Background

This guide is designed for umbrella charity groups who have a membership of lots of other smaller charities, not for profits etc. The membership of these groups are generally made up of other tiny, small and medium sized voluntary groups, charities, community groups, social enterprises etc.

Warp It is designed for large organisations to swap resources internally. If items are surplus to requirements they can be passed to partners. One of Warp It’s objectives is to help support charitable activities.

What are the benefits to your organisation and members?

By offering access to Warp It for your membership, they can claim surplus resources from other organisations. The umbrella organisation demonstrates leadership and value to the members by leading on the process. This is all free.
Warp It was created to make sure these items can be passed to organisations carrying out charitable activities in a safe and legal manner.
This guide aims to help charitable umbrella organisations get the most out of the system to benefit your members.

If you follow this guide for 15 minutes you will have no problems adding members and claiming items off other organisations.

The Basics

Please watch this clip: Warp It for charity membership umbrella organisations

• Sign up here www.warp-it.co.uk/charities
• Fill in the appropriate details
• For "Username" choose a shortened or acronym form of your organisations' name. Such as VCS, VCAS, or whatever is appropriate.
• The username becomes the suffix for your organisations' homepage address: www.warp-it.co.uk/XXXXXX .
• The XXXXXX is the Username that you choose for your organisation's Warp It homepage. Eg www.warp-it.co.uk/VAL or www.warp-it.co.uk/VCAS

On signing up

• The individual specified in the sign up process is sent a Welcome Email. This details the Username (as discussed above).
• Your organisation's homepage link is detailed in the Welcome Email. This is your organisation's hame page.
  
  
• The individual specified in the application is usually the admin. The admin has responsibility for approving members who want to join the system, approving and sending friend requests/partnerships with other organisations - and customising how the system works for your organisation.

Adding and approving your members

Your members will register on the system as standard users - so it is a good idea for the admin to understand this process.
To register as a standard user go to your organisation’s home page eg www.warp-it.co.uk/VCAS which is detailed in the Welcome Email.

• Click the green register now button.
• Fill in the details.

Ask your members to do the same. To help you communicate this new service, we have provided a template newsletter for you on this page in Appendix 1. Please add your own details.

When you next log in as the admin you will see that you will have a list of pending member’s applications to approve. Approve them and your membership can then claim items from other organisations.

**When you are logged in as an admin you can add members by clicking on the link on the left hand side.**

Searching and claiming

**IMPORTANT - PLEASE NOTE THE ADMIN CANNOT SEARCH AND CLAIM ITEMS OFF OTHERS**

If you are logged in as an admin and try to search you will get an additional log in message (shown below).

This means you are logged in as an admin. Log out (top right) and log back in as a standard user.
To search and claim other organisation’s items, you have to register as a standard user.

Searching for items

First log in as a standard user.

As is mentioned above. The system is designed for large organisations - therefore when you first conduct a search the system will return items that have been added by your members. If your members are swapping items these will be displayed first. If your members are not swapping items there will not be any items returned on the first page.

To find other items use the two tabs in the middle and right of the screen.

If you are not seeing the tabs you are logged in as an admin, please log out and log back in as a standard user (Email and password).

Partnering Organisations

By partnering organisations, your organisation can get prior access to their surplus resources. To partner with organisations;

• Log in as the admin.
• Go to "Warp It club" section on the left hand side.
• Click "Search Organisations" - leave the text box blank to search for all organisations for possible close links.
• Add your nearest cities into the search box for a closer local match.
• Click into the organisation and send a partnership request.

Appendix 1

Template content for newsletter to members. Please edit as you see fit.

Are you looking for office furniture for your activities? Or do you have spares that you would like to give to another organisation? Look no further!

XXVOLUNTARY ORGANISATION NAMEXX has signed up to www.warp-it.co.uk.

This online portal allows organisations to claim surplus or underused resources of each other. It acts like a corporate freecycle.

To sign up visit www.warp-it.co.uk/XXORGANISATION_USERNAMEXX . Hit the big green register button.

The service is for members only. Once you have signed up you can give and take as many resources as you wish.

Resources include furniture, fixtures and fittings, stationery, files, curtains, even office plants! ..anything really.

We are encouraging all members to joining the scheme. It is free so why not save a bit of money to spend on your own activities. We help our members with funding applications every year so now we are offering something new!

As you will see there are plenty of resources to claim locally and nationally.

There is a training online demo coming up next month (contact info@warp-it.co.uk for details of next 3rd sector online demo)

We will also be delivering a face to face work shop on (contact info@warp-it.co.uk to book your workshop in)

For more info see the website here: www.warp-it.co.uk and www.youtube.com/warpitTV.

Appendix 2

Workshop Proposal

We will be hosting a workshop for members to talk through the process and get access to surplus items.

Purpose of workshop

The objectives of this event are to gather stakeholders to explore the best way of accessing our surplus resources or sharing resources via the Warp It system.

The purpose of the workshop is to make face to face connections with our stakeholders in the first instance.

We will also take stakeholders through the Warp It system to give an insight into how to claim surplus items as well as share across organisations.

Who should come?

The event will interest any community or third sector groups who are seeking surplus resources to assist with their objectives.

Details

Length: 1.5 hours
Location: TBC

Agenda

• Introduction from host organisation and background to the event.
• Outline of Warp It service by Daniel O'Connor, the founder.
• How to register
• How to partner (or "friend") with other organisations
• Attendees learn how to search for and claim items off other organisations
• Attendees learn how to redistribute their own items
• Attendees learn about the wishlist function. Questions throughout.

What you will learn

• Identify and evaluate the imlications of internet exchange systems to divert bulky waste & reduce procurement costs
• Identify options for delivering internet exchange systems
• Identify implementation options, good practice and appropriate sources of information and support
• How to strengthen communities while diverting "waste" from landfill
• How to reduce costs by getting maximum value for the assets you already own