COMMUNITY & VOLUNTARY ORGANISATIONS URGED TO GET ONLINE
The Greater Nottingham Partnership is offering any Voluntary or Community organisation in the Greater Nottingham Area the facility to build and customise their website virtually free of charge, courtesy of an agreement with web content management specialist EIBS.
The GNP is offering organisations access to EIBS’ content management system - EasySite CMS, together with training, hosting services and technical support. Over 20 community and voluntary organisations in Nottinghamshire have already taken up the offer, and another 15 are due to go live with their own websites in the near future.
“We initially purchased EIBS’ EasySite Content Management System to create a website that would allow effective communication within our own organisation,” said Martin Gawith, Executive Director of the GNP. “However, after working with EIBS to allow each of the organisations involved to create their own ‘micro-website’ within the overall site, the obvious next step for us was to offer the same facility to any community or voluntary organisation in the area.”
The GNP’s system allows Community and Voluntary Organisations to create their own website with an individual design, its own web address, and a site-specific search engine. At the same time, organisations benefit from the ability to share information with sibling sites, and users can choose to search a specific section or across the whole site. Organisations currently using the system to run their own websites include the Nottingham Dyslexia Association, the Learning, Skills & Employability Group, the Nottingham Chinese Welfare Association and the Carer’s Council.
The GNP is a partnership organisation that was formed by Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire County Councils in order to improve partnership working across Greater Nottingham and attract more Government Regeneration funding into the area. Implementation is the responsibility of multiple sub-groups and delivery partners, and there is increasing involvement of the voluntary and community sector to meet needs that are not effectively tackled by mainstream providers.
“In meeting our objectives we are very much dependent upon the support and encouragement we receive from our partners,” continued Gawith. “By providing websites to Community & Voluntary Organisations, we are able to benefit from improved partnership working, while providing them with a valuable tool to communicate with their audiences in turn.”
For further information or to find out how to get involved, visit www.gngateway.org.uk.
