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(WCVA Awards 2025)

[invisibleicewands]

Message for WCVA Awards 2025

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What’s new at the Third Sector Data Hub?

Am ddarllen hon ym Gymraeg?

If you haven’t seen it, the Third Sector Data Hub – launched back in 2018 - offers the latest statistics and data around third sector income, funding, activities and workforce, as well as information about volunteering demographics. 

It uses our info, as well as that from Welsh Government, NCVO and others, to present to you an attractive, user-friendly experience that allows you to drill down into the data and find out what’s important to you.

And now we’re pleased to bring to you a pretty significant update.

We’re able to present statistical info from the Charity Commission, using data we’ve never had before, which brings a whole lot more detail about the shape of the third sector in Wales. For instance, you can:

·         Find the number of registered charities in Wales

·         See the areas in Wales these charities operate in highlighted on a map

·         Track the types of charities in each area of Wales by number (e.g. Powys has 118 disability charities operating while Merthyr Tydfil has 38; Cardiff has 151 charities whose purpose is to tackle poverty; Blaenau Gwent has 28)

·         See how many registered charities work in both England and Wales

We’ve also been able to update some of our financial data, so now you can see charities’ income per head of population across all the regions of England and Wales, as well as the number of organisations per 1000 population across each region.

The Hub is developed in partnership with Data Cymru, who will be at gofod3 this coming Thursday (21 March) displaying the Hub. Do take a few moments to pop along to their stand and see what it’s all about.

We’re proud of the Data Hub – we think it’s an incredibly useful, versatile tool for funders, decision-makers, the public and, of course, the third sector itself. So why not take a look for yourself?

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Beth sy’n newydd ym Mhorth Data’r Trydydd Sector?

Os nad ydych yn gyfarwydd ag ef, mae Porth Data’r Trydydd Sector – a lansiwyd yn 2018 – yn cynnig yr ystadegau a’r data diweddaraf am incwm, cyllid, gweithgareddau a gweithlu’r trydydd sector, yn ogystal â gwybodaeth ynglŷn â demograffeg gwirfoddoli. 

Mae’n defnyddio ein gwybodaeth ni, yn ogystal â gwybodaeth o Lywodraeth Cymru, NCVO ac eraill, i ddarparu gwasanaeth hwylus a hawdd ei ddefnyddio sy’n eich galluogi i gloddio i mewn i’r data a dod o hyd i’r hyn sy’n bwysig i chi.

A nawr rydym yn falch o gyhoeddi diweddariad o bwys.

Mae modd i ni gyflwyno gwybodaeth ystadegol o’r Comisiwn Elusennau, gan ddefnyddio data nad ydym erioed wedi’i gael o’r blaen, sy’n cynnig llawer iawn mwy o ddata ynglŷn â siâp y trydydd sector yng Nghymru. Er enghraifft, gallwch wneud y canlynol:

·         Canfod nifer yr elusennau cofrestredig yng Nghymru

·         Gweld ar fap yr ardaloedd yng Nghymru y mae’r elusennau hyn yn gweithredu ynddynt

·         Olrhain y mathau o elusennau ym mhob ardal yng Nghymru yn ôl nifer (e.e. mae 118 o elusennau anabledd ym Mhowys tra mae 38 ym Merthyr Tudful; mae 151 o elusennau trechu tlodi yng Nghaerdydd a 28 ym Mlaenau Gwent)

·         Gweld faint o elusennau cofrestredig sydd ar waith yng Nghymru a Lloegr

Rydym hefyd wedi diweddaru rhannau o’r data ariannol, felly gallwch nawr weld incwm elusennau fesul pen yn y boblogaeth ym mhob rhanbarth yng Nghymru a Lloegr, yn ogystal â nifer y mudiadau fesul 1000 o bobl ym mhob rhanbarth.

Datblygwyd y Porth ar y cyd â Data Cymru, a fydd yn gofod3 ddydd Iau yma (21 Mawrth) yn arddangos y Porth. Felly ewch draw at eu stondin i gael blas o’r hyn y gall y Porth ei wneud i chi.

Rydym yn falch iawn o’r Porth Data – credwn ei fod yn adnodd defnyddiol a hyblyg iawn i gyllidwyr, penderfynwyr, y cyhoedd ac, wrth gwrs, y trydydd sector ei hun. Felly beth am fwrw golwg drosto?

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Need help with volunteering-wales.net?

Ydych chi am ddarllen y blog yma yn Gymraeg?

Fiona Liddell, Volunteering Development Manager WCVA, describes some of the assistance that is available to those looking for volunteers through the new volunteering platform.

The new volunteering website is up and running but it is still unfamiliar to most of us. It takes time to get used to a different system (especially, perhaps, a digital one).

The website uses different terminology and has different features compared to the previous one. You may have experienced confusion yourself in trying to navigate your way; some of you have identified ‘glitches’ and we are grateful to have these pointed out.

We do not yet have the perfect system and few of the features we are expecting are still under development. But the basics are in place and the potential is exciting; easy self-serve access to volunteering and a range of online management capabilities including digital awards and tools for monitoring and reporting on volunteers and volunteer activity.

Some of the features of the system have been described in previous posts (See  The new Volunteering Wales platform – Help! Where do I start?; I’m on the new volunteering platform – what now?  and  New website helps you get into volunteering)

I want to clarify some of the different ways in which help is available to users of the system.

Online help

You can access a range of online help, from the Help menu at the top of the screen.

Type keywords into the search bar to identify relevant articles, blog posts or other guidance, provided by the developers, Team Kinetic . Guidance is in the process of being updated, following a major upgrade to the software in August. Nevertheless, this is a good place to start and may answer your questions.

Volunteering Wales FAQs

The system we have developed in Wales is essentially 19 linked county systems plus a national one. This is mainly about the organisation of administrative responsibilities and data ownership and should not affect users unduly. Your postcode will determine which county system your registration is directed to, regardless of where you log on.

This does mean that questions arise which are peculiar to our system in Wales and so we have put together our own list of FAQs.

Volunteer Centres and WCVA

Volunteer Centres and WCVA have administrative responsibilities for the system. One of them will have approved your registration and approves opportunities that are posted. You can contact your administrator through the Get in Touch button at the top of the page, or by phone or email..

Social media

Team Kinetic is active on social media and welcomes contact from users with any issues, questions or experiences. You can find  them on facebook , Twitter @TeamKineticUK and you can subscribe to their blog site for regular news and updates.

Webinars

WCVA is hosting webinars with Team Kinetic on:

9 October 2018 – 11:00-12:00

23 January 2019 – 14:00-15:00

15 May 2019 – 14:00-15:00

We hope to release a video for participants to watch beforehand, addressing the most common issues that users have raised during our latest feedback survey. The webinar will be a chance for Q and A following this. Both the video and the recorded webinar will be available for viewing online afterwards.

So, one way or another we hope that you find the support and help that you need, to use the website in the way that you need to. Don’t struggle in silence, there is willing help at hand!

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Angen cymorth gyda gwirfoddolicymru.net?

Yma mae Fiona Liddell, Rheolwr Datblygu Gwirfoddoli WCVA, yn disgrifio’r cymorth sydd ar gael i’r rheini sy’n chwilio am wirfoddolwyr drwy’r llwyfan gwirfoddoli newydd.

Mae’r wefan wirfoddoli newydd bellach ar waith ond mae’n dal i fod yn anghyfarwydd i’r rhan fwyaf ohonom. Mae dod i arfer â system wahanol (yn enwedig, efallai, un ddigidol) yn cymryd amser.

Mae’r wefan yn defnyddio terminoleg wahanol ac mae ganddi nodweddion gwahanol o’i chymharu â’r hen un. Efallai’ch bod wedi cael trafferth eich hun wrth ei defnyddio; mae rhai ohonoch wedi dod ar draws gwallau ac rydym yn ddiolchgar iawn o gael gwybod am y rhain.

Nid oes gennym system berffaith eto ac mae rhai o’r nodweddion yr ydym yn eu disgwyl yn dal i gael eu datblygu. Ond mae’r hanfodion yno ac mae’r potensial yn gyffrous; mynediad hwylus uniongyrchol at gyfleoedd gwirfoddoli a llu o nodweddion rheoli arlein gan gynnwys gwobrau digidol a ffyrdd o fonitro gwirfoddolwyr a gweithgareddau gwirfoddoli ac adrodd arnynt.

Mae rhai o nodweddion y system wedi’u disgrifio mewn blogiau blaenorol (Gweler Llwyfan newydd Gwirfoddoli Cymru - Help! Lle dwi’n dechrau?; Rwyf ar lwyfan newydd Gwirfoddoli Cymru - beth nawr? a Gwefan newydd i’ch helpu i fynd ati i wirfoddoli)

Hoffwn egluro rhai o’r ffyrdd gwahanol y gall defnyddwyr y system gael cymorth.

Cymorth arlein

Mae cymorth amrywiol ar gael arlein, o’r ddewislen Help ar frig y sgrin.

Nodwch allweddeiriau yn y bar chwilio i ganfod erthyglau perthnasol, blogiau neu ganllawiau eraill, a ddarperir gan y datblygwyr, Team Kinetic. Mae’r arweiniad wrthi’n cael ei ddiweddaru yn sgil diweddariad mawr yn y feddalwedd ym mis Awst. Er hynny, dyma fan cychwyn da ac mae’n bosib y bydd yn ateb eich cwestiynau.

Cwestiynau Cyffredin Gwirfoddoli Cymru

19 o systemau sirol cysylltiedig, ac un genedlaethol, yw’r system yr ydym wedi’i datblygu yng Nghymru yn y bôn. Prif bwrpas hyn yw trefnu cyfrifoldebau gweinyddol a pherchnogaeth dros ddata ac ni ddylai gael gormod o effaith ar ddefnyddwyr. Eich cod post fydd yn pennu at ba system sirol y caiff eich cofrestriad ei gyfeirio, ni waeth ble rydych yn mewngofnodi.

Golyga hyn fod cwestiynau’n codi sy’n benodol i’n system yng Nghymru ac felly rydym wedi llunio ein rhestr ein hunain o Gwestiynau Cyffredin.

Canolfannau Gwirfoddoli a WCVA

Mae gan Ganolfannau Gwirfoddoli a WCVA gyfrifoldebau gweinyddol dros y system. Bydd un ohonynt wedi cymeradwyo’ch cofrestriad ac yn cymeradwyo cyfleoedd a roddir ar y wefan. Gallwch gysylltu â’ch gweinyddwr drwy’r botwm Cysylltwch â ni ar frig y dudalen, neu drwy ffonio neu ebostio.

 Y cyfryngau cymdeithasol

Mae Team Kinetic yn weithgar ar y cyfryngau cymdeithasol ac yn falch o glywed gan ddefnyddwyr os oes ganddynt broblem, cwestiwn neu brofiad i’w rannu. Gallwch ddod o hyd iddynt ar facebook, Twitter @TeamKineticUK ac mae modd tanysgrifio i’w safle blog i gael newyddion a diweddariadau rheolaidd.

Gweminarau

Mae WCVA yn cynnal gweminarau gyda Team Kinetic ar y dyddiadau canlynol:

9 Hydref 2018 – 11:00-12:00

23 Ionawr 2019 – 14:00-15:00

15 Mai 2019 – 14:00-15:00

Gobeithiwn ryddhau fideo i gyfranogwyr ei wylio ymlaen llaw, a fydd yn ymdrin â’r pethau mwyaf cyffredin y mae defnyddwyr wedi’u codi yn ein harolwg adborth diweddaraf. Bydd cyfle wedyn i ofyn cwestiynau yn y gweminar. Bydd y fideo a recordiad o’r gweminar ar gael i’w gwylio arlein yn ddiweddarach.

Felly, rhyw fodd neu’i gilydd, gobeithio y dewch o hyd i’r cymorth sydd ei angen arnoch, i ddefnyddio’r wefan fel y mynnoch. Peidiwch â dioddef mewn distawrwydd, mae cymorth parod wrth law!

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When in Denmark

Ydych chi am ddarllen y blog yma yn Gymraeg?

This is the third part of our series from 2017 Walter Dickie Leadership Bursary winner Steve Brooks, National Director of Sustrans Cymru. In this blog he talks about what he learnt on the Copenhagenize course in Denmark, and how city leaders can promote sustainable transport in their cities. 

I came out in Copenhagen and it was liberating.  

I’m not a cyclist. There, I said it.  Mikael Colville-Andersen said it to me, and I said it back to him.  Mikael is an urban designer and mobility expert and the founder CEO of the Copenhagenize Design Company.  Mikael is an example of a social-entrepreneur who’s identified a social problem and is working to fix it, albeit in the private sector. 

Clearly, in one sense I am a cyclist.  I work for Sustrans, I have a shed full of bikes and virtually every pair of trousers I own has stubborn oil and dirt marks around the ankles.  But in another sense, I am not a cyclist. Cycling is something I do, rather than something I am.  Lots of people cycle for sport or leisure, and sometimes I do; but most of my trips on a bike are for practical purposes like commuting to work or traveling to meetings. 

Mikael drew a parallel with the vacuum cleaner.  Most of us own one and use one regularly, yet we wouldn’t describe ourselves as a ‘vacuumists’.  It’s just one of several machines we use to make our lives easier.

Copenhagenize is an inspirational opportunity to spend time in the Danish capital with two dozen architects, urban designers, transport planners and cycling advocates to look at how the Danes did it.  And by did it, I mean ditch their addiction to the car and travel more sustainably. 41% of all journeys in Copenhagen are done on foot or by bike. Factor in bus, train and metro, and the proportion of people traveling by car are a minority. The public policy consensus in the city is that municipal leaders will aim for a modal split of ‘thirds’: no less than a third of all journeys on foot or by bike and no more than a third in a car, with public transport making up the difference.  

‘One big lesson for me from Copenhagen is on the role of innovation. In one sense what Copenhagen did was innovative. In another sense, it wasn’t...’

Like most European cities recovering from World War II, the economic boom of the 1950s and early 1960s led to an explosion in the number of cars on Danish roads.  The city was becoming car clogged.  One answer was to build a motorway over The Lakes, a series of three lakes arcing around the edge of the city centre.  A blue equivalent of Cardiff’s green Bute Park. From a traditional transport perspective, this looked like a good idea. The motorway would create an atrial route through the city and connect the travel corridor to Sweden in the north with an onward route to continental Europe to the South. But as well as devastating the city’s natural environment, twelve lanes of motorway would rip through one of the city’s most important working-class districts. 

(Read Steve’s other blogs about his bursary experience: Rethinking Entrepreneur; Practical Collaboration; Walter Dickie’s legacy: helping not for profits thrive) 

A similar idea was planned for Cardiff (CentrePlan 70), but thankfully both schemes were shelved before serious construction was started. Whilst Cardiff decided to grin and bear its traffic woes, Copenhagen took a different approach and began to take space away from cars, and prioritised people. External circumstances, like the oil crisis helped, but basic political leadership and common sense urban design created a revolution. Over the next few decades, the city systematically redesigned its streets providing protected cycle lanes. 

One big lesson for me from Copenhagen is on the role of innovation. In one sense what Copenhagen did was innovative. In another sense, it wasn’t. They used approaches tried and tested for over a hundred years. The basic design principle is unchanged: provide protected space for bikes that’s safe and efficient, and away from motorised vehicles (or horse and carts) and gets people from where they are to where they want to go. Obviously important developments have come along: bike hire schemes, electric bikes, and safer, better surface materials; but fundamentally what needs to happen in 2018 is the same as 1918. There are few, if any, design and engineering problems the transport industry will encounter in Wales that haven’t been dealt with somewhere else, at some other time. Innovation isn’t always about re-inventing the wheel. Sometimes it’s looking for the solution elsewhere, copying a basic idea, tweaking it a bit, and rolling it out at scale. 

The overwhelming reason why Copenhageners cycle is because it’s faster and easier than other modes. People know they gain health benefits and limit their environmental impact, but this for most of the city’s residents are second-order issues. Go to Copenhagen and you won’t see too many cyclists – people wearing lycra, riding expensive road bikes. You will see plenty of people using bikes, going to work, taking the children to school, and dressed for their destination not their journey. 

The lesson for city leaders is this. Getting more people walking and cycling provides the state with numerous benefits. It lessens demands on health spending, improves the quality of the local environment, and provides economic benefits. And whilst most of the population will care to some degree about these wider benefits, the vast majority of people want to drop their children off at school and get to work quickly and safely. So expensive public campaigns promoting the health benefits of cycling will only reach a certain part of the population. If you really want to deliver a health impact, enable people to travel actively by building more bike lanes. Start with the user in mind – people who happen to cycle.

Steve Brooks is the winner of the 2017 Walter Dickie Leadership Bursary, is National Director of Sustrans Cymru and tweets from @stephenbrooksUK. You can read his first blog in the series here.

The 2018 Walter Dickie Leadership Bursary is now taking applications. To find out more about the bursary, visit the webpage or contact Alun Jones.

If you’d like to better understand your leadership style and the successful styles of others, increase your leadership skills and grow your resilience, sign up for our Third Sector Leadership for Future Generations course.

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Open Government will help achieve our Wellbeing Goals

Ydych chi am ddarllen y blog yma yn Gymraeg?

Anna Nicholl, Director of Strategy at WCVA, blogs about her experience attending the Open Government Summit in Tbilisi, Georgia, and how the principles of Open Government could help Wales achieve its Wellbeing Goals under the Future Generations Act.

[above: a session on ‘Participatory Budgeting: Barriers and Triggers’ l-r: Kristina Reinaslu, José Manuel Ribeiro, Miguel Arana Catania, Dmytro Khutkyy, Liia Hänni]

The challenges facing our society feel like they are ratcheting up daily. Whether it’s creaking public services, plastic suffocating our oceans, or dealing with Brexit, it can feel overwhelming. The Wellbeing Goals under the Future Generations Act give us collective goals to work towards for a better society, but what is less clear is how we get from here to there.

The Open Government Partnership (OGP) provides a suite of practical tools to help us put in place the new systems, relationships and culture that can help achieve the Wellbeing Goals. It also provides a lively network of individuals, governments, civil society organisations, academics, journalists and parliaments, all grappling with similar issues across the world. It’s a space to share, learn and benchmark our achievements.

So what is Open Government?

Open Government does what it says on the tin. It is about opening up government to support greater transparency, accountability and participation.

People have been using these principles to create change across the spectrum of activity where government touches our lives. This ranges from co-creating public services and involving citizens in setting public budgets, to civil society-led digital solutions that help create public good. Change is being driven through open contracting, open policy making and open data. Local government is an increasing focus. It is also being used to increase participation in parliaments and to hold politicians to account more generally.

Attending the OGP Global Summit (#OGPGeorgia) was an opportunity to reflect on how we’re faring in Wales (and to see what ideas we could pinch from elsewhere!)  

Key lessons from #OGPGeorgia

In some areas, we are ahead of the pack. Many countries don’t have mechanisms for inclusive dialogue between government and the third sector. In Wales, these were introduced with devolution and are set out in the Third Sector Scheme.  But even here, looking at what others are doing now highlighted areas where our models might need rejuvenating.

We need to reassert why they matter, regain the political commitment, refocus so that they lead to genuine change and explore if we can tap into new digital tools to be more inclusive and genuinely participatory. Sharing ideas and tools through the Open Government Partnership is a good start.

Sharing knowledge

Co-creating public services is supported through two key pieces of recent legislation in Wales. The Wellbeing of Future Generations Act and the Social Services and Wellbeing Act both place statutory duties on public bodies to involve citizens and co-create services. But it’s less clear that this is happening in practice yet (see recent blog from WCVA’s Sally Rees on this).  

There is scope to improve what we do by sharing with others who are grappling with the same issues elsewhere. Examples included

Estonia’s approach to e-governance;

experiences from Nesta’s States of Change project;

the community centres offering multiple service delivery points which had come from a co-produced policy process in Georgia;

and discussions on how Artificial Intelligence could help make this happen, featuring Sophia the Humanoid Robot .  

Participatory budgeting has also been introduced with successes and failures that we can learn from in several countries in the Open Government Partnership. Welsh Government has committed to piloting Participatory Budgeting and is already drawing on evidence from elsewhere.  

The network offers the chance to discuss practical learning and experiences from different types of approaches being implemented today. We heard about what worked for Madrid City Council, in Tartu in Estonia and at both the local and national level in Portugal. All these examples show that putting this in place isn’t easy, but it is possible and can achieve amazing results for people.

The time is now…

As Welsh Government drafts its second Open Government Action Plan, we need to get involved in discussions on this in Wales. The Electoral Reform Society Cymru has been encouraging and facilitating third sector organisations to input into this for the first time. They have used a digital platform to collect ideas which will be the basis of a civil society manifesto for open government.  

If you want to be part of reinvigorating action around transparency, accountability and participation – crucial to achieving the better society set out in our Wellbeing Goals – log into the Open Government Cymru Forum today and get involved.

WCVA is part of the Open Government Pioneers project, led by SCVO and funded by the Big Lottery UK. The project in Wales is being delivered in partnership with the Electoral Reform Society and Cynnal Cymru. Find out more about the Open Government Pioneers project in Wales and get involved in the Open Government Network Cymru.