Free time is precious. Why become a Pro Bono OR volunteer?

Some say that volunteering is priceless, and they’re right. Except for the times when I can put a price on it! In 2017 to-date, pro bono OR volunteers input equates to £57,000.00 in billable hours. Those hours include aiding organisations seeking to improve operations, ration resources or measure impact, all of which lead to long term success. With OR solutions being provided through free consultancy, we are handing over both transparency and sustainability, two things I’m sure we’d like to see move of in the UK. 

We all know and love the basic motivations of volunteering, we know the spiel that informs us we are part of something good and we’re making a difference to something that is usually bigger than all of us. If you work with individuals from a charity, then you have also heard about just how much you can change that person’s life, whether it be a child who is struggling to invest in their childhood, or an elderly person who struggles to stay sociable; spending time with these individuals is a responsible thing to do. There is a whole underworld of motivations to volunteer and pro bono OR can make them all available.  

There’s a generic volunteer role in the charity sector that lets you productively procrastinate, but there’s something that charitable organisations don’t tell you as they attempt to sign you up and demand all your free time. They don’t tell just how self-full volunteering can be. Volunteering can help you work on ‘the self’ in so many more ways than advertised. Did you know that volunteering is actually good for your health? Not kidding. Research studies have shown that volunteering forces us to spend time thinking about others. When the spotlight is on someone else you tend to think less about your own situation and this incurs a decrease in stress levels. The effects of contentment lead to a better immune system as well as more logical thinking when returning to matters in your own life. But I’m no doctor, so go and see the effects for yourself.  

The good news is that beyond the role of ‘volunteer’, being an OR volunteer provides even more value to personal gain along with your project impact. Pro Bono OR volunteers get to take a holistic approach to tackling problems. You get to use a range of OR techniques whilst gaining consultancy experience and boosting your CV. Pro Bono projects are with organisations who strive to reach charitable aims and objectives, so the best part is you get to work on a worthwhile cause. Pro Bono projects provide a mutually beneficial relationship for the volunteer and the charitable organisation. Well what does The OR Society get out of it then? Glad you asked. By providing free consultancy to third sector organisations and pairing OR analysts on suitable projects, we continue the advancement of knowledge and interest in OR. That’s more than enough for us.   

What else does pro bono OR add to the volunteering experience? Well, with the guidelines in place, for all parties, it means we are able to control the risks. You are given an environment in which to find real solutions and improvements, and can adapt the project to treat the organisation as an individual. Every charity and social enterprise is different. Although third sector organisations face similar challenges and must contend with constantly moving boundaries, the wants and needs of every group is different; we identify every organisation as an individual. Nowadays, the charity sector is expected to do more with less and that is why volunteers are the most important resource community organisations have.

  

We currently have over 600 pro bono volunteers that are actively looking for projects. I’m afraid to tell you that I don’t have 600 projects for volunteers to work on, but the good news is that when you’re not on a project, you’re free to explore the OR community that The OR Society has built. As a volunteer you get to expand your network, meet and greet other analysts in both similar and diverse fields to you. As a pro bono volunteer you’re invited to several events throughout the year, and if we don’t host an event that grabs your attention, then simply let me know what captivates you and I can put it on my agenda. Getting onto that VIP list entitled ‘pro bono volunteers’ gives you the opportunity to explore OR and everyone in it. With over 160,000 charities in the UK, I’m sure we can find a project for you.

The benefits of being an OR volunteer continue. I’m not saying that being selected to work on a project is the best day of your life, all I’m saying is, your wedding day has nothing on the excitement these projects bring. Pro Bono projects provide real-world experience. If you’re looking to exercise old skills then this is the environment for you. Furthermore, if you want to learn new skills, whether it be OR techniques, consultancy or project management then this is still the environment for you. Employers highly rate individuals who display a range of soft skills, and pro bono projects are a perfect opportunity to show these. You’re welcome for the career boost. It’s what we’re here for.  Don’t forget, regardless of your motivations and/or experience, if you’d like to work on a project but need a confidence boost to get you through it then I can provide a mentor for you. Pro Bono OR supports and encourages you no matter what stage of your OR journey you are at. 

For more info about volunteering please visit http://www.theorsociety.com/Pages/Probono/volunteers.aspx, 

or email hope.meadows@theorsociety.com 

Win Free Tickets to The New Scientist Live

If you are a member of the OR Society or a pro bono OR volunteer the you could be in with the chance to win free tickets.

The OR Society is exhibiting at the New Scientist Live, which is taking place at the ExCel in London from Thursday 28^th September 2017 to Sunday 1^st October 2017. You can find more information about this exciting event here https://live.newscientist.com/

We have five pairs of complimentary tickets, which we would like to offer to committee members and volunteers as gratitude for all of your hard work and dedication to the Society.

Each complimentary ticket is worth up to £26.00 and will allow entry for any one of those four days, so you could take a partner or friend, or travel solo and gain free entry for two of the four days. For those of you with families, children under 5 years are admitted free of charge and children aged between 5-17 years are admissible upon purchasing a “Child Ticket” for £15.00.

As we only have a limited number of tickets, we will draw five winners at random at noon on Friday 1^st September 2017. If you would like to enter the draw, please email charlene.timewell@theorsociety.com by this deadline. Winners will then be contacted by email on the afternoon of Friday 1^st September 2017.

Pro Bono OR Case Study- Care4All Performance Management Dashboard

Care4All are an established charity who provide social care support and services for hundreds of vulnerable people in North East Lincolnshire and the surrounding area. The charity provides a diverse range of services and support whilst focusing on creating employment opportunities for people with disabilities. With 90 paid staff and 8 volunteers, the charity is constantly seeking to raise it's profile since it was established in 2007. 

Charitable objects include: 
-the relief of those in need, by reason of youth, age, ill-health, disability, financial hardship or other disadvantages.
-the relief of unemployment for the benefit of the public in such ways as may be though fit, including assistance to find employment. 

Care4All had been through a period of significant change and need to make sense of the performance data the collect. there are a few key questions whic needed to be considered for this project:

• -          What questions do the Care4all management board want to answer or metrics do they             need to monitor on organisational performance?
• -          Does the data currently collected allow these questions to be answered? If not, what data         needs to be collected to answer relevant questions?
• -          Does data need to be structured or collected differently?
• -          How can data be routinely analysed?
• -          How can the analysis be presented in a meaningful and powerful way?

After an initial meeting with the Chief Executive, the Pro Bono volunteer sought to support the charity by presenting meaningful organisational performance management information. After creating a performance management process the organisation had scope to present management reports using infographics. 

Another successful project, with big thanks to our volunteer. 

Starting a charity? ...Keep it simple

The early years journey of a charity can be a fist-shaking experience, but it doesn’t have to be thanks to the endless support that organisations can provide NFPs today. Many start-ups have the same questions, and although there’s no blanket solution, often you find that keeping it simple is a start. The following three steps are a guide to the very early years, after that, there’s Pro Bono OR! Come see for yourself…. http://www.theorsociety.com/Pages/Probono/HowcanORhelpyou.aspx

Define your aims and objectives

Although crowd-funding is more popular than ever, gone are the days that charitable objectives are simply a monetary figure. Charitable engagement has grown from the face-to-face fundraising that we all swerve to avoid in the high street, to creating punishable challenges like trekking across Africa in your undies with nothing but a pencil and a rubber duck! If we expect the community to hop on board with our out-of-the-box events then we need to make sure our purpose is clear. Aims and objectives don’t just have to be facts and figures, let us know the real reason you’re dedicating all of your time for this particular charity, or this particular cause and event. Making your aims personal and precise is the best way to make digital communication induce empathy. Making your aims clear is the best way to retain the attention of your audience.  

If you’re early on in the start-up journey then go ahead and be honest with your every intention. Let me know that the first four months will be spent refining a fundraising strategy, or that the six months after that will be working towards effectively measuring impact. The sooner you’re up front, the sooner the community can either signpost you all my known contacts, or they hop off the train because you’re not heading for a destination that they can see themselves ending up at.

So what if you have all of the motivation and you know qualitatively how you want to achieve, but you can’t quite seem to create a visual for others to see? If that’s the case then it’s time to cut that picture up, back into the smaller pieces you originally used to make it. We do this by making SMART targets: Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely; and I cannot stress the ‘realistic’ enough. A large amount of charities lose funding, discounts and corporate backing because they fail to meet their targets within the first 3 years of set up. You’re better off meeting lower targets that failing to over-achieve. Ego should be removed when setting aims and objectives! 

Be a social media guru

Lesson number one: learn to separate professional and personal social media. More importantly, look away once in a while, before it consumes you. Social media will be the death of us all. I’m speaking from experience. During my time living in Australia, I was walking in the CBD on weekday lunch break (something we in the UK aren’t partial to, because we’re ‘too busy’) and as I was approaching a crossroad, stupidity unfolded right before me. A woman was walking whilst peering down at her phone, she considered herself too busy to even look before crossing the road. Of course that didn’t give the bus coming up behind her much time to stop, so I ran into the road and pulled her back to the pavement. Dignity isn’t a word I use often and this occasion was no exception. Not only did I get clipped by the bus, but I managed to trip up the curb and was used as a landing pad for the nice corporate lady in a suit. The smoothie that was in her hand was now providing new colours on my top. The fact that I dislocated my shoulder saving that woman, only to have an absence of thanks, is not the point. The reason that woman risked her life was because reading her social media notifications was more important that the 12 tonne bus heading her way. It’s possible to be SMART with your social media use to, it’s just a case of defining the aims of your use:

• -                 Aim to build a network – There’s no better phrase than ‘I know a guy.’
• -      Increase your reach by intentionally reaching out to people you think might be interested; but don’t be afraid of not hearing back from a stranger who hasn’t yet earnt your respect!
• -          Use meta-tags – The internet is a great invention that everyone uses but no one understands. Meta-tags provide specific information about a page including content description, author info and key words or phrases. Use this to extend your reach to people who may not have necessarily taken interest at first glance.
• -          Be authentic, not robotic – Don’t post information you think I want to hear. Post information you want me to hear, then tell me why it’s important to you.
• -          Use the internet site appropriately – We all shake our fists at the 140 character capacity that twitter allows, so instead of trying to Shakespeare your post up, simply signpost. Signpost to your website, to your blog, to your stats and figures, or to your gallery that shows just how great the people you work with are. Be smart with social media platforms.

 Elaborate on your call to action

Call to action can be used as both motivation for a message receiver, as well as a marketing term to show next steps to an audience. It’s all very well using social media to signpost me to your website but don’t waste it by not finishing my journey for me. Now that I am on your website I want to know what’s next. I can see what you hope to achieve and when you want to achieve it by, but now I want to know how you intend to do it. More importantly, where do I come into this? A call to action tells the customer what you want them to do. The actions are simple:

-fill out a form

-re-post a blog

-attend an event

-register for info

-fill in a survey

-buy something

-find out more…

A call to action should be simple, clear and interactive. You may be a small charity, but now suddenly your audience understand both your wants and your needs. Isn’t that what we all want in life?

For more info on how Pro Bono can help with: 

• Strategic planning/review
• Impact measurement
• Process improvement
• Data analysis
• Business planning
• Efficiency improvement
• Options appraisal
• Decision making

and more! Please get in touch with hope.meadows@theorsociety.com

Looking for pro bono volunteers to work with Rainbow Trust Childrens Charity

Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity

Project summary:

Project:

To evaluate the impact of special sibling support for brothers and sisters of children who are life-threatened or terminally ill. The volunteer will help shape and define the remit of the evaluation

The volunteer will work with the Manchester Sibling Support Worker and National Manager to answer the questions above and produce a report to measure the impact of this 5 year project. This evaluation will be submitted to the Big Lottery Fund as part of a final grant report in March 2018.

Time commitment: 10-15 Days over the duration i.e. 2 days a month approximately

Location: Manchester (OL8 4QQ) /Leatherhead Surrey (KT22)

Please read projectscope and if you feel you are able to offer your assistance please complete the application form and return along with your CV to hope.meadows@theorsociety.com by Friday 11^th August.

Information about the organisation:

Charitable objectives:

OUR VISION:  One day all terminally ill children and their families will have access to a Rainbow Trust Carer.

MISSION:  Rainbow Trust provides emotional and practical support for families who have a child with a life threatening or terminal illness.

OUR USP: We offer the whole family individually tailored, high quality support for as long as they need it.

Main activities of the organisation: 

Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity supports families who have a child with a life threatening or terminal illness. For these families, life is unthinkably tough. Their lives are shattered into a million pieces as they struggle to cope with the possibility that their child might die.

Rainbow Trust Family support workers provide individually tailored support to help families navigate through this period of great stress and uncertainty.   Each family is designated their own Family Support Worker who provides emotional support to help them face each day, as  well as helping with the practicalities of taking care of the sick child and siblings, helping with house work and transporting families to hospital.   We provide help however and whenever a family needs it most.

Some families are supported a few times each week, some call us as and when they feel in need, and everything in between. From supporting in the home, at hospital when children receive treatment, to being there for the whole family if a child dies.

For more info about Rainbow Trust Children’s Charity please visit: https://rainbowtrust.org.uk/

For further information about the Pro Bono scheme please visit: http://www.theorsociety.com/Probono

Updated useful software list

Simply a signpost to free software, to cater for your every need...


The list is ever-evolving and we would welcome further contributions or to hear about any tools or software you have successfully used in the past. Ideally the software should be free to use. Please email any suggestions to hope.meadows@theorsociety.com.

A big thank you to those who have recently sent in suggestions and made important contributions to the list.

Tool	Link	Category
Apache OFBiz	http://ofbiz.apache.org/	supply chain management
Apache Zeppelin	https://zeppelin.apache.org/	Data visualisation
ArangoDB	https://www.arangodb.com/why-arangodb/	Graph Database
ArcGIS	https://www.arcgis.com/features/index.html	Geospatial / Mapping software
Awesome R	https://awesome-r.com/	Various: Data manipulation; Database management; Graphical displays; Machine learning; Bayesian…
Bizagi	http://www.bizagi.com/en	Simulation
Blender	https://www.blender.org/	3D Modeling and animation
Cassandra	http://cassandra.apache.org/	Database
ChartsBin	http://chartsbin.com/about/apply	Geospatial / Mapping software
CMPL	https://projects.coin-or.org/Cmpl	Optimisation
CODAP	http://codap.concord.org/	Data visualisation
D3	https://d3js.org/	Data visualisation
Data Wrapper	https://www.datawrapper.de/	Data visualisation
DREAM	http://dream-simulation.eu	Simulation
Dygraphs	http://dygraphs.com/	Data visualisation
Elements	https://elements.cloud/	Process Mapping
Exhibit	http://www.simile-widgets.org/exhibit/	Data visualisation
Flare	http://flare.prefuse.org/	Data visualisation
Free MS Windows images	https://developer.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-edge/tools/vms/	Operating System
GDAL	http://www.gdal.org/	Geospatial / Mapping software
Gephi	https://gephi.org/	Data visualisation
GLPK	https://www.gnu.org/software/glpk/	Optimisation
GNU Octave	https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/index.html	Programming language
GRASS	https://grass.osgeo.org/	Geospatial / Mapping software
Gretl	http://gretl.sourceforge.net/	Econometrics / Time-Series Analysis
Insight Maker	https://insightmaker.com/	Simulation
Interactive Data Visualizations for the Web	http://philogb.github.io/jit/	Data visualisation
iPython/Jupyter	http://jupyter.org/ https://ipython.org/	Programming environment
Java	https://www.java.com/en/download/	Programming language
jORLib	http://www.coin-or.org/projects/jORLib.xml	Optimisation
Kibana	https://www.elastic.co/products/kibana	Data visualisation
Leaflet	http://leafletjs.com/	Data visualisation
LibreOffice Calc	https://help.libreoffice.org/Calc/Welcome_to_the_Calc_Help	Spreadsheet analysis
ManPy	http://www.manpy-simulation.org/	Simulation
Mathics	https://mathics.github.io/	Computer Algebra System
MongoDB	https://docs.mongodb.com/	Database
Neo4J	https://neo4j.com	Graph Database
NetLogo	https://ccl.northwestern.edu/netlogo/	Agent-based simulation
Odoo	https://www.odoo.com/	supply chain management
Open Door Logistics Studio	http://www.opendoorlogistics.com/	routing & scheduling
Open Refine	http://openrefine.org/	Data Cleansing
OpenBoxes	https://openboxes.com/about.html	supply chain management
OpenSolver	http://opensolver.org/	Optimisation
Openstreetmap	http://www.openstreetmap.org/#map=5/51.500/-0.100	Geospatial / Mapping software
Pandas	http://pandas.pydata.org/	Statistical analysis
PostGis	http://postgis.net/	Database (spatial)
PostGres	http://www.postgresql.org/download/	Database
Prefuse	http://prefuse.org/	Data visualisation
PSPP	https://www.gnu.org/software/pspp/	Statistical analysis
PULP	http://www.coin-or.org/PuLP/	Optimisation
Pyomo	http://www.pyomo.org/	Optimisation
PyPy	http://pypy.org/	Programming language
Python	https://www.python.org/	Programming language
QGIS	http://www.qgis.org/en/site/	Geospatial / Mapping software
QuickCode	https://quickcode.io/	Programming language
R	https://www.r-project.org/	Statistical analysis
Raw	http://raw.densitydesign.org/	Data visualisation
Rstudio	https://www.rstudio.com/	Statistical analysis
Ruby	http://rubyinstaller.org/	Programming language
Ruby on Rails	http://rubyonrails.org/	App Builder
Sage	http://www.sagemath.org/	Computer Algebra System
SQLlite	https://www.sqlite.org/	Database
SimPy	https://simpy.readthedocs.org/en/latest/	Simulation
SymPy	http://sympy.org/	Computer Algebra System
TileMill	https://tilemill-project.github.io/tilemill/	Geospatial / Mapping software
Visualise Free	http://visualizefree.com/index.jsp	Data visualisation
Vizable	https://vizable.tableau.com/	Data visualisation
Watchmaker Framework	http://watchmaker.uncommons.org/	Optimisation
Xmind	https://www.xmind.net/	Mind mapping
yWorks	https://www.yworks.com/products/yed	Graph/Diagram Drawing

Pro Bono OR volunteers required for new project with The OR Society

The OR Society

Project summary:

Project:

The volunteer is required to suggest a risk model of membership renewal. Using data from the existing membership database, the results of previous studies and discussions with staff and members, the main factors of risk may be identified. The output of the study could include:

• -         A list of likely risk factors, and the different personas subject to these risks
• -         Suggestions for extra data to be included on the membership database
• -         Suggestions on how each risk can be mitigated
• -         Some quantification of the size of the risk due to the various factors
• -       Possibly a flow model that could be used to investigate the most effective way of reducing drop-out
• -    Recommendations for a contact strategy to improve renewal. This should account for different risk groups, their preferences and likely success rates, costs and feasibility.

Time commitment: approx. 10-14 days

Location: London or Birmingham for 2-3 initial meetings, followed by working remotely.

Please read projectscope and if you feel you are able to offer your assistance please complete the application form and return along with your CV to hope.meadows@theorsociety.com by Monday 7th August.

Information about the organisation:

Charitable objectives:

The charitable purposes of the OR Society include the advancement of knowledge and interest in OR, as well as the advancement of education in OR.

Main activities of the organisation: 

ORS activities include (but not limited to): conferences and events, training courses, journals, publications and website, pro bono OR, OR in Schools, membership activity. The OR Society aims to have a vibrant and active membership drawn from diverse areas; and be well-run, provide excellent services and be adequately and sustainably resourced.

For further information about the scheme please visit: http://www.theorsociety.com/Probono