News

Below you will find some of our most recent news stories. If you would like more detail on any of these, please email Rose Farris or call 01509 235544.

For older news stories, please click below:
News Stories from 2006

Consortia Projects Get Top Reviews

15th April 2008

ESiT have been working with a number of Voluntary Sector consortia projects, implementing shared databases. The ICT Hub have recently published a report on shared systems highlighting the improved data quality and cost saving acheived as a result of one of our projects in the sector. Another recent on line report highlights the project ESiT have completed with the North Yorkshire Forum for Voluntary Organisations. The report describes how thankQ was adapted to meet the specific needs of the Voluntary Sector.

ESiT Sets the Standard

29th February 2008

ESiT is delighted to have become one of only 216 businesses in the UK to achieve Phase 3 of BS8555, a recognised British Standard for Environmental Management Systems. Companies implementing an EMS must show that they manage their environmental impact, improve their environmental performance and obey legislation. An independent audit is carried out every year to ensure that not only have procedures been followed but also that objectives and targets have been achieved, resulting in a positive impact on the environment.

Flexibility the Key for New thankQ Customers

18th January 2008

thankQ’s flexibility has gained ESiT a number of new customers recently, including the prestigious Royal School of Needlework, based at Hampton Court Palace and award-winning London based housing charity Carr-Gomm. The RSN will use thankQ to manage the workflow through its busy Studio, as well as its day to day database functions, whilst Carr-Gomm has found thankQ’s adaptability invaluable in creating a system to meet its needs both as a housing association and a care provider.

ESiT Wins Top Green Award

6th December 2007

ESiT is proud to announce that it is one of the major prize winners in the 2007 International Green Apple Awards for Environmental Best Practice. The company has won the National Silver Award in recognition of its Green Commuting Scheme. Trophies are awarded annually to recognise organisations carrying out projects that benefit the environment. This year’s awards were presented at the House of Commons by top botanist and TV personality Professor David Bellamy OBE.

The judges said “Any business has a responsibility to encourage its staff to travel to and from work as efficiently as is practical. ESiT promotes green travel by donating £1 to nominated charities each time an employee uses an efficient mode of transport.”

The Green Apple Awards are run by the Green Organisation, an independent, non-political, non-profit organisation that recognises, rewards and promotes environmental best practice around the world.

National Organiser Roger Wolens commented “We had around 570 nominations this year and presented about 80 awards, so ESiT did particularly well to triumph against some very strong competition.”

IT Help for NFP Organisations

31st August 2007

ESiT is pleased to spotlight two new publications that will help organisations in the Not for Profit sector deal with IT issues. The ICT Hub Guide to Managing ICT in the Voluntary and Community Sector, sponsored by ESiT, covers all aspects of managing information and communications technology and is aimed at all levels of expertise. You can download it or order a printed copy from the ICT Hub website. Meanwhile, ESiT managing director John Bird’s Data Migration fact sheet, produced in conjunction with Charity Times, outlines the opportunities and pitfalls of data migration, as well as giving advice on identifying, cleansing and transferring your data.

Charities £1,500 Green Commuting Gain

25th July 2007

Two Leicestershire charities, LOROS (the Leicestershire and Rutland Hospice) and Ecohouse (run by Groundwork Leicester and Leicestershire) recently received cheques for over £760 each from thankQ software company ESiT. Staff at the charity database supplier’s Loughborough office raised the money by taking part in the company’s Green Commuting scheme during the last 12 months. The scheme encourages staff to travel to and from work in an environmentally friendly way and donates £1 to one of two staff-nominated charities for every Green Commute achieved.

Caroline Harmon, Groundwork’s Development Manager for the EcoHouse said:
“We are delighted that ESiT chose to support the EcoHouse. The money will help us to raise awareness of climate change and transport issues and hopefully encourage more people to use environmentally friendly modes of transport.”

Adrian Walker, Senior Fundraiser for LOROS, said:
“LOROS currently provides care for over 2,200 patients each year. It is only with thanks to donations and fundraising that LOROS is able to provide such a wide variety of services to patients free of charge.”

ESiT’s chosen charities for the coming year are Sustrans, an organisation whose aim is to specifically tackle the issue of responsible transport, and Framework, who are a Nottingham based organisation helping the homeless.

More organisations select thankQ

26th June 2007

Charities with a wide range of purposes have selected thankQ in the last few months. Contact a Family is the only UK-wide charity providing advice, information and support to the parents of disabled children, reaching at least 275,000 families every year, whilst Foundation for the Relief of Disabled Orphans (F.R.O.D.O) aims to transform the quality of life of orphans in developing countries who suffer from disability or life-threatening illness. Mayday Trust manages nine housing projects across Warwickshire, Northamptonshire and Bedfordshire, providing specialised support, accommodation and life-skills training for vulnerable adults and Touraid is a charity which gives young people from disadvantaged backgrounds the opportunity to come to the UK to play rugby. thankQ provides an invaluable fundraising tool whatever the aims of the organisation.

Gift Aid - don't lose out

8th June 2007

As all fundraisers appreciate, Gift Aid is a valuable source of income. Whilst discussing the coming changes to Gift Aid, customers at our recent User Group meetings unearthed some useful nuggets of information that will help to maximise their claims. For instance:

Historically, charities have made Gift Aid claims for any period, as long as the start and end date is within the same tax year (i.e. the HMRC financial year, from 6th April to 5th April the following year). From now on, all charities, clubs and associations must submit claims that fall within their own financial year (e.g. the calendar year, an academic year or other year based on a religious calendar).

OK so far - but how does this affect a back-dated Gift Aid claim? The clarification made at the User Group was that a claim can go back to the start of the current financial year plus six further years. So, if your financial year runs to 31 March, a claim submitted in July 2007, can claim donations as far back as 1 April 2001. And naturally, the minor modifications to thankQ required to accommodate differing financial periods are available free of charge to our customers.

The results of changing the basic rate of income tax to 20% from the start of the next tax year (6th April 2008) are also worth noting. One point to consider is that claim periods cannot straddle the changeover date. If your organisation makes several claims during the year, this will be easily dealt with. However, it is important to ensure that the appropriate rate of tax is applied to claims made on either side of 6th April 2008.

Without doubt, the most talked about effect of the tax change is the loss of the '28p in the pound' concept. After 6th April 2008, Gift Aid will only be worth 25p in the pound.  There has been a great deal of media attention as charities assess the effect on their incomes, with large organisations that use Gift Aid effectively, such as the NSPCC and Macmillan set to lose the most. According to the Charities Aid Foundation, the total lost across all charities could be £71m. Representations are being made to the Government by a number of concerned organisations. Megan Pacey, director of policy and campaigns for the Institute of Fundraising says ‘Organisations who’ve got their act together on gift aid are being penalised. This could mean that some of the services and support that charities offer can’t be done unless they can find alternative funding. We hope this prompts a debate, we would like to engage with the government.’

Whatever the outcome of this Gift Aid debate, we will be on hand to ensure that thankQ enables our customers to deal with the changes easily and effectively.

Further information for charities on Gift Aid changes and other news is available from:
http://www.hmrc.gov.uk/charities/news.htm
http://www.ncvo-vol.org.uk/vsmagazine/news/archive/?id=4726

ESiT goes Green!

23rd May 2007

ESiT’s commitment to the environment as part of its CSR policy was recently rewarded with a TV appearance. The company featured on ITV Central News as part of a week of items shown to coincide with World Environment Day on 5 June.

“It is easy to pay lip service to Corporate Social Responsibility” says Managing Director, John Bird, “but at ESiT, staff are genuinely enthusiastic about doing their part to help sustain the environment, as well as contributing to the local community. We hope that this kind of exposure will get other organisations thinking about how little they would have to do to make a big difference.”

thankQ Users Have Their Say at Group Meetings

4th May 2007

More than 50 customers recently enjoyed the opportunity to discuss their experiences and ideas with both ESiT and each other at two specially organised events. The User Group meetings, held at the RAF Museum in Hendon and the Lowry at Salford Quays, Manchester also gave users an introduction to the improved features and functionality of the latest release of ESiT’s thankQ database, including ideas arising directly from previous meetings. In addition to seeing new software, presentations from Not for Profit organisations Citizens Advice, Bible Society, 11.11.11, Keele University, GMCVO and WorldShare, explaining how they use the thankQ solution, were particularly well received.

An enthusiastic attendee commented, “I thought the day had a lovely balance of on the one hand a good standard of professionalism, and on the other hand a sense of friendliness and informality.  I feel that as an organisation you show that you have vision to know where you are heading, but at the same time are demonstrating that you are listening to your customers!”

Chillis go from Strength to Strength

26th April 2007

The ESiT Chilli Competition began to hot up as the initial prize winner was announced. Molly Loyd of Justgiving has grown a healthy Chilli plant from seeds she received as a visitor to ESiT’s stand at the CHASE exhibition. She was the first to send in a photo and was rewarded with a Red Hot prize. There are two further prizes for the Best “Potting On” Pot and the Biggest Plant and photo entries from are welcome at chilli@esit.co.uk. For a full update on the Chilli Competition, see the Chilli Board.

thankQ selected by Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union

20th April 2007

The last year has seen ESiT implement thankQ for an increasing number of Membership and Association organisations, and this spring they are pleased to announce the implementation of a new Membership Management and CRM System for the Bakers, Food and Allied Workers Union, based in Welwyn Garden City.

click here for more...

thankQ sorts the Menn from the Boyes at CHASE

6th February 2007

ESiT will introduce the release of an update to thankQ, which includes an innovative solution to eliminate the problems associated with de-duplicating data.

The latest update to thankQ gives the user enhanced de-duplication functionality using ‘fuzzy logic’ to more effectively search and identify records and fields. Now name or address records duplicated through a spelling error should be a thing of the past. Charities will be able to reduce mailing costs and develop even better relationships with their supporters, secure in the knowledge that they are working with clean data and not creating multiple records.

Combined with this development, improvements to the data import tools now facilitate even quicker and more accurate bulk data entry saving valuable processing time and improving the quality.

This update also uses the most up to date Windows technology enabling users to personalise the look and feel of their software - altering colours, fonts and tab designs to better fit their taste or their organisation’s corporate style. In addition, this allows thankQ to make the most of the latest adaptive technologies, ensuring that it is accessible for all users.

John Bird, the Managing Director of ESiT said “The features and functionality delivered in this latest update of thankQ gives us a really exciting edge over other products. The developments are all at the heart of what makes thankQ the successful product it is – we want to give control to the user, and make the most of the technology already available to them.”