Getting that advice gave us the opportunity to really think through what we wanted to do, rather than just panicking and never actually doing anything about it.
HEAR is a network of London charities, voluntary organisations, community groups, community activists, grass roots campaigners and ‘experts by experience’, all working for human rights, equality and social justice, and against discrimination and prejudice.
Meet Christine
HEAR Network has been a partner of Superhighways in various projects for many years. Christine Goodall is the Network Coordinator and is involved in most aspects of HEAR's work.
Christine and HEAR have accessed a range of support from our team over the years, including at our Bring Your Own Tech days.
The digital challenges
Christine and HEAR encountered challenges on several fronts that led them to seek support from the Superhighways team.
This included finding the right bulk mail tool for communicating with members, implementing more effective file storage and sharing systems, and individual challenges for Christine due to her visual impairment.
Dropbox and Interests.me
Firstly, limited storage space and an unexpected need to switch newsletter providers prompted them to approach Superhighways.
Using Dropbox for storage, HEAR noticed their system was becoming increasingly cluttered. It was clear that soon they wouldn’t be able to store new files, creating an urgent need for a solution.
It got completely full up. We no longer had any room to put anything else on it, but neither did we have the time or staff capacity to try to reorganise it.
HEAR also relied on a free tool called Interests.me to send regular e-bulletins to members. However, with the platform due to stop operating, Christine needed help to quickly research and find an alternative.
Out of the blue, Interests.me said that they were closing down, and there wasn’t a huge amount of notice. So that was alarming.
Accessibility support
The second set of challenges focused on providing accessibility support for Christine, who uses a screen reader due to her visual impairment.
She needed assistance setting up Teams and Zoom accounts on her personal laptop, as well as finding a way to make some of Voice’s new features more accessible.
HEAR also sought help with creating and uploading videos to YouTube, transferring from WordPress to Voice Communities Online, and choosing the right antivirus software.
How Superhighways helped
Quite a lot of the support I required has been partly connected to the fact that there’s extra layers of need that I have because I’m using a screen reader. That’s why it was really important to get that one-to-one support from them.
It was through this one-to-one support from different members of the Superhighways team, particularly Paul (Tech Development Adviser) and Sorrel (Digital Lead), that Christine was able to make significant progress in meeting these challenges.
To address the issue of HEAR’s overloaded storage system, Christine needed advice on whether Dropbox was the best solution and if it was worth investing time to reorganise it. Paul conducted research into alternative options before holding a one-to-one session with her.
After confirming that Dropbox was still a good choice for now, HEAR were able to progress with re-organising their system, taking this as an opportunity to prioritise cleaning up files and delete unnecessary items.
We completely reorganised all the folders. It took a while to do, but it’s been worth it.
As an alternative to Interests.me, Superhighways researched potential options tailored to the needs of small charities.
In a one-to-one meeting, Sorrel recommended Email Octopus. Christine says that Superhighways’ assistance in finding this alternative “made the massive, massive difference”.
For further support, Christine attended our Bring Your Own Tech Day event in February 2024. Paul and Kate (Superhighways Manager) assisted her by creating the Zoom and Teams logins on her laptop and running a few test meetings, which provided her with the ability to connect to online meetings from home in an emergency.
The results
Technical support is often very generic and not understanding of the needs of an organisation like us that is very small and limited in capacity.
Christine shares that the support she and HEAR have received from Superhighways have had a big impact on many aspects of their work that rely on digital technology.
The service has been totally invaluable because it’s very difficult to get that form of support that’s particularly tailored to what we need.
Visit HEAR Network (their new website on the Voice platform) to find out more about their work.
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About Digital Foundations
Digital Foundations is a training and advice programme led by small charity digital, data and technology experts Superhighways, backed by specialist organisations Voice Online Communities, Refugee Council and HEAR Equality and Human Rights Network.
Digital Foundations is funded by The National Lottery Community Fund.