positive - pick n mix - a guide to technology choices for charities

charitycomms.org.uk Written by Sally Hems

Pick ‘n’ mix:a guide to technologychoices for charities

http://www.charitycomms.org.uk/


http://www.positivestudio.co.uk/

2Pick ‘n’ mix: a guide to technology choices for charitiescharitycomms.org.uk

Contents

Welcome

Our digital experts

Introduction

Which content management systems

are UK charities using?

Which customer relationship management platforms


Which campaigning and advocacy tools


Which online giving and payment gateways


What are your main challenges?

What would you like technology to solve?

Case study: Planning a digital technology project, The Royal Society

Our recommendations

Recommendation 1: Accept imperfections

Recommendation 2: Agree on data and evaluate customer journeys

Case study: Personalising the supporter experience, Diabetes UK

Case study: Engaging supporters without the detail, Arthritis Research UK

Recommendation 3: Choose best of breed

Recommendation 4: Influence decision making

Interview: Zoë Camper

Recommendation 5: Consider budget and ownership

Case study: Saving time and money through documentation,

The Children’s Society

Recommendation 6: Keep looking ahead

Conclusion

Final thoughts

Acknowledgements

3

4

5

6

7

8

8

9

10

11

12

12

13

14

15

16

16

17

18

20

21

22

23

24


3Pick ‘n’ mix: a guide to technology choices for charitiescharitycomms.org.uk contents

Welcome

We teamed up with Positive – a digital agency that creates online solutions

for the charity and not-for-profit sector – to find out which technologies

charities are using and the challenges they have with these. Together we

asked 74 digital leads working in charities in-depth questions about their

customer relationship management (CRM), content management systems

(CMS), campaigning and advocacy tools, and online giving services.

We quizzed them about the pros and cons of their current tech set up

and the biggest issues they would like technology to help them solve.

Then we sat with a group of digital charity experts to thrash out the

issues and discuss potential approaches and solutions. The results were

fascinating, and they’re summarised in this report.

We hope they provide an excellent starting point for digital discussions

within your teams and organisations.

Vicky Browning, director, CharityComms

The digital space continues to grow as new technologies are introduced. With so many options available, how best do you choose the right tools for your charity? And importantly, how do you go about implementing and integrating these with existing platforms?



Francis Bacon, digital manager, Royal SocietyFrancis is digital manager at the Royal Society, the science academy for the UK, where he has led projects to re-platform and redesign the website and introduced a new social media strategy. He is also co-founder of moreconference.com, a supplier of private social networks for use at conferences and events.

Karina Brisby, head of digital, The Children’s SocietyKarina co-founded the Voice Blogging Project, and since 2011 has been the director of Blog Action Day. She’s the European director for Core Collaboration, an agency dedicated to empowering organisations to achieve their campaign and communication goals, and was previously head of digital campaigns at Oxfam.

Zoë Camper, head of digital, Arthritis Research UKZoë is head of digital for Arthritis Research UK. She has worked in the internet industry since 1994 and is an elected fellow of the RSA.

Said Dajani, head of digital, Diabetes UKSaid is head of digital at Diabetes UK, the author of the charity’s digital transformation strategy and the organisation’s lead on mHealth. Before joining Diabetes UK, Said built the digital team at Alzheimer’s Society. Said curates Charity.Digital a flipboard magazine on how the sector uses digital technology.

Mike Jenkins, managing director, PositiveMike is founder and MD at Positive, a digital agency specialising in charity, NFP and education. He’s been working with the charity sector for more than 10 years, delivering hugely effective strategy, creative and technology to charities and helping them meet their organisational objectives.

Ringo Moss, strategist, PositiveRingo is creative strategist at Positive. With 10 years’ experience in digital design, content and advertising for some of the world’s biggest brands he has shifted his focus to the charity sector, using best-in-class design, technology and strategy to deliver truly effective work for Positive’s clients.

Chris Thorn, head of digital, British Heart FoundationChris, head of digital at the British Heart Foundation, has worked in digital for 15 years, covering roles from CTO of a Berlin-based, VC-backed digital start-up to running a digital agency and one of the very first corporate ISPs in the 90s. He now runs the digital systems team, digital content and digital marketing teams at BHF.

Bertie Bosrédon, digital consultantBertie has worked in the not-for-profit sector for over 12 years. As a freelance consultant, he has helped over 60 organisations with their digital projects.

Our digital experts



Introduction

At Positive we work with charities and non-profits every day to help them embrace digital transformation: designing, building and maintaining open source digital. For us, everything is about getting the intended results and being effective.Achieving this is about more than having a website that can be viewed from the latest smartphone. Developments in technology are increasingly putting digital at the forefront of organisational change – from how we deliver services to internal decisions over team structure.

This can be both exciting and scary. Either way, I’m sure the charity sector is used to being told it must not ignore these advances if it is to remain competitive. But what about the agencies that supply these charities? If we are to successfully support you on your journey from digital trials to digital triumphs, we have to listen.

So that’s why we’ve teamed up with CharityComms on this report: to listen to your views on the technology you use and – along with a team of digital experts from the sector – provide recommendations where we think our expertise can add value.

Some of it may sound all too familiar: CMS and CRM are a source of frustration for many; we hope our charts and advice ease the pain a bit. Meanwhile open-source platforms such as Drupal have the popularity contest wrapped up, but more on that later.

Other bits should ignite discussion: can your team agree which problem you would most like technology to solve? Our survey respondents were mainly concerned with improving customer focus and operational efficiency, but a host of other challenges were mentioned including integrating technologies and data and lack of investment.

Our team of digital experts address these areas and more in the recommendations and case studies we’ve provided, which begin by encouraging digital leads to accept imperfections (p12). What this translates to is that you’re not alone. As technology evolves integration issues will happen and planning ahead will involve uncertainties. Don’t give up – Francis Bacon, digital manager at The Royal Society, is on hand to give his tips on how to plan a project (p11). Meanwhile Zoë Camper, Arthritis Research UK’s head of digital, begins to look at what the future might hold (p17).

While we don’t expect your digital dilemmas to magically disappear by reading this document, we do think this is a pretty good starting point for a conversation about how charities are using digital. It’s not too late to tell us what you think – join the conversation @PositiveBristol using #TechChoices.

Mike Jenkins, managing director, Positive


https://twitter.com/PositiveBristol

https://twitter.com/hashtag/TechChoices


Which content management systems are UK charities using?

Our findings

1 Open source comes out on topOur digital experts attributed WordPress and Drupal’s popularity to them being open source and therefore viewed as more cost effective. But with open source being free, they warned that this can sometimes lead to organisations putting aside insufficient budget for ongoing development. This is needed whatever CMS platform you choose.

The principal of something being open source is key. You have more flexibility and the wording means something, even to those who aren’t technical. But although the technology is free, you need to invest in the architecture.” Karina Brisby, The Children’s Society

Another feature in their favour is that both tools have large developer communities that keep standards high and provide information and advice. WordPress is also undergoing significant application programme interface (API) improvements, so it offers greater flexibility integrating with other platforms.

2 Many charities use more than one CMSMost charities are using more than one CMS. Experts echoed this approach. Several talked about using Sitecore or Drupal as their main CMS and supplementing these with platforms such as WordPress for campaign microsites.

All agreed that it’s important to choose the right tool for the job: • Proprietary systems like Sitecore are more suited to large, global,

enterprise websites. It’s fairly expensive to license, so it’s not so popular in the charity sector.

• Drupal is open source, well supported, scalable to enterprise level, and has very high take up in the charity sector. It also benefits from being well supported by developers and agencies.

• WordPress is quick to ‘spin-up’ for microsites. It can often be handled in-house, so it provides greater ownership making it more appropriate for discrete projects or campaigns.

3 There is some dissatisfaction with CMSOur survey showed varying levels of satisfaction with these technology platforms, with Drupal and WordPress showing greatest satisfaction levels. Dissatisfaction could be related to charities inheriting different CMS as a result of legacy projects. This could be due to supplier changes, an inadequate brief, or misinterpretation of requirements, and it can often lead to integration issues. To deal with this, digital teams may need to systematically redeploy poorly designed and integrated systems. Future issues might be avoided through improved briefing and agency relations, and ensuring that budget-setters understand why it’s important to get it right.

When I first started, I wanted a content management system that would do everything. And if it didn’t do something, I’d build it. Now I think it’s about managing content.” Said Dajani, Diabetes UK

(% shows number of respondents

using each technology out of

70 responses)

Top 10 CMS technologies being used

WordPress 59%

Drupal 49%

Bespoke CMS 27%

Sharepoint 27%

Looma 21%

Umbraco 21%

Sitecore 17%

Raising IT 16%

Blackbaud 13%(Net Community, Sphere etc)

Kentico 4%

Silverstripe 4%



Which customer relationship management platforms are UK charities using?

Our findings

CMS is for years, CRM is for life.” Bertie Bosrédon, digital consultant

1 Over a quarter of charities do not use CRMExperts highlighted that data usually needs to be cleaned before a CRM system can be implemented. With data in repositories across the organisation, the extent of this job could explain why a high proportion of respondents do not yet have a CRM.

2 Dissatisfaction levels are higherSpecifying, choosing and implementing CRM is a real bugbear for charities. This is evident in the levels of dissatisfaction in the survey, which were significantly higher than those expressed for CMS platforms. Several respondents cited it as a key challenge (p9). This is hardly surprising with many departments across the organisation using this data. Large numbers of diverse stakeholders can make decision-making arduous and implementation time-consuming.

The number of departments accessing data with different aims and objectives led our experts to wonder whether expectations are too high. They questioned whether a perfect CRM can exist and to consider alternative ways of storing data such as ‘data warehousing’. This means that as long as data is stored somewhere central, it can be used effectively across the organisation.

With CRM technologies still in relatively early phases, it may also be a case of waiting for the market to mature. Despite this, Salesforce showed high levels of satisfaction, and many respondents said later in our survey that they planned to implement it.

You’re never going to get an all-singing, all-dancing CRM. That’s why we are moving to a ‘data warehouse’ model where all data can be held and queried as and when it needs to be.” Said Dajani, Diabetes UK

3 Older CRMs caused more dissatisfactionBlackbaud is the most widely used, but two thirds of its users are dissatisfied in some way. Experts wondered whether this was due to its age. CRMs implemented over four years ago were built predominantly for print or direct mail, so they frequently struggle with primary IDs. More recent technologies have been designed to handle online as well as offline data, although this doesn’t mean they’re perfect.

There’s that tension between online and offline. You could have a situation where the CRM has not even got emails sorted yet, and now social media is being integrated. Every organisation struggles with this.” Karina Brisby, The Children’s Society

Top 4 CRM and donor database platforms being used

(% shows number of respondents

using each technology out of

55 responses)

Blackbaud 49%(Raiser’s Edge, eTapestry etc)

Salesforce 31%

Microsoft Dynamics CRM 20%

CiviCRM 22%



(% shows number of respondents using

each technology out of 38 responses)

(% shows number of respondents using

each technology out of 53 responses)

Engaging Networks 71%

JustGiving 92%

Raising IT 18%

BT My Donate 21%

Blackbaud 49%

Virgin Money Giving 51%

Which campaigning and advocacy tools are UK charities using?

Which online giving and payment gateways are UK charities using?

Top 3 campaigning and advocacy tools

Top 3 online giving and payment gateways



What are your main challenges?Our survey highlighted five key areas where charities struggle:

1 Integration Technologies: With lots of different technologies working alongside one another, integration is always going to be a challenge. Many respondents talked about challenges integrating new and existing technologies.

Data: Integrating data across on and offline platforms was highlighted as a problem. And data integration across the organisation is difficult for charities of all sizes. Unsurprisingly governance was also flagged, due to many points of access, different uses and collection methods.

Difficulties with CRM: This appears to incorporate integration issues with both data and technology. Integrating your CRM with other technologies can be problematic. And some respondents described an inability to align departmental objectives within the platform.

Vendors assume they know what we want rather than supplying what we need.” Survey respondent

Too many systems to do different jobs. Not all are available across different device platforms.” Survey respondent

2 Legacy systems Most respondents have legacy systems and described these as having inflexible technologies, ‘scrappy code’ and expensive development costs. Several have a host of legacy technologies and suppliers, which amplify the stress of integration.

We have to work around, not with, our platform.” Survey respondent

3 Insufficient skills The pace of change in the industry causes problems for most. Respondents talked about difficulties keeping up to speed, and a lack of training and expertise in data analysis and development. Others relayed problems up-skilling and inspiring unwilling staff to adopt new technologies.

Nervous breakdowns would abound if people were asked to use a new system.” Survey respondent

We collect data we don’t have the resource to draw insights from.” Survey respondent

Lack of internal expertise and no internal developers means over-reliance on expensive agencies to make small changes.” Survey respondent

4 Lack of internal support For some organisations, IT and digital are divided. Rigorous procurement processes prevent some digital teams from responding rapidly to new technologies. Other charities have difficulties getting buy-in from their management team. A ‘fear of the cloud’ was also mentioned, perhaps due to inadequate knowledge of digital.

We are defined by a risk-averse IT team who don’t allow a very open system.” Survey respondent

[There’s a] lack of joined up thinking internally to make the most of [technologies].” Survey respondent



When asked to describe the biggest issue they would like technology to solve, digital leads were mainly concerned with improving customer focus and operational efficiency.For improving customer focus, respondents’ goals ranged across their organisation’s marketing activities: • Monitor data and proactively use it in marketing and communications• Develop a better understanding of supporters and beneficiaries • Improve customer focus through seamless user journeys and

effective CRM• Increase conversion rates in fundraising and campaigning.

To improve efficiency, respondents’ goals included:• Better collaboration across teams• Increased speed and flexibility in editing and uploading content• More aligned and streamlined platforms, technologies and data• To deliver services through digital platforms• Improved accessibility specifically for people with disabilities.

To address this, 73% of our digital leads plan to implement new technologies in the future – over a third in the long-term, and 46% in the short-term. When questioned about the technologies they are considering, CMS and CRM came out on top. The most popular of these were Drupal and Salesforce.

5 Lack of investmentMany charities struggle to get sufficient funding for technology implementation and maintenance. Their legacy systems need continual investment for maintenance leaving little in the budget for new systems.

What are your main challenges?

What would you like technology to solve?

Technology wishes from our survey respondents

Increasing fundraising. We would like to do this by refining our communications and saving staff time by having everything on one platform.”

We need to make it easier for staff based across the UK to create content and manage ring-fenced areas of work (website, social accounts, email) – all working within the same framework.”

To allow us to proactively use our data for better marketing and comms.”

Proper tracking of supporters, integrated communications, cross promotion – currently none are done well enough.”

Better customer experience and efficiency.”

A single source of truth in CRM, and the ability [to] automate personalised customer communications and journeys.”



The Royal SocietyPlanning a digital technology project

Francis Bacon, digital manager for The Royal Society, gives us some useful advice to consider before starting a new technology project.

1 Be clear about what you want to achieve by introducing the technology • How will your organisational outcomes

improve?• Is there a clear business case and evidence

of need? • Are the benefits worth the time and money?

At The Royal Society, we recently decided to build a technology to integrate our CRM and CMS. This would allow us to show Fellows’ details online for the first time. The project had identifiable outcomes in terms of enabling members to contact one another. Other outcomes included allowing members of the public or journalists to get in touch with our top scientists directly.

Numerous digital metrics were available to support this decision, such as page views, log-ins, search queries etc. But it was also a case of considering qualitative measures like sentiment and member feedback.

2 Plan how you will introduce the change• Do you need a dedicated project manager,

team, or board?• What leadership and governance is needed? • How will internal processes, support and

training need to change once the project is over?

For our new technology, we set up a weekly meeting with a dedicated project team. These met for a year and a half, and had a wider group of stakeholders to support decisions.

Large organisations often have formal governance. If you don’t have this, establish a mechanism which allows people to be consulted and have a say on what happens. A strong project leader is also vital, or projects may be derailed.

Introducing new technology can have an impact across departments and affect roles and processes. Content needs updating and new processes introduced. There may also be a need for training and development. So it’s worth considering these aspects too.

3 Carefully consider your users’ experienceUser experience (UX) – and your ability to meet user needs – is more important than ever. Users judge in seconds and we are competing for their attention against a host of online distractions. This is about being able to: • Judge the quality of the end-user’s

experience• Understand how the design/UX can or

cannot be customised• Judge the supplier on their ability/record

of improving the UX over time

Remote user testing can be done with tools like usertesting.com and whatusersdo.com. Use analytics to see where people are failing different steps, or tools like Qualaroo.com for pop-up surveys.


http://www.usertesting.com

http://www.whatusersdo.com

https://qualaroo.com/


In response to the challenges highlighted in the survey, our team of digital experts made six key recommendations. These are provided to support you when planning, implementing and evaluating your digital strategies. They can be a strong basis for future conversations: whether you are explaining your digital strategy to senior management, making a case for organisational digital budgets or structure, applying for digital funding, or negotiating with external agencies.

Recommendation 1: Accept imperfections

New technologies are bound to lead to integration issues with older platforms. You’re not alone. Our experts described similar integration challenges to those mentioned by survey respondents. And they concluded that these are unavoidable. So they recommended streamlining planning through smaller projects, educating internal stakeholders about your challenges, and not expecting perfection!

Create a series of projectsMost digital teams battle with technologies and challenges, whether it’s integrating new tools with legacy systems, or combining task-oriented technologies. So instead of making planning open-ended, consider a series of discrete, bite-sized projects that will help you fulfil long-term objectives.

This can be difficult when you’re dealing with many different stakeholders. But our experts discussed how easy it is for requirements to change in the time it takes to specify and implement a new technology.

Very few projects are green fields where you can build something from scratch. As large projects are more likely to fail, it makes more sense to build a development programme made up of smaller projects.” Said Dajani, Diabetes UK

Sometimes briefs are too proscriptive so suppliers try to tick every box. Then the resulting technology doesn’t work in the round. It’s better to go into the procurement process with a rough idea of the features and benefits you need. No solution is perfect, so you will need to compromise!” Francis Bacon, The Royal Society

Embrace uncertaintyThe industry is constantly changing and tools being updated. This makes it exciting. It also makes it hard to keep up. As one technology sets the sector alight, new ones come to market. Our experts agreed that there’s no perfectly integrated solution. Unfortunately, this diminishes the chance of attaining that “single source of truth in CRM” as requested by one survey respondent.

The need to plan ahead can make this tricky. Uncertainty is difficult for management teams to understand. So explain these challenges. This may involve explaining to internal teams that developing a website isn’t a one-off and you need to build in contingency funding where possible.

We’re looking ahead now to 2020. But to imagine where we’ll be then in digital is nigh on impossible!” Chris Thorn, British Heart Foundation

Our recommendations



Recommendation 2: Agree on data and evaluate customer journeys

Both our experts and survey respondents emphasised the need to improve the collection and evaluation of supporter or customer data. As well as improving the customer experience, this improves marketing and fundraising through better insight. To achieve this, our experts recommended that digital departments educate internal stakeholders on their ability to gather and use data. Added to this, they should make sure that customer journeys are mapped.

Raise awareness of digital’s potential to use dataConsolidating data across on and offline communications such as telephone and email can be difficult. Our experts also complained about organisational ‘gatekeepers’ demanding that data meet certain requirements in order for it to be allowed in the CRM. With information collected at many points in the organisation, it’s helpful to agree what is being collected and how this will be used.

Fundraising and marketing often take different approaches to data collection in line with their strategic objectives. Their goals – driving supporters to a campaign website or getting newsletter sign-ups, for example – may be based on a limited understanding of digital’s ability to collect insight from less substantial data.

To address this, experts talked about raising awareness of digital’s ability to use smaller amounts of data. Showing its value in customer journeys will help other departments understand how you can work together to move supporters along these, developing meaningful content in exchange for further data. Read how Zoë Camper achieved this at Arthritis Research UK on p15.

Digital is a conversation so you can keep adding additional things to the data file. This isn’t really understood.” Karina Brisby, The Children’s Society

Map customer journeysCustomer journeys are vital if you want to identify areas for change or improvement. But mapping them can be difficult for charities. They often involve disparate stakeholders and can be hard to define, with several technologies collecting data in different places. This was the biggest technological issue for one of our respondents, who wanted “to create seamless user journeys and to provide rich data on users.”

Experts talked about the confusion the process can bring. “If people sign up to your newsletter, they’re recorded on the database,” said Said Dajani. “But the real insight comes from understanding which content in the e-newsletter they are interested in. That data is not kept in the CRM, only the email system. And when you’re generating your e-comms, you need to tailor it to the content they’re interested in.”

Despite this, our experts agreed that it’s important to map your customer journeys and put them on lockdown. So agree your personas or customer segments, identify the points where they interact, then try to build tools around their journey – from analytics, to CRM, to CMS.

It’s about our audience. That’s what we’re here for.” Said Dajani, Diabetes UK

Our recommendations



worked with other teams in the charity to better understand offline customer journeys.

The trial we’ve just completed has been restricted to using search term and landing page information to allocate website users to one of four different visitor groups – Type 1, Type 2, health care professionals and a final group that has no content personalised.

We aren’t yet producing specific content for the different visitor groups; instead the trial has focused on signposting to content, products and services relevant to the various groups.

We’ve also started personalising email communications, so for example after using our online risk score, the content you receive will depend on your level of risk.

We are still trialling this approach and it hasn’t been rolled out yet but initial reports are very encouraging. In the meantime the rest of the charity has become much more focused on customer journeys so we feel we’re on the right track.

In the future, we will be looking into personalising regional content. We work across the four nations so it would be good to give people local content dependent on the user’s post code, whether that be information, news or local events.”

Diabetes UK Personalising the supporter experience

Said Dajani, head of digital at Diabetes UK, is rolling out a series of digital programmes to provide a more personalised experience for the charity’s supporters.

“As a charity we support everyone who has diabetes but are increasingly aware of the need to develop different content based on factors like the user’s type of diabetes, their age, diagnosis date and location.

On some platforms, this isn’t practical. We now have over 100,000 followers on Facebook and don’t believe it makes sense to fragment our message by setting up Type-specific pages. But on other platforms, particularly our website, we can be that bit more nuanced and serve up different content dependent on our users’ needs.

The decision to adopt this approach was led by the digital team and in particular by our digital content manager who researched personalisation options within our content management system. Meanwhile the rest of the digital communications team researched industry trends around personalisation and



their primary and secondary addresses. But we can’t have a completely clean data source. So we need to be freer with the way we manage data.

The trial is set to run for two weeks before and during Arthritis Week.

We’re going to use this as a showcase. We will have a post-campaign follow-up where we’ll be using some of those principles.

We’re looking to improve online conversion rates for traffic generated through social channels via programmatic advertising, campaigns and so on. So we’re anticipating an entirely new audience coming to us. And we’ll be using this new tactic with them.

Afterwards, we’ll look at what worked well, what we won’t do again. And use it as a learning process for the organisation.”

Arthritis Research UK Engaging supporters without the detail

At Arthritis Research UK, head of digital, Zoë Camper is conducting a pilot project around Arthritis Week.

This will support future communications by highlighting the minimal amount of data needed to make a supporter viable.

“For us there was a problem establishing what made a viable donor or fundraiser. Traditionally it had been name, telephone number and house address because we would do direct mail - a valuable source of income. But with the online journey, getting the full postal address at first point of entry just isn’t possible.

So for our annual campaign around Arthritis Week, we’re just asking web visitors for their first name, last name, email and an opt in.

People in the charity weren’t too sure about this initially and there were a lot of heated discussions. In the end, the head of CRM and I took the decision together. We looked at the risk and identified ways to manage it.

We understand people have multiple email addresses, which leads to issues identifying



Recommendation 3: Choose best of breed

Given the varying satisfaction levels for technological tools in our survey, our experts considered how digital leads should go about choosing these. Importantly, they suggested that digital departments choose ‘best of breed’, and then look at how well these will connect with other technologies. It’s easy to be tempted by suppliers selling an entire solution. But this may make it difficult (and expensive) if you want to migrate systems further down the line.

Choose the right tool for the jobMost digital leads have considered transferring everything into one system at some point. But will the new email marketing system bundled with your CMS work better than your current one? And will it integrate with current or future tools? Our experts recommended reviewing new tools against the competition and choosing ‘best of breed’ for individual tasks or areas.

Consider APIsAn API allows different systems to talk and pass data between one another. If you want flexibility and ease of integration, good APIs are vital. Perhaps this explains why many charities use, or are considering open source technologies. They are reassured that developer communities are creating features and improving integration for these. But be aware that as the technology evolves, it may need investment for further development.

Avoid over-investing in one platformTechnological tools often want your data in their platform so you become dependent on their technology and buy more features. Avoid investing too heavily in one platform so you don’t become too dependent. Despite putting large amounts of data into platforms, there are usually ways to extract these for transferring elsewhere. Experts discussed different ways to do this using third party software and csv files.

What we really want is building blocks. One tool that does the job really well. And to make sure it connects to other tools.” Chris Thorn, British Heart Foundation

Recommendation 4: Influence decision making

Most digital projects need input from across the organisation. However, one of the key challenges highlighted in our survey was a lack of internal support.

Our experts agreed that charities are getting better at interrogating internally before making decisions. There’s a more collaborative approach towards specifying technologies. And departments are making informed decisions stemming from a better understanding of digital. Despite this, there are gains to be made. So they came up with some suggestions on how best to gain support and influence decision-making. These included: involving internal stakeholders on decisions; influencing technology and key recruitment decisions where possible; and educating colleagues on technologies and digital strategy.

Encourage shared procurementSome of our survey respondents talked about making collaborative decisions on web technology: for example IT and communications departments joining forces to drive projects. Experts agreed with this procurement approach and suggested forming platform or site steering groups. Stakeholders can then buy into website roadmaps and agree steps forward.

Our recommendations



“In larger organisations, there are more issues around processes and staff. Occasionally I can kick start something, but this is usually working with an agency.

“It’s also a question of scale and how risk is managed. Large charities, particularly those in the media spotlight, tend to be more aware of the risks. I spend more time doing risk analysis and process documentations for these.”

What do you think the next big digital challenges will be for charities?“One of the really big issues is disintermediation – the disappearance of a middle-man in the giving process. So rather than giving money to us to distribute, the public will make these decisions. This may mean the removal of the charity as the arbiter of spend.

“If you look at mobile giving, text giving and crowd-funding, a lot of websites are not yet set up for this. Charities really need to take this on board.

“Given the number of charities in this country, almost like the dotcom bubble, it’s going to have to burst. The smaller, and more agile an organisation is, the easier it will be able to handle that.

“Also, millennials do not look at brands in the same way. Supporters or fundraisers are far more irreverent about brands etc. This will also be an interesting challenge for charities in the future.”

Interview Zoë Camper

Zoë Camper is Arthritis UK’s head of digital four days a week, and has been advising charities on a freelance basis for over 15 years. Her current clients include The Electrical Industries and Anglo Austrian Society.

What kind of advice do you give your clients?“My role at Arthritis UK is more technically focused. This draws on my expertise from managing the documentation and rollout for the BBC’s CMS.

“I give smaller clients advice on online services and how best to link up from a back-end perspective. In most cases, I’ve built their entire website. It’s about keeping them online and accessible, then advising and supporting.”

What are the main challenges your clients face and how do you help?“They tend to be different. Usually they’re related to money and approach.

“Technical platforms in larger organisations are infinitely more sophisticated. But for smaller charities where integration isn’t standard, I can set up a complex set of online services for just the cost of my time. I love that approach, because I can do in weeks what can take months in a larger organisation.



Once a procurement group has been established, agree principles to support buying decisions and governance. Request dedicated budgets for these groups to prevent you from having to ask for extra money once decisions have been made.

It’s about having shared principles or values. It’s not about control or ownership of systems but having good governance around these.” Francis Bacon, The Royal Society

Raise awareness of digital’s ability to make decisionsWe discussed where procurement responsibilities lie in different organisations. Some of our experts deal with consumer-facing technologies while their IT department deals with systems-facing ones. This takes CRM out of digital’s realm. But would digital be better placed to specify this if they are integrating these technologies?

Our survey showed that less than half (45%) of digital departments get the final say on new web technologies, and 15% have to wait for IT’s approval. Experts agreed that awareness of digital’s ability to make these decisions is often low. This might be addressed by raising profile internally, showing that digital has the skills and understanding to drive these decisions.

If digital was more involved in the procurement of technologies, we could help colleagues make the right decisions. We work more on organisational than technical issues. We know what questions to ask in order to specify the right technology.” Karina Brisby, The Children’s Society

Help staff make informed decisionsFundraisers were the first to use CRM, so often feel greater ownership for it. This can lead to decisions based on their software preferences. Add to this staff reticence to learn new systems, and organisations may end up retaining older, inefficient technologies.

To address this, explain digital’s strategy and where CRM fits with this. Take time to promote alternative technologies, and make sure that training and evaluation is in your implementation schedule.

Influence future hiresTo make sure you have sufficient skills in-house, our experts suggested giving HR a hand with recruitment. This could involve looking over job descriptions or attending recruitment panels for key new hires. Getting involved early will help you build a workforce of digitally literate employees.

Recommendation 5: Consider budget and ownership

Some digital leads talked about their challenges getting the finances to maintain and develop their systems. So our experts highlighted ways to manage this. These include developing your digital strategy once you have found out what other departments need, and then managing their expectations. When it comes to project management, give technologies a lifetime value, look into available support, and budget for documentation.

Develop plans after other departmentsWith departments across the organisation requesting digital support, our experts discussed the difficulties in effective planning and budgeting. To manage this, suggestions included requesting departmental business plans before signing off digital and marketing budgets. Another tip was

Our recommendations



to add a tick-box for ‘digital interdependency’ on departmental business plans. This should indicate where digital needs to get involved, flagging up the need for funding and resourcing.

Match scale of ambition with budgetExperts talked about dealing with high expectations internally. Staff may have a better idea of what they want, but they don’t always understand how much it will cost. To deal with this, be clear about what they will get for their budget. This might involve difficult conversations about resourcing, but at least you are not setting yourself up for failure.

Be aware of the pitfalls in over-specifying systems. There’s no point getting a sophisticated CRM without the in-house skills or budget to manage it. And collecting data that cannot be analysed is a waste of time and money. Think first whether you have these skills internally or sufficient budget for external data analysts.

These decisions need to be made at the top. I was advising a charity senior management team on their 3-6 month expectations. I told them that to achieve these, they needed to triple their budget. They said “Thanks, this shows we need to be more realistic”’. Bertie Bosrédon, digital consultant

Establish a product lifetime valueTechnologies need investment throughout, not just up to implementation. With on-going costs such as upgrades, bug-fixing and staff training, experts talked about establishing a lifetime cost for technology. For example, Diabetes UK has a three-year CMS lifecycle with investment over this period, so the digital team can accurately assess value and cost.

The ROI is after it’s online. But all the time and effort goes into getting products live. It’s a bit like NCT classes: they tell you nothing about parenting!” Chris Thorn, British Heart Foundation

Look into support for productsIt’s false economy to buy low cost technologies if support is poor. The more complex they are, the more important the after-sales.

From suppliers: Study service level agreements (SLAs) carefully. An expert’s charity experienced several days’ downtime due to unresponsive technical support. This was blamed on a minor detail in the small print. And it led to resentment towards the supplier and the move to find a new CRM.

From agencies and consultants: Many charities have stories about a badly built website or technology created by inexperienced developers. These all contribute to integration headaches. So make sure you find the right agency or developers and stick with them. For information on choosing and managing external suppliers, download CharityComms’ free guide to Working with agencies.

Budget for documentationCharities are often reluctant to pay for the documentation of a build. But experts agreed that this information makes updates easier for agencies or developers, making it more cost-effective in the long-term. According to Said Dajani: “As a rule of thumb I would expect to see 5% of a quote allocated to documentation and would query any agency who didn’t include a dedicated line for this.” Bertie Bosrédon echoes this: “In my

Our recommendations


http://www.charitycomms.org.uk/articles/working-with-agencies-how-to-be-a-smart-client


so they don’t factor it into timelines or budgets. And often when you work with smaller third-party suppliers - which some of these sites were built by - they won’t add documentation unless you put it in the brief.

Now for any microsite project moving forwards, especially those initiated by teams outside of the digital team, we make sure there’s documentation to the standard we require, as well as having ready-to-go branding templates. So if we need to upgrade the system or make a decision about moving hosts in the future, we’ve got all the information we need in one place.

Also, with the new changes that charities have to be aware of in compliance regulations, clear documentation will help us ensure that all of our sites are compliant, or quickly identify what needs to change to be compliant. A lot of charities have several different microsites. If they’re not documented well, it will be hard for them to know whether they comply or not.”

The Children’s SocietySaving time and money through documentation

Karina Brisby, director of digital at The Children’s Society, has introduced a new documentation policy for microsites that will help the charity save time and money and meet compliance regulations.

“We rebranded last year, and this included rebranding all our microsite assets. A lot of sites were created some time ago, involved different departments or were inherited projects that we had taken over. When we went back to these teams to start the re-branding process, we found that some of the people who had initiated the projects had left. Others didn’t have the technical knowledge to answer our questions or had left everything for the supplier to do.

That’s when we realised that we needed to educate our internal clients on why the technical information is needed. The tendency with projects can be to just get the job out of the door. But by taking time to get documentation done, it saves time and money if you need to make changes in the future. Outside of digital teams, people aren’t aware of how long it can take to document projects



experience you should allow three to five days for documentation, plus a possible one or two days of training (depending on the complexity of the project).”

Popular platforms such as Drupal are always evolving and developing to meet changing technological needs. Making sure you have good documentation and development stages enables your organisation’s online presence to grow with the technology.

Recommendation 6: Keep looking ahead

Continue to push digital at a strategic levelAs more charities sign up for Digital Transformation, the organisational landscape is set to change. Through this, digital departments can take on greater responsibility, advising management on how best to evolve.

If your charity is signed up for Digital Transformation, experts agreed it’s important to remind management on occasions. Otherwise, there’s the risk this commitment may be forgotten.

If your charity isn’t signed up, promote the benefits internally using examples and statistics, and show colleagues this report. This will help digital’s role move from supporting to driving your organisation’s activities.

If you paused and thought about what projects you could do that would really make a difference to your organisation, they could be completely different to the ones you’re actually working on.” Francis Bacon, The Royal Society

Be aware of new digital applications – but don’t overcommitDigital’s scope is widening. It now encompasses offline technologies like point of sale (POS) and mobile apps. And it’s expanding from communications and marketing to organisational functions such as service delivery. The job is never dull, but it can be difficult staying up to speed with new applications and technologies.

Experts talked about exciting industry developments in digital and about being asked to develop plans for their organisations. They emphasised, however, that it’s important not to overcommit if this happens. If it’s not your area of expertise, don’t be afraid to ask for resources or training, or push back and suggest sharing responsibility.

Seek adviceThe charity sector is good at networking and this showed in our research. When asked what information sources informed technology decisions, 75% of respondents answered ‘peers’. This source came second only to ‘desk/online research’ at 86%.

CharityComms runs regular events and networking opportunities for charity digital professionals. The e-Campaigning Forum (ECF) was also cited as a good information source by our experts. Another suggestion was to ask suppliers, agencies or consultants for help. People are generally happy to advise. So don’t be afraid to ask!

Our recommendations



It is encouraging for us that digital departments are becoming more integrated and valued in many of your organisations as their potential to transform reach and engagement among your customers is realised. The popularity of open-source systems such as Drupal fits with our own views of what works for charities – they are cost-effective, provide flexibility and anyone implementing open source will have the support of large developer communities behind them.

As your teams navigate the evolving digital landscape it’s clear that the continued support of your peers through case studies and knowledge sharing is paramount. The ones we’ve highlighted in this report show just how diverse the issues and solutions can be.

Even with the most digitally sophisticated organisations it’s clear there are conversations to be had to ensure your internal teams fully understand the scope and abilities of digital. It’s a case of keeping your teams and your stakeholders aware of what you’re doing, where you’re going and how you’re going to get there.

This may be helping colleagues see the wider picture by getting them involved with procurement. It might be showing them how data can help the organisation evaluate and monitor success. Or it may be educating them about your challenges, so their technology projects take these into account. Whatever the challenge, this report should prove useful in these conversations.

We can see that larger charities have to deal with the challenges that come with complex systems – they must be nimble, scanning the market for better technologies and allocating funds for ongoing development and documentation of systems. Meanwhile smaller charities are at an advantage when it comes to the flexibility of their systems, but they often find it difficult to get funding for new technologies or training. This can be achieved through educating internal stakeholders and raising digital’s profile internally.

Large or small, every organisation can find it a challenge building teams with the necessary digital skills. Part of our response to this report and continued commitment to sharing the experiences in the sector will be to bring together digital experts, agency and charity side, to provide practical solutions for you.

Finally, I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who has helped to put this report together – CharityComms, all our charity digital experts, and a special thanks to Sally Hems who helped craft this report. We can’t wait to hear what everyone thinks. Do share your thoughts with us @PositiveBristol using #TechChoices.

Mike Jenkins, managing director, Positive

Conclusion



https://twitter.com/hashtag/TechChoices


These comments from our digital experts sum up many of the key themes of our report.If digital was more involved in the procurement of technologies, we could help colleagues make the right decisions. We work more on organisational than technical issues. We know what questions to ask in order to specify the right technology.” Karina Brisby, The Children’s Society

It’s about having shared principles or values. It’s not about control or ownership of systems but having good governance around these.” Francis Bacon, The Royal Society

You’re never going to get an all-singing, all-dancing CRM. That’s why we are moving to a ‘data warehouse’ model where all data can be held and queried as and when it needs to be.” Said Dajani, Diabetes UK

What we really want is building blocks. One tool that does the job really well. And to make sure it connects to other tools.” Chris Thorn, British Heart Foundation

Very few projects are green fields where you can build something from scratch. As large projects are more likely to fail, it makes more sense to build a development programme made up of smaller projects.” Said Dajani, Diabetes UK

If you paused and thought about what projects you could do that would really make a difference to your organisation, they could be completely different to the ones you’re actually working on.” Francis Bacon, The Royal Society

Final thoughts


About the authorSally Hems is a freelance copywriter and content strategist with over 15 years’ communications expertise from advising global brands to one-woman bands. She has held senior positions with charities including Mind, Relate and SafeLives. And she has helped high profile organisations in education, health and social care gain supporters, credibility and clients. This is through planning and delivering clear communications, inspiring events, and co-ordinated thought leadership campaigns.

linkedin.com/in/sallyhems @sallyhems

About PositivePositive (positivestudio.co.uk) is a digital agency working with charity, non-profit, and education clients. We combine strategic insight, technical expertise and creative flair to achieve measurable results. We help our clients embrace digital transformation – designing, building and maintaining open source, enterprise level solutions.

Whether we’re tasked to achieve wider engagement, better conversion or an easier-to-use system, we rigorously monitor the effectiveness of those solutions against clearly defined objectives. We’re obsessed with effectiveness and are driven by passion, pride, and a rock solid commitment to doing the right thing.

@PositiveBristol

About CharityComms CharityComms (charitycomms.org.uk) is the professional membership body for charity communicators. We believe that effective and inspiring communications should be at the heart of every charity’s work for a better world. We’re here to improve the standard of communications and champion its role in the sector.

CharityComms membership gives you access to great content, examples of best practice, free seminars and exclusive networking events and a host of opportunities for professional development. Find out more at charitycomms.org.uk/membership

@charitycomms

Designed by bowleydesign.com

First published November 2015

charitycomms.org.uk positivestudio.co.uk


https://www.linkedin.com/in/sallyhems

https://twitter.com/sallyhems

www.positivestudio.co.uk



http://www.charitycomms.org.uk/membership

https://twitter.com/charitycomms

http://www.bowleydesign.com/




positive - pick n mix - a guide to technology choices for charities

Government & Nonprofit