What is iT4Communities?

iT4Communities (iT4C) is the leading national IT volunteering programme, introducing volunteer IT professionals to charities needing IT help and support.

iT4C was set up by the Company in 2002, and since then has registered over 5,300 volunteers and more than 2,500 charities. iT4C has delivered over £3 million worth of support to the charity sector thanks to the work of the dedicated volunteer IT professionals.

Volunteers have taken on projects ranging from website design to database development to developing IT strategies to delivering training.

iT4C in action

As a national charity running creative film workshops for small groups of young people, Film It! was suffering from a spam invasion and needed a hero to save them

Film It! aims to educate, engage and enthuse ‘hard to reach;’ young people through the creative arts. They run teambased filmmaking workshops for young people, helping them grow in confidence and learn to work in a team. To keep the cameras rolling Film It! relies on the work of many different volunteers who come and go. Each volunteer's email account attracted spam and caused constant headaches. Without any funding for rent costs let alone for any IT support, they badly needed a technical volunteer to get them back into action. iT4Communities was able to help and Esther Regenwetter came to the rescue.

Esther had the skills and experience to get the charity up and running again and after a few visits quickly solved the issues. No more emails were getting lost and the spam problem was defeated so the charity could communicate again and get on with changing lives. Download the full case study.

Sue Dawson of Film It! said: “Esther was wonderful and efficiently got us back on track with our
email accounts, she also was extremely nice and didn’t use geek speak so we could all understand her! Thank you for all your help.'

Esther summed up the whole process perfectly, saying: “I really enjoy volunteering!”

For more information visit www.it4communities.org.uk and http://www.film-it.org.uk/

Other iT4C activities this year

John Davies, Director of the Information Technologists’ Company’s charity iT4Communities, recently flew to Melbourne to advise Monash University on developing the initiative for Australia. He delivered a keynote conference speech to officials from the Australian federal and state government, New Zealand officials, senior researchers at Monash and Australian organisations.

Mr Davies said: “This is a very exciting opportunity for the Information Technologists’ Company to showcase iT4Communities’ many successes and to help Monash University develop a professional IT volunteering programme for the voluntary sector in Australia. We are very grateful to Monash for the offer and the sponsorship that has made this trip possible.”

See the press report from The Courier, Ballarat and an article in iT4C's Newsletter.

iT4C has also recently been represented at the CITY.COMMunities Fair.