The online community for The Big Lottery Fund’s Village SOS initiative, developed by SiftGroups, has launched today.

Village SOS is a Big Lottery Fund initiative where ten enterprising UK rural villages were awarded £400k of lottery funding to revive their rural communities through new business ventures.

Linda Quinn, director of communications and marketing at the Big Lottery Fund, said: “The Village SOS online community will be a critical part of Big Lottery Fund’s Village SOS Active Campaign to support isolated rural communities by providing a central resource where people can share experiences and connect with one another.
“SiftGroups are experts in community engagement and have worked closely with the villages involved to provide an online interactive community that will really benefit everyone that uses it.”

Digital agency SiftGroups built the online community to let people share their experiences, provide support and inspire others to create their own rural social experiences.  It includes toolkits offering guidance and support for villages as well as inter-village forums to encourage knowledge and skill-sharing across the UK. It also features a search and links to useful organisations that can provide help.  

Nick Torday, account director at SiftGroups, said: “When starting any community engagement work it is essential that the people who make the community have input into its development. As it’s the first time some of the people in the Village SOS project have used internet technology, we developed the online community after rigorous usability research to ensure everyone was comfortable communicating via the community. We are pleased that it will help people in often isolated areas of the UK get online to share their ideas.”