Latest bid summary

Following lots of calls and meetings with a range of organisations that have been supportive of the Voicebox bid, we thought it would be a good idea to publish a short summary of how the bid is shaping up. Although it’s getting close to the deadline now, we’re still keen to gauge your thoughts on it, so please do comment on the blog.

Voicebox Summary

At the heart of the bid is the Delivery Model, which is a high-level description of the approach we will describe to CLG using the diagram shown here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/33342139@N08/3215275038/

The Model shows the following key areas of work within the project:

Research and Mapping (R&M) – This will start with a short and intensive (3 month) activity designed to collate existing expertise in the mentoring of social and community media skills to local communities. The knowledge gathered will start the population of a matrix of practice, as well as to identify gaps in provision. Information gathered at this early stage will inform our decisions on the types of demonstrator projects we would like to commission and of these, which we should fund. After three months the R&M work stream will remain active throughout the life of the project by gathering feedback from the demonstrator projects, which in turn will refine the matrix and re -evaluate the gaps.

Recruitment and Training of Mentors – Throughout the life of the project we will deliver a variety of training and mentoring interventions with the purpose of recruiting existing mentors into the project, and developing others to become so. A significant proportion of the effort will be spent in the first three to six months to ensure that trained mentors are able to engage with their communities, allowing the community projects they nurture to develop as long as possible across the two-year life of the Digital Mentors project. The method of training will vary; a mixture of face to face training ‘coming together’ events and online resources and mentoring delivered through a ‘bank’ of trainers.

Incubator projects – From month three onwards, we’ll start to incubate a range of projects using a variety of media, across a wide spectrum of target areas. Throughout the incubation period, we’ll keep a close eye on them and will look for lessons which can be fed in the R&M work stream. A small capital budget will be available to help remove barriers to engagement, though most incubator projects will be unfunded in the first year. A small number of projects will receive some funding following the research and training phase in order to stimulate activity which would otherwise not take place.  All incubators will be encouraged to make use of the bank of online resources that are aggregated and developed during the project, and contribute through peer-to-peer sharing.

Pathfinder projects -  At the end of year one, we’ll compare the outcomes of the R&M  analysis with the demonstrators emerging from the incubator projects and make informed decisions on which of these projects should be offered funding to develop their ideas more fully. Again, we want to have a wide variety of projects represented covering a range of target groups, communities of interest and geographies. We anticipate testing different levels of funding so that we can report back to CLG the projected levels of funding that would be required to deliver a national rollout. All pathfinder projects will be monitored closely and lessons fed back through the project management and R&M work stream.

Progression – We’ll provide opportunities for digital mentors and mentees (such as routes for accreditation) as well as to provide pathways to employment within the creative industries. These opportunities will be made available to both digital mentors and the community groups to whom they serve.

Strategic Leadership – The project will be effectively governed by a Project Board, and advised by a Strategy Group with representation from a wide selection of organisations with interest in digital mentoring, volunteering, the third sector and the public sector. We will develop a web platform which will be a hub for resources, information sharing and debate and a focus for the new partnerships which we will anticipate will develop through the project.

Welcome to Voicebox!

Voicebox is the site through which we are going to be managing the public face of our project to tender for the digital mentors fund from the Department for Communities and Local Government.

We need your help to make our bid as strong as possible, so please let us know your thoughts on our various work package streams and inform us of what you can offer using our Contribute form.

Please do get involved and help us give an online voice to disadvantaged communities!