Yesterday I was lucky enough to get to visit one of our great Community Hub projects which is based just down the road from our Sheffield office. The Lifewise Centre in Hellaby (Rotherham) really is using technology to bring about change in their community they’re running some fantastic projects currently using technology to tackle gun and knife crime as well as literacy problems.

I was at the centre to mark the development of our new website, the Big Community Hub, along with the Minister for Civil Society, Nick Hurd, and Annika Small, CEO of the Nominet Trust who is funding it. This new website will bring together the best online tools that community organisations need to work more efficiently so they change spend more time doing what they love and having an impact in their local community.

And so it wasn’t just me bending the ear of the Minister, we invited along a selection of community leaders who talked about the challenges of their role, and why a resource like this will be so useful. I’m pleased to say he was impressed – with the centre, the local Community Hub programme, and with the ideas for the Big Community Hub.

In fact, he said: “Rarely do I have a real Bingo moment! But this is one of them. I’m committed to helping community organisations build their capacity, and I’m a passionate advocate of technology. So often do I hear that community groups don’t have time to get to grips with digital tools and right here we’ve got the right platform to bring local people and tech together. I’m looking forward to seeing the Big Community Hub website when it’s ready for wide-scale use, and believe it will be a vital tool for the country.”

Take a look at our video on why the Big Community Hub is such a useful resource:

The Big Community Hub website will be launched later this year, and will be piloted in Beta version this summer. Keep an eye on my blog for more details.