Your guide to developing a digital approach

The last few years have supported the rapid digitisation of the charity sector, but 46% of charities aren’t taking a strategic approach to digital. Not having a digital strategy can make charities reactive to change, and leave digital siloed within the organisation as it’s less likely to be connected to your organisation’s business strategy and overall strategic approach.

Technology is a huge topic! We recommend considering these four areas when developing a digital approach:

Aligning your technology journey with your organisational governance, team and wider stakeholders
Running a technology landscape audit
Creating your roadmap and tactical planning
Planning for uncertainty

Developing a tech approach that considers the needs of your team

As a first step, it’s helpful to think about what a good tech strategy might look like for your organisation, and who should be involved in the process.

Some things to consider might be::

Do you have an organisational strategy, and how could technology feed into your approach?
Who are your stakeholders? (your team, board, senior leadership). It’s a good idea to map everyone as you’re going to need to bring them all along on this journey.
Do you have governance processes in place for this work? Governance is an important consideration and you need to have a plan (even if light touch) to ensure that decisions are easy to make, and the right people are involved in each stage of your digital approach.
How will you manage change? Your change journey is an integral part of this process and managing this is very important. Read our blog for some tips on how you might approach this.

Audit your current tech

Once you’ve developed an approach, we recommend that you start thinking about all the technology used in your organisation; from software applications on desktops and mobile devices, hardware used (computers, phones), data that’s stored or shared, processes and resources, partners and suppliers. Once a Tech Audit has been carried out you’ll know where the gaps, risks and opportunities are.

Key things to consider with a tech landscape audit:

What tools and software do you use? This could be your CRM, the CMS for your website, or volunteer management tools. Make a list as this will help you identify risks, issues and opportunities.
Once you know what tools you have, you’ll also be able to rationalise and make the most of your digital technology and determine any changes you need to make to make it more sustainable, adaptable or resilient.
This can seem like a huge task, so break it down into process stages. Perhaps start by reviewing the finances, and listening to your team; what are people saying about technology?

If you’d like support with your tech audit, get in touch!

Create your roadmap

Only once you know what digital technology you have through the technology audit, then you can think about where you want your organisation to be.

We recommend that you think about how to create and deliver a technology approach by developing an overall plan (the method to create a sustainable approach and strategy) and a roadmap (a specific set of activities required to reach the desired destination).

Key things to consider:

How will you create, gain approval for and maintain your approach to technology?
Create a roadmap for delivering your plan.
The roadmap is primarily a communications tool. Don’t include too much detail, but do include working time (for research etc.), not just milestones and it should be regularly updated as plans and circumstances change.

Plan for uncertainty

Any change to an organisation’s technology will affect your team. We recommend reflecting on the end-to-end process of developing a technology approach, thinking of a way to capture learnings when change happens in your organisation and looking ahead at how to plan for uncertainty.

Key things to consider when planning your technology approach and resultant uncertainty:

Remember why you are doing this and ensure you get commitment and buy-in from all the key stakeholders
Be clear of the scope of your digital approach - don’t try and do too much. Prioritise!
Ensure you know your organisation's strategy and your vision are aligned with this
Do a tech audit
Identify and plan stakeholder engagement
Draft your approach and iterate
Prepare your comms and gain approval
Execute your plan and communicate
Be prepared for uncertainty and be able to adapt for the benefit of your team