The Cowling Report

1.4 billion people gave to NGOs last year

2015-10-09T09:48:00.000+11:00

Some very interesting facts from Ongood...check them out. A couple of headliners below.

If NGOs were a country, they would have the fifth largest economy in the world! 1.4 billion people gave to the ten million NGOs worldwide last year- an increase from 1.2 billion in 2011.
The 129,000 European public-benefit foundations give more than 53 billion euros annually.
Tellingly, t hree out of four employees in the NGO sector are female, but the majority of leadership positions at NGOs are still predominately held by men.

What a bad manager does

2015-10-08T11:42:00.000+11:00

So few people are given management training before being promoted. There seems to be an expectation that being a manager can be learnt on the job.

Also many managers are promoted on the basis of technical skills and not their people skills. We need to think differently in the not for profit sector.

Managers need people skills as well as technical skills.

A lesson in Non Gullibility

2015-10-06T09:17:00.000+11:00

The internet should produce smarter people. It concerns me, however, how many people blithely re-post or believe or share ignorant and un true posts. Please print, share and distribute this. And lets all adhere to it!

My New Job

2015-10-02T10:58:00.000+10:00

I am very excited to let you know that on October 14, 2015 I will be taking up a new role as Associate National Director of UnitingCare Australia providing day to day internal leadership. I will continue to be based in Canberra.

UnitingCare Australia is the national body for the UnitingCare Network, one of the largest providers of community services in Australia. With over 1,600 sites, the network engages 39,000 employees and over 28,000 volunteers in service delivery to children, young people and families, Indigenous Australians, people with disabilities, the poor and disadvantaged, people from culturally diverse backgrounds and older Australians in urban, rural and remote communities.

Prayers and thoughts welcome.

I am back!

2015-10-01T08:42:00.000+10:00

Its time after a hiatus of two and a half years to bring back The Cowling Report.

Look forward to journeying with you again through the world of Not for Profits. I won't be blogging ever day but when I write, my intention will be to focus on the following:

Monday Motivation - stuff to get people working in the not for profit sector moving, connecting and engaging
Tuesday Tech - How can NFPs harness modern tools to reach and engage people
Wednesday World Changers- who is inspiring and challenging us
Thursday-practical info for NFP management
Friday Facts - Facts from around the NFP world

Me at two years of age!

My big news

2012-12-19T19:09:00.000+11:00

As of January 16, 2013 I have taken a new role as the Assistant Secretary in the Social Inclusion Unit and Office for the Not-for-Profit Sector in the Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet based in Canberra, Australia.

Note that this is a full-time job, meaning it will now be my professional priority. In the coming six months, I will be thinking about what to do with my wonderful People First -Total Solutions brand.

Am so grateful to my colleagues at People First and the wider sector for their support over the last nine years.

I would encourage everyone to follow me on Twitter (martinjcowling) and/or like my Facebook page to stay up-to-date on what I am doing in my new role. I will continue to share key stuff about the sector and volunteering where appropriate.

Good Bye Cowling Report

2012-12-18T15:07:00.002+11:00

Hi

I will no longer be writing The Cowling Report from this week.

It has been a lot of fun and I have enjoyed the posts and comments immensely but time has come to move on from this medium.

Please enjoy what I have already!

All the very best

Martin J Cowling

12:12:12:12:12

2012-12-12T12:12:00.000+11:00

Its 12: 12 on 12:12:12.

A once in a lifetime date.

What are 12 things you want to accomplish in life?

It is time to re think Time

2012-12-12T05:42:00.000+11:00

Too much volunteer advertising is around these premises

“Do you have free time?
“Do you have some hours to spare?”
“Bored? Got free time?”

NO NO NO

Who do you know that has free time? Do you have free time?Do you know any retirees with free time? Most say they are “busier than ever” How many young people really can say they have “free or spare time”?

Wrong premise. Wrong concept of people's time. Few people are wandering around thinking “I have so much spare time” because time is our most precious commodity.

When we ask people to volunteer, we are asking them to give up this most valuable thing.

We need to market volunteering and time differently and we need to make sure the experience they get for their time is rewarding. If your volunteer work os not rewarding, how will you attract people to it?

The Tragic Royal Affair- Five Lessons

2012-12-11T08:16:00.000+11:00

I am going to weigh in on a topic that has Australians engaged in furious discussion today. It has some lessons for all of us.

A Sydney radio station 2DAY-FM made a prank call to the London's King Edward VII's Hospital in London where Kate, the Duchess of Kate is a patient. The prank involved the radio announcers impersonating Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip. In character, the announcers asked a nurse for information about the Duchess of Wales. The station then broadcast the prank. The prank was silly and for some funny.

The consequences do not seem to be:

The nurse who connected the pair to the ward where the Duchess was, later committed suicide
The radio station's advertisers began pulling advertising in droves. Finally the station puled all advertising
The two announcer's are receiving counselling for their actions
The station has been threatened by hacker group "Anonymous" who have threatened to pull down the website of the station and those of advertisers

I want to express my sorrow to the family who have lost a daughter and a mother. I do not know if she took her life over the prank or whether it was the straw that broke the camels back or if it was a completely unrelated incident.

I do take five Lessons from this affair.

Lesson One: Get Permission

When I was much, much younger, I used to work in radio. I was a DJ for five years with programs at various times. I started on the "graveyard shifts" (weekends midnight to dawn), did a breakfast program and a morning program. I learnt a lot through radio. One of the things that comes with the responsibility of being on air is ensuring that you have permission to broadcast everything you broadcast. Every word, every song, every interview. In the current case, to my mind, 2DAY-FM did not follow this practice. A practice enshrined in the current Australian Media Code of Practice Section 6: Interviews and Talkback Programs: ''A licensee must not broadcast the words of an identifiable person unless:
a) That person has been informed in advance or a reasonable person would be aware that the words may be broadcast.
b) In the case of words which have been recorded without the knowledge of that person, that person has subsequently, but prior to the broadcast, expressed consent to the broadcast of their words.''

The station said they "tried to contact the Hospital six times". Trying is not good enough. They did not get consent.

The lesson for organisations is that before we publish pictures, quotes or videos from our employees, volunteers and clients, we must have clear permission from the people involved. It has been People First policy that we only take pictures of trainings where people have signed permission for these pictures to be used. I am amazed at the cavalier way other organisations are handling this request for permission. In some places, people have been told before they volunteer or take a job, they must grant permission. People are not given time to consider any document they sign. We must make sure we respect peoples right to have control over their images and words and get their clear permission. When people post images and comments on our Facebook page, we need to show the same standard and look for permissions. We need a policy for it

Lesson Two: Take responsibility for our decisions and actions
This station's management seem to have an ongoing problem. There have been earlier incidents involving 2DAY FM which show a terrible lack of judgement. They escaped censure last time, by the skin of their teeth. If they made such a mistake supporting the airing of this prank and the resulting fall out, they need to own up to it and face the consequences. The management of 2DAY-FM need to go.

Lesson Three: Don't shoot the wounded
The self righteous outcry over the DJs actions is extraordinary. Yes they made the decision to do the prank. Yes, the prank backfired. Badly backfired. But consider. they will live with the consequences of this error for the rest of their lives. Can you imagine the trauma you would feel over the possibility you did something that caused someone to die? Also, the prank call probably makes it harder for them to work in radio again. I am glad they are getting counselling because they need it. Emails and tweets and comments calling them murderers or evil, do not help.

Lesson Four: We don't need Vigilantes
Fourthly, there are codes and legal processes. We, as the public, may be angry and we may call for justice. We can boycott the station which is a valid response. We may ask others to boycott, But to try and take the law in ur own hands and pull down or hack websites turns us into a 21st Century lynch mob. We may be able to do it but it is not our role.

Lesson Five: Think the Golden Rule
A lesson for us which my parents instilled in me was: "would I want someone to do that to me? " When we are talking with our kids, employees and volunteers we need to get people to think of the consequences of pranks or jokes. We do not want to live in a world with no jokes, no humour but when people do a prank or a joke, think of the consequences.

Are these lessons valid?

Big Day

2012-12-10T21:11:00.000+11:00

Nervous today. Have a very big and important meeting today.
How do you calm your nerves?

7000+ Readers for The Cowling Report

2012-12-06T09:10:00.000+11:00

The Cowling Report reached 7270 readers in November, 2012!
A new record!
My previous peak was 6625 in June, 2012.

The top five countries for readers of The Cowling Report in November were:

United States
Australia
United Kingdom- A number of people I think were attracted from the UK following our very successful Volunteer Magnet Tour held with Rob Jackson Consulting
Canada
Germany

Over at my other blog: Wild About Travel, I had over 11, 000 visits in November. One third each month are new and two thirds are my existing readers suggesting I have a bit of a loyal following of a few thousand from across the world!

In the case of this blog, 85% of my readers are from the USA. Of interest are the cities where the readers are located:

New York
Washington
London, UK
San Francisco
Chicago
Los Angeles
Singapore
Seattle
Houston
Sydney, Australia
Toronto
Boston
Dallas
San Diego
Melbourne, Australia

Thank you for journeying with me!

International Volunteers Day

2012-12-05T07:23:00.000+11:00

5 December is International Volunteers Day. The day was established by the United Nations in 1985.

How are you celebrating and commemorating?

Check out for more:: http://www.volunteeractioncounts.org/en/

A more honest Facebook Privacy

2012-12-04T21:10:00.000+11:00

After last week's post on why not to waste your time with guidelines. Here are some I have stolen from a Facebook friend of mine!

In response to the new Facebook guidelines, I hereby declare that I don't have a clue what's mine and what's not. I've basically resigned myself to the probable fact that Mark Zuckerberg and his group can do whatever they want with my identity if they want. I don't know how this stuff works. I've never read the terms & conditions of anything I've agreed to. God knows what my legal obligations are. Yes I should be better informed, but in order to do that, I would need to make it my primary task. Who's got time for that? I have a job already. So whatever Facebook; I don't forbid you to disclose, copy, or disseminate my posts, because I assume you're way too big and moneyed-up to get around whatever kind of crap I post here. I'll just keep doing what I've been doing and hope you don't ruin my life.

They are much more honest..yes?

Facebook Privacy revisited.

2012-11-27T05:52:00.001+11:00

Just to be clear. Posting a notice similar to the one below, in any form of it. is a waste of your time. I said this a few months ago and I say it again today. Whatever it reads like, it is the same situation. Here is the one I am seeing multiple times a day at the moment:

In response to the new Facebook guidelines I hereby declare that my copyright is attached to all of my personal details, illustrations, comics, paintings, professional photos and videos, etc. (as a result of the Berner Convention).

For commercial use of the above, my written consent is needed at all times!

(Anyone reading this can copy this text and paste it on their Facebook Wall. This will place them under protection of copyright laws.) By the present communiqué, I notify Facebook that it is strictly forbidden to disclose, copy, distribute, disseminate, or take any other action against me on the basis of this profile and/or its contents. The aforementioned prohibited actions also apply to employees, students, agents and/or any staff under Facebook's direction or control. The content of this profile is private and confidential information. The violation of my privacy is punished by law (UCC 1 1-308-308 1-103 and the Rome Statute).

Facebook is now an open capital entity. All members are recommended to publish a notice like this, or if you prefer, you may copy and paste this version. If you do not publish a statement at least once, you will be tacitly allowing the use of elements such as your photos as well as the information contained in your profile status updates...

Like most spam, it has elements of what sounds like facts but its a misleading statement.

To start with: new Facebook guidelines? Um What new Facebook Guidelines? Guidelines about what? There are not any new guideliens referring to your privacy.
Quoting the UCC ( The US Uniform Commercial Code which has nothing to do with privacy or data issues and everything to do with US commercial law) is meaningless. As is reference to the Rome Statute or the Berner Convention. It is as logical and meaningful as claiming the UN declaration on refugees as you are being thrown out of a nightclub.
Facebook are an open capital entity - so what? This refers to their status as a company. It means their shares are traded openly not your personal data. Facebook set the terms and conditions for their site not you and you agreed to those when you signed up
" If you do not publish a statement at least once, you will be tacitly allowing the use of elements " No you are not. You control who from the public sees your posts using the Facebook privacy controls.
"All members are recommended to publish.." No. I will be blunt: Do not post this message. Do not re-post this message. Do not like this message. Delete it off your page. It is cluttering your wall with false information.
How many people moving through the internet who see something they like on your wall will then scroll through your hundreds of posts to see if you have posted a warning. If you must, put it in the Notes section or About Me section in your facebook. And even then who is going to look for it?
Facebook themselves have said: We have noticed a recent status update that is being widely shared implying the ownership of your Facebook content has recently changed. This is not true and has never been the case. Facebook does not own your data and content. Please see our Terms of Service for more information. https://www.facebook.com/policies
Finally, how are you going to enforce this statement you have posted. Lets say someone from Armenia or Belgium or Fiji steals the slightly out of focus picture of Your Great Aunt Enid from your cousis's wedding. How are you going to enforce your rights? If you are an Australian or someone in France, how are you going to use the US Uniform Commercial Code or the Berner convention in the Armenian or Belgian or Fijian legal systems? Good luck.

See more on this as: http://cowlingreport.blogspot.hu/2012/06/facebook-privacy-notice-wasting-your.html

LIfe is like a Camera

2012-11-26T00:48:00.000+11:00

Facebook Gifts

2012-11-20T21:00:00.000+11:00

Facebook Gifts allows users to purchase gifts for friends through the social network.

The service allows people to buy a "gift" in the form of a charitable donation to one of eleven charities. The donation can be up to $25 and 100% of the money goes to the charity.

The platform allows the friends of the giver to see the charity they support with the aim of encouraging them to give too.

Eight million people have given through the Facebook "Causes" feature which is less than one per cent of all Facebook’s users so it will be interesting to see if ths tool fares better.

For more see: https://www.facebook.com/about/gifts

Cyberbullying

2012-11-13T22:15:00.004+11:00

Have a look at this interesting article on cyber bullying amongst Youth Groups. Written for Christian based organisations but highly applicable for all sorts of groups.

2012-11-11T11:24:00.000+11:00

This week in my Travel Blog: Wild about Travel, I talk about:

medical tourism in Hungary
how to use USA security lines properly
an amazing flight with Turkish Airlines and
how to buy Hungarian citizenship

Have a read and -please make a comment or two!

2012-11-06T08:51:00.000+11:00

Thought this was interesting

http://www.nonprofitquarterly.org/policysocial-context/21108-the-moveon-effect-looks-at-advances-in-online-advocacy.html

Happy International Volunteer Managers Day

2012-11-05T21:53:00.001+11:00

Love this collage from The National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre, Singapore.

Check out the IVMD Facebook site or their website: http://www.volunteermanagersday.org/

Corporate Volunteer- Whats the value?

2012-10-31T15:11:00.000+11:00

At a recent training, a leader of a volunteer organisation said publicly that from time to time, her organisation has corporate volunteers who attend to perform a day of volunteering. She said "they all come along with their T shirts and cameras." She said "I don't see them as real volunteers because real volunteers would come on a weekend"

Further, she makes a point of telling each one that they are not a real volunteer (like her) because they are being paid by their company to be there. She aims to embarrass them into becoming a "real volunteer". She said none do come back which proves to her that they lack commitment.

Great welcome lady! There are a range of views about corporate volunteering but the time to debate whether it is a real volunteering opportunity is not by insulting someone who has come to help us.

If instead, we said "Welcome and thank you. We run a Family Volunteering event on the first Saturday of the Month, would you like to bring your family along one time?". Having seen the volunteer work and the impact it makes on a community might prompt them (if they felt welcome) to return with family members.

How hard is it to make our organisations more welcoming?

the Adventure of Life!

2012-10-29T05:52:00.000+11:00

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”-Dr. Seuss

15 Reasons to be Magnetised

2012-10-28T09:17:00.000+11:00

In November this year, I will be presenting: "Turn Your Organisation into a Volunteer Magnet" in locations across the UK with Rob Jackson. This topic will be presented in Exeter, Manchester. Derby & Penrith. We are also doing our fantastic Social Media course in Havering, London.

Over the next 15 days, I will be sharing reasons for attending this vital training. Each day I will add a new reason to the list below.

I would be grateful for your comments, particularly if you have participated in this training in the past. If you could tweet or share this blog post in any way so we can encourage as many in the UK to attend as possible.

Reason Number #9: Participant feedback: Volunteer Magnet. something unique & different to the usual stuff we all trot off to.

Reason Number #8: Do you know what attracts and repels Volunteers? The Volunteer Magnet workshop will tell you. Check out http://bit.ly/MagnetReasons for more information on this organisation changing workshop.

Reason Number #7: Kickstart your Volunteer Management. Participant from 2011 Magnet Training says:
This is my new flyer based on what we did at the magnet training. I have set this up to be sent out immediately as someone enquires. I am determined not to be the 70% who do not get back in touch. I have acted on it all and established a Volunteer Council, our first meeting is next week. Please forward my thanks to Rob and Martin, they have kick started me again, I was going through a bit of a defeated slump.

Reason Number #6: Last Year's Training was Highly rated

Reason Number #5: At the 2012 Volunteer Magnet Workshops being held in November, participants will depart with practical actionable goals.

Reason Number #4: After a recent training by Martin J Cowling, one Australian charity encouraged their employees and volunteers to travel 400km to benefit from his expertise at a second session.

Reason Number #3: The most practical and dynamic volunteer management training- Volunteer Magnet 2012 will change your organisation.

Reason Number #2: This is feedback from a recent training conducted by Martin J Cowling who will be presenting with Rob Jackson across the UK in November: "We had a training on Conflict Management delivered by a company two days after your Dealing with Difficult Volunteer Behaviours training. It was rubbish. You are by far the most effective, engaging and skilful trainer I have worked with. Your content is always relevant and evidence-based, your delivery in interesting, and the outcomes for participants are changed behaviour and integration of good ideas into existing practice. Feedback from your session has been overwhelmingly positive, and Regional Managers across the state are planning when we might book you for each region next year. Well done you!"

Reason Number #1: Feedback from a participant at a recent Recruitment training in Australia: "I am going away from this training with 21 new ideas and one alone was worth the registration fee". Get your value at the Volunteer Magnet 2012, a full day of training designed to build your recruitment. For more information click on the links above or click here

Of Stereotypes, shootings and story

2012-10-27T04:23:00.000+11:00

Date Night. Saw "Taken 2". To be honest, not my choice but I am in for most things. I wonder if it did not help that I did not see the first one. I was excited to check it out because it was set in Istanbul where I will be next month.

It is an okay movie. I had three concerns though:

My first concern was the thin story line. Liam Neeson's ex wife has unpleasant break up with her new husband. New hubby cancels their trip to China. Instead of re booking it, they join Neeson in Istanbul. He is in Turkey with a suitcase full of illegal weapons protecting a wealthy Arab sheik (no stereotype here!). There he encounters a massive number of men from an Albanian village who have sworn to have their revenge on him for killing the guys from their village who were kidnapping girls in Taken 1.

My second concern was wave of destruction inflicted on Istanbul, Guns, grenades and fast paced car smashes wipe out houses, cars, pedestrians and what looks like half of the Turkish police force. These car chases probably saved the movie, although, The Istanbul scenery was great to see.

My third concern was that, as I mentioned, the baddies were mostly Albanian although they were joined by some Turks who were happy to betray people for the right price. The movie seemed to buy into the stereotype that baddies today are Eastern European/Middle Eastern/Swarthy. There are no Blonde Scandinavian types involved with kidnappings and murders?

My Rating: 3/10
Critics Rating: 2/10
Audience rating: 6/10 (wonder what the Albanians thought?)