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Wider/Key Web Sites

See the Information Sources Index page to find listings of sites focused on particular issues.

• Business in the Community encourages all sorts of involvement by commercial organisations with not-for-profits. In Scotland, try Scottish Business in the Community.
  
  
• Charity Commission (covers England and Wales). Holds details of registered charities which you can search in various ways, downloadable publications (including most of their important leaflets) and further contact details. Also see Registering as a charity.
  
  
• Charities Aid Foundation has news from and for UK charities.
  
  
• Directory of Social Change Training and information (a wide range of publications) for the voluntary sector. Also central London meeting venue with reference library (ring in advance), annual Charityfair, online bookshop.
  
  
• Idealist An international project of Action without Borders, based in the US, with some bias. Worth a look if you are interested in foreign as well as UK stuff, and/or have plenty of web surfing time. You can search on various topics and by country, date of event.
  
  
• Office for Public Management "working with people to develop high quality management, professional practice and public engagement in organisations that aim to improve social results." Various downloadable papers, but not as useful a resource as it was.
  
  
• OneWorld Major portal site on sustainable development and human rights from a partner network of over 500 NGOs. Daily news and radio service, jobs, campaigns and a powerful search engine for material on global justice.
  
  
• Open Directory Project is a human-edited web directory. Unfortunately, they tend to regard anything outside America as 'Regional', so Society/Organizations/Nonprofit_Resources, is rather US dominated. We would suggest that VolResource is much more relevant, up-to-date and useful than their Regional/Europe/UK pages.
  
  
• WorkWithUs 'Scotland's portal to the voluntary sector' set up by SCVO, with pages for and by a wide range of organisations in the country.

News Sources

• Please see our VoluntaryNews site for links to a range of web sites carrying news for voluntary organisations - more than just the occasional press release. Some of those listed above and other specialist sites listed elsewhere will also carry relevant news for their areas.

Other media

• Community Channel is on Sky Digital TV channel 585 and Telewest 233 24 hours a day; ntl channel 14 or 511, 24 hours a day; Freeview channel 46 from 6am to 9am. See web site for listings, selected items, online buying, guidance on how your organisation can appear.

Blogs, Forums, RSS

We have, at December 2009, moved most of this information to the new VoluntaryNews site. It covers news sites for the voluntary sector, quick links to news feeds (RSS) and a page of discussion forums and other interactive sites.

Blogs (usually personal 'diaries' on a range of subjects) and forums often come with RSS feeds built-in - simple way to deliver summaries of frequently changing web content via news readers or similar tools. Firefox includes a reader as standard, called Live Bookmarks, and add-ins (extensions) can tailor things further.

• Our CharityBlog is rather quiet at present on providing a more personal and wider view on the voluntary sector. However, it also lists a wide range of blogs produced by and for people involved in charities, including those designed to be read by a wider audience (donors, members, volunteers, general public).

• Discussion lists and forums connected with a specific function (e.g. IT support) will appear on the relevant page covering support bodies.

Directories - Voluntary organisations, charities

There are quite a few web sites competing to be the directory of choice. Charities in England and Wales registered with the Charity Commission are easily found in their search the register section, but also see first entry below. Scotland - see The List at regulator OSCR.

• GuideStar Is based on the Charity Commission's database of registered charities, and got initial government funding. Charities can expand on their entries, and should do so.

• BritishCharities. Email: info@britishcharities.com

• Charities Direct From Caritas Data. They claim to have regularly updated info on over 10,000 charities, although there have been queries about how accurate it is. Also lists/profiles various professional advisers.

• Charity Choice This database is also available in hard copy. Online you can search by category, name, location, charity registration number etc. Has phone numbers and some web site links. From business information publisher, Wilmington.

• CharityLibrary UK based but wants to be global.

• National Charities Database from Aurelian (link problem July 2010). Their lists are intended for marketing purposes.

Also see Web in Practice page for charity shopping malls, online donation directories and the like.

Useful non-UK sites

The following are worth checking out if you have a) the time b) the inclination to filter out the foreign, mainly American, specific content. Remember that US legal matters, non-profit boards and the whole approach to philanthropy/giving are very different to that in the UK.

• Allavida (Alliances for Voluntary Initiatives and Development - link problem March 2010), a CAF offshoot. Previously working around strengthening civil society in Eastern European, from 2008 its focus has moved to Africa, and is based in Kenya.
• Center on Nonprofits and Philanthropy (CNP), part of Urban Institute. Projects include the National Center for Charitable Statistics (NCCS) and Research Initiative on Nonprofit Advocacy.
• Literature of the NonProfit Sector A search facility geared to finding particular papers (probably academic in nature).
• NGO Manager 'Management tools and informationm for nonprofits worldwide'.
• About.com 'the human internet' has a Non-Profit channel - plenty of stuff but very American.
• Management Help general library page has plenty of links to management articles of varying relevance and quality.
• Philanthropy News Network Online Some technology info hidden away, as well as news of what is happening in the US on fundraising etc.
• Canadian nonprofit 'supersite' Charity Village, or information resource NonProfit Library Commons.
• Voluntary Sector Knowledge Network, another Canadian effort, has sections on Financial Management, Accountability, Leadership and more.
• The Institution Manager's Briefcase from International Trade Centre UNCTAD/WTO is aimed at those in developing countries.