Back in February the Nightline Association announced that their charity would be closing at the end of June, while individual Nightlines would continue. As you may’ve seen, we responded by confirming that Three Rings will always be free to Nightlines, but we’ve also been in talks with the Nightline Association to ensure we’re doing all we can to minimise the impact of the Nightline Association closing down on individual Nightlines’ operations.
One of the core services the Nightline Association provides for Nightlines has been the Nightline Portal system, which offers secure, online, logging and anonymous messaging services. (Eagle-eyed readers will already have noticed a synergy between that description of Portal and Three Rings’ mission to deliver secure, online volunteer management tools!)
With the closure of the Association looming, the Portal software, developed by Nightline Association volunteers and hosted on the Nightline Association’s web domain, was at risk of being lost. Given the years of history Three Rings has of supporting Nightlines, we didn’t feel able to let that happen, so we have reached an agreement with the Nightline Association to take over the hosting and maintenance of Portal after the Association’s closure.
If your organisation isn’t a Nightline, this won’t affect you. Our team have ensured that adopting the Portal system won’t impact Three Rings, our development plans, our pricing, or the support we offer to your organisation.
If your organisation is a Nightline, then this shouldn’t affect you much, either! If you’re one of the Nightlines that uses Portal, do check your inbox (or ask your coordinators to check!) as we’ve already sent through some information about the planned migration date and the new URL you’ll need in order to access the system.
If you are a Nightline Association volunteer – especially if you’ve been working on Portal, then this could affect you, if you want! As volunteers ourselves – volunteers whove been watching and helping Three Rings grow since 2002 – we can imagine some of you are feeling a bit lost now the Association is closing. If you’d like to carry on the work you’ve been doing, then we’d like to offer you a home with Three Rings CIC. If that sounds tempting, please do get in touch!
Whatever your role, rest assured that our core mission is unchanged: our aim is still to use our time and skills to make sure Three Rings represents the best in low-cost, high quality volunteer management tools, and to do all we can to make it easier for the organisations we support to deliver on their goals.
At the same time, we didn’t feel we could stand by while a vital system that Nightlines rely on to operate was lost – and as the organisations we support are all charities or volunteer and community-run organisations themselves, we can be pretty confident that our users will understand.