have a great starting point. Any potential new work can be presented as a hypothesis - "we believe that by doing X, metric Y will [some desired change], delivering progress towards objective Z". This approach can help identify areas for user research, or innovation experiments, or conversion rate optimisation. It can lead to shared learning, and help encourage teams to work openly together. Simple, manageable measurement can lead to great things!

We're looking to fill some roles within our tech, business development and digital marketing teams! Including: • Paid Media Account Manager • Bid Manager • Senior Full Stack Engineer • Senior Paid Media Executive If you're looking for a new role where your work has real-world impact on the planet and with our incredible nonprofit clients, we'd love to hear from you! We're 100% employee-owned, meaning you'll have the ability to drive real organisational change and enjoy tax-free bonuses. Find all the details here: https://lnkd.in/eArVY9EK #TechIsHiring #MarketingJobs #Hiring

Accessibility barriers prevent people from using your website. Here are 7 common issues you can fix today. ⬇️ 1. Missing text alternatives for non-text content Ensure all images, videos, and infographics have descriptive alt text. Implement captions and transcripts for videos to make content accessible to visually impaired users who rely on screen readers. 2. Low colour contrast Ensure sufficient contrast between text and background colours, aiming for a contrast ratio of at least 4.5:1 for normal text and 3:1 for large text. Here's a colour contrast checker you can use: https://colourcontrast.cc/ 3. Lack of keyboard accessibility Ensure that all interactive elements like links, buttons and forms are keyboard accessible (for example, tabbable or focusable) and test your website by navigating it using only a keyboard. 4. Inaccessible forms Make forms accessible by properly labelling all fields, ensuring a logical tab order, and using descriptive labels and error messages. This prevents abandoned submissions and missed engagement opportunities. 5. Missing ARIA landmarks Implement ARIA landmarks to define regions of the page, such as navigation, main content, and complementary content, which can help screen reader users understand and navigate the layout. 6. Unresponsive design Develop a responsive design that adjusts to various screen sizes and test your site on multiple devices to ensure a consistent and accessible experience. 7. Confusing navigation Simplify navigation menus, ensure consistency across all pages, and use clear labels and logical grouping of menu items. This helps all users, especially those with cognitive impairments, find information easily. Looking for more information on this topic? Read Michael's handy guide to website accessibility: https://lnkd.in/ek9ANxTJ #Accessibility #DigitalAccessibility #A11y