Spreading Christmas Joy to families in Glasgow
It's this time of year. As the nights draw in, everyone needs a bit of extra positivity. For most of us, Christmas provides that warm glow in the cold winter season. However, not everyone can afford the extra expense involved. In Scotland, one in five children live in poverty and this ratio climbs to one in three in Glasgow. The charity Cultivating Mindfulness organises donations of gifts through its Glasgow Spirit of Christmas (GSOC), campaign so that many more children in Glasgow and the surrounding areas can look forward to opening a present on Christmas Day.
We all know that being Santa involves some big, logistical challenges - that’s why Cultivating Mindfulness teamed up with the Scottish Tech Army (STA) to improve its online capabilities. The Scottish Tech Army called on a team of specialists from its Tech for Good Alliance member company AND Digital to improve the GSOC website and database functionality. The result was an outstanding project, which delivered a big improvement in efficiency for GSOC and an unforgettable learning experience for the volunteers from AND Digital.
What is Glasgow Spirit of Christmas?
GSOC was started 10 years ago by one person, Julie Griffin, who wanted to make sure as many children in and around Glasgow were able to open a present on Christmas Day. At the beginning, she and a few friends simply put up a sign saying 'Santa Stop Here' asking for donations to be dropped off in an empty car park. Soon, other people joined in and donations and partner organisations multiplied. Over the last 10 years GSOC has helped 102,700 local children and provided £3.8 million worth of gifts, which were donated by individuals either as cash donations or physical gifts.
GSOC is partnered with over 100 local organisations that are embedded in the community. It requests the number and type of presents they need each Christmas for the families they are involved with. Donors register their intention to gift on the GSOC website and are provided with advice on what to purchase, a QR code to track each gift and a location and time for its drop off. The volunteers at GSOC manually check all presents and make sure they arrive in time with the right partner organisation.
Making the collection and distribution of so many donations happen reliably every year is an impressive feat. The technological side of GSOC included a front-facing website for publicity and making donations. The back end was constituted by a data base, which handled data from donors, partner organisations and volunteers.
How does the Tech For Good Alliance work?
Tech companies have great resources to offer both in terms of human capabilities, technology and finance. The STA has been keen to draw on this under-used resource to benefit the Third Sector across the UK by fostering cooperation. In practical terms, this means that the Scottish Tech Army functions as an access point for community projects that need technological support. Through its connections within the industry the STA then matches the third sector organisation with a team of experts from a tech company that has committed to creating social impact through the Alliance. AND Digital was the first tech consultancy to partner with the Scottish Tech Army to offer its time and talents on a voluntary basis. The Tech For Good Alliance was a perfect match with AND Digital’s central ethos of sharing and enhancing digital skills as the company was already providing support and services, involving digital development work and training to a number of charities and community groups across Scotland.
Improving Efficiency for Glasgow Spirit of Christmas
During the initial match making facilitated by the Scottish Tech Army, a team of volunteers from AND Digital assessed the improvements requested by GSOC in June 2023. An important factor impacting what could be achieved was the annual cycle of activity of GSOC. Obviously, everybody involved was adamant that improvements had to be delivered on time and under no circumstances could Christmas be cancelled! The time constraint limited what could be achieved and a complete re-design of the website and data base was ruled out. The team from AND Digital decided to split the work into two phases: Phase one involved priority fixes that were essential, whilst phase two would include a reorganisation of the data base into three different parts, separating the data of users making donations from that of charity partners and volunteers. Additionally, the team wanted to focus on saving GSOC volunteer admin time. As things stood, charity partners emailed their requests and drop off location data to GSOC, where volunteers had to manually re-enter all the data. The AND team decided to create a log-in platform for partner organisations, that would allow them to manage all their data directly. They also planned to create a search function so individual gifts could easily be tracked via their QR code.
Phase one of the project was completed in July without issues. This set the clock ticking on the more ambitious phase two improvements, which had to be delivered by end of September. The volunteers got stuck in with great enthusiasm motivated by their contact with an appreciative client and a fantastic social goal. Who doesn't want to be Santa? Given that volunteers could only work on the project when their internal schedules allowed, everyone had to be extremely conscientious with documentation and communication. It also meant that colleagues, who had not worked together before got to know and trust each other as team members changed regularly. Furthermore, AND Digital encouraged everyone to try out new skills and take on different roles than their usual ones whilst volunteering. Altogether, this made for a lively and enthusiastic team atmosphere.
By end of September the new portal for partner organisations had been built and tested. GSOC was ready for its big one-day registration event on the 1 October, when it presented the new portal live to more than 60 of its partner organisations. The latter were encouraged to sign up to the platform on the day with the AND Digital team on standby to help with any problems. All went smoothly and the day was a great success.
Of course, there are no good stories without adversities: Once the main website opened on a Sunday for donations, it rapidly became clear that somewhere there was a broken link in the code as donations did not register in the database correctly. Finding out on a Sunday night that there was a problem, the team stabilised the database on Monday morning and had applied a patch by Monday evening. A memorable 24 hours for everyone involved! It took another week to fix the issue permanently, during which the team arranged for daily phone updates with Julie to reassure her that improvements were progressing. Volunteers went as far as going out and buying a present and submitting it as a donation to make sure everything worked.
Final glitches fixed, GSOC were delighted with the improvements and impressed by the professionality and dedication offered by the AND Digital volunteers. Watch Julie's feedback on the project.
The Volunteer Perspective
For the volunteers, working on the GSOC improvements was a beneficial and emotional experience. Given that there was Christmas at stake, the group was really motivated to deliver on time. Colleagues, who had not worked together before got to know each other. Some volunteers worked in new roles in the team and managed to gain enough confidence and skills through it to continue in the new role with a commercial client. The general feeling was one of joy and pride in having contributed to making Christmas happier for so many children. May the spirit of generosity and cooperation spread far and wide, especially in the tech community. Any donations for children in need in Glasgow and surrounding areas will be gratefully received by the Glasgow Spirit of Christmas at https://glasgowsspiritofchristmas.org.uk.
