DWG will donate a free 2015 annual Membership to a global nonprofit
For over a decade DWG (formerly known as IBF) has been fortunate to work with many wonderful global clients. After such a sustained period of success we now want to give back in all the ways we can, so next year, the Digital Workplace Group (DWG) will donate a 2015 DWG Membership to a global nonprofit.
I am beyond delighted to announce that the Digital Workplace Group (DWG) will donate a 2015 DWG Membership to a global nonprofit.
For over a decade DWG (formerly known as IBF) has been fortunate to work with many wonderful global clients. After such a sustained period of success we now want to give back in all the ways we can.
Improving the lot of digital workers
At the heart of DWG’s everyday work is a drive to make the world of work in the digital age more and more humanizing. Many of our services boil down to improving intranets and other aspects of digital workplaces through user-focused design and affirming stakeholder engagement.
Many on our team have previously experienced themselves or have witnessed their friends and family enduring work as a diminishing, soul-crushing experience, and yet we collectively dream of work as nourishing and enriching.
The new book The Digital Renaissance of Work: Delivering digital workplaces fit for the future, by DWG CEO Paul Miller and DWG Director of Research Elizabeth Marsh, takes a fundamentally positive view of how this modern age can change the nature of work.
As John F. Kennedy said in a speech to the Parliament of Ireland in 1963: “The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men [Editor’s note: “and women”] who can dream of things that never were and ask why not?”
At DWG we dream of digital worlds worth working in that connect us more, that are pleasing and inspiring, that help us do better work and that make work more fulfilling. Our Member Forum brings together the intranet and digital workplace teams from large organizations in the pursuit of this mission. Just imagine the rippling effect it will have on millions and millions of lives if the largest organizations in the world can improve their digital workplaces.
So, today we are preparing to bring a global nonprofit with 5,000 or more employees into our member circle at no cost to that organization. Nonprofit organizations around the world do amazing work and operate on the power of tremendously dedicated and passionate employees, as well as hard-earned donated funds. Perhaps through the donation of an annual membership, DWG can help a global nonprofit strengthen its employees’ experience of work every day and further deliver on its mission.
What DWG Membership includes
DWG will donate a year of membership (without benchmarking). This includes our full array of membership services, except for a detailed benchmarking evaluation.
Not including a benchmarking evaluation, DWG membership includes:
PEER LEARNING
- In-person member meetings: 3 guaranteed spots at each of 8 in-person member meetings in North America and Europe
- Digital Workplace Live: Up to 50 for the monthly broadcast of Digital Workplace Live
- Knowledge Exchanges: Up to 50 seats for monthly confidential online Knowledge Exchanges between DWG members
- Private Member Social Network: Up to 50 accounts on the private DWG Member Yammer Network
RESEARCH
- Confidential member extranet: Up to 50 accounts on the private DWG member extranet, which houses the below resources as well as a directory of all DWG members
- 2015 members-only research reports: 6 or more new, in-depth DWG research reports to be produced as part of DWG’s 2015 Research Programme
- Research library: An extensive library of DWG’s past research reports
- Video catalogue: On-demand collection of hundreds of videos of all past episodes of Digital Workplace Live, Knowledge Exchanges and Digital Workplace 24.
- Benchmarking knowledge base: An archive of best practices drawn from over 600 completed benchmarking evaluations.
Value of DWG membership for a global nonprofit
The above described membership has a value in the tens of thousands of Pounds Sterling, but will be donated to the selected nonprofit at no cost.
DWG membership is designed to allow extended teams across organizational functions to access the extensive online resources provided by DWG. This means that the selected nonprofit’s membership will allow a large group of employees from Internal Communications, HR, IT, Knowledge Management and other related departments all to benefit from DWG’s research and peer learning services and materials.
Knowing that even with access to all of DWG’s resources, digital workplace teams at nonprofits may face limited travel budgets, DWG will also donate £1,000 towards the cost of travel to DWG’s in-person Member Meetings.
DWG is targeting this donation at a global nonprofit because: 1) most DWG members are global organizations and we would like the selected nonprofit to be able to join as a true peer organization; and 2) a large, global nonprofit with dispersed staff will more likely be able to take advantage of DWG’s trans-Atlantic member meeting schedule.
Process of selecting a global nonprofit
Compiling a list of 10 global nonprofits
The DWG team is currently compiling a shortlist of 10 global nonprofits that have expressed interest in our services before or that we are familiar with. If you work on the digital workplace of a global nonprofit or know someone who does, please contact me (Ephraim Freed) for more information.
Ensuring ability to make use of DWG membership
We will contact the digital workplace teams on our list in order to ensure that they would be able to accept and make use of DWG membership, should they be selected.
Submitting statements of intent
We will invite each of the nonprofits on our final list to submit a short statement about why they would like a DWG membership and how they plan to use it.
Voting by DWG members
We will invite current DWG members to vote for the nonprofit they think would most benefit from and could contribute to DWG membership.
Announcing the final selection in January, 2015
Assuming all goes according to plan, DWG will announce the selected global nonprofit in January, 2015 and begin onboarding the new member.
The membership will last for one year, at which point DWG will evaluate the usefulness of the membership donation and likely select a new nonprofit for an annual membership in 2016.
On a personal note I have to say how very happy I am about DWG’s membership donation. I cut my digital workplace teeth, so to speak, launching a social intranet for the nonprofit Oxfam America. The site went live in May 2009 and I’m told it is still a rich and important element of the organization’s digital workplace fabric.
Having come from the world of global nonprofit work, and being of a generation that commonly likes to see businesses having a positive social and environmental impact, I take great heart from DWG’s effort
