I am here to launch an exciting new  'Digital Makeover' project that I hope will be of great interest to all of those nonprofits out there that are grappling the possibilities of new technologies, and perhaps struggling to seperate the digital wheat from the digital chaff. The Digital Makeover project also aims to rope in social web experts, who are up for putting their considerable enthusiasm and know-how to good use in a practical context.

The project involves providing one organisation, South Yorkshire Funding and Advice Bureau (SYFAB), with a Digital Makeover.  We will be getting to grips with their organisational challenges, and dreaming up some innovative but appropriate digital solutions for a few of them. In the spirit of the social web, collaboration is going to be central to project. Contributions will be welcomed, and open dialogue encouraged. Video and blog updates will chart the process over the next few months. The aim is to not only to see how technology can help an organisation like SYFAB, but also to demonstrate their value in fostering collaboration on a project such as this over the web.

The idea has evolved out of a Masters final project into something much more substantial with the support supported of Charity Technology Trust (CTT). In March, we invited CTT's members to submit proposals for the project. From a diverse and eclectic range of submissions, SYFAB was chosen. They were selected because of their excellent submission, their openness to new technology and a great track record of innovation. It was also felt that they face many of the typical challenges of similarly sized organisations. Further videos and blog posts will be posted over the next couple of weeks that focus on some of SYFAB's prority areas in more detail. For those of you that are keen to find out more straight away, a PDF summary is available below the video at the bottom of the page.

The project will only be as good as the contributions from those of you with some expertise to share, so please do get involved. If you feel that you can assist in this project then email me at simon@ctt.org or via the comments tool below. If you want to lurk in the shadows and watch the project unfold - feel free. Emphasis will be on appropriate and sustainable ideas - the aim is to cut through the hype to come up with some clever practical solutions. We may not always get it right - so please feel free to criticise and debate. I will endeavour to provide further information and examples, to help nonprofits that are wrestling with the same issues as SYFAB. The project will last until September.

That is enough for now - more to follow shortly. In the meantime get in contact and bookmark the RSS feed to keep updated.

Without further ado, here is a short video to introduce the SYFAB, and touch on some of the issues and priorities that they have.