Developing a digital strategy for your charity or organisation

Read time: 12 mins Date added: 26/07/2024

Developing a digital strategy for your organisation can help you reach your goals. Whether you’re leading an organisation or managing a single project, we’ll guide you through the process.

Manage your finances more effectively

Whether you’re a charity, community group or another kind of not-for-profit, here you’ll find guidance and support to help manage your banking more effectively.

Visit our hub page

Do your research

Once you’ve worked out the challenges or goals that digital solutions might help with, it’s time to find the right digital tools to help.

When you’re researching digital solutions, focus on what their role would be. It’s easy to find a particular product that excels at what it does. But you need to ask: will it help solve our problem? Will it help us achieve our goals?

Knowing where to start your research can be hard. Part of the process is finding out what’s available. Using your list of goals and problems is a good place to begin your research.

Type your problem statements and goals into a search engine. You may find lots of new ideas and products.

This is a good way of starting to find solutions you haven’t even heard of yet.

Research other organisations

Look at other charities or organisations like yours. Check out their websites and social media pages. What do they do that could also work for you? What do they do that you really don’t like?

Now widen your search to other organisations. Which ones do what you want to do really well? Research their use of technology.

It’s easy to spend lots of time on this, so set yourself a time limit for your research. Work with others so you take in different perspectives.

Understanding the products you research

At this stage, the ‘how’ is high-level. It’s there to show you know the solutions you’ve picked and how to apply them. You’ll be looking at estimated costs, benefits and other relevant information.

This will help with the next stage: prioritisation. For example, you might want to use a certain system because it's good for your audience and makes your organisation really stand out. So you look more closely at the details. If you find out that the cost is too high, you might then prioritise a different idea or goal.

What are the costs

There are three main resources to consider when working out your costs:

People
Tools
Money

People

Who is going to do the work? This may depend on who is available. Or you might be able to recruit or outsource particular tasks.

Plan the work in terms of roles and skill levels rather than specific people. Estimate how much time you’ll need from each role and use this to estimate the cost.

How much will it cost to develop, launch, test and manage?
Don’t forget your day-to-day running costs. You could also estimate the time it takes to post content, check data and respond to questions
Special skills needed? Add 10% to salaries or use a contractor
Don't forget recruitment costs and agency fees, as well as employer costs (NI, pension, etc.)
Add in some management time to your budget for bigger teams

You can search for similar roles and salaries on the web.

Tools

Do you need to buy any tools? This could be software (such as web design or planning tools) or hardware (like data storage or mobile devices).

You may not have specific products in mind but if you do, make a note of them.

Don't agree to anything long term until you are sure. Try before you buy or get the minimum number of licences for the team
Always ask for discounts or see if you can get free trials or donations
If it's a complex or pricey system, finding the right tool can be a project in itself

Money

We’ve looked at people and tools - the main things to cost out. There are a few other things you might want to think about when working out your costs.

Work out how much you need upfront for purchases, plus any regular costs (such as maintenance fees)
Bear in mind PR or advertising costs. Do you need to buy images or pay for translation?
If you are storing customer details, do you need legal help?
Think about adding 10% to your budget as a buffer

Understand the benefits

So far, you’ve looked at how certain solutions might solve the problems or achieve the aims of your organisation. And you’ve gathered info about costs and considerations. Now it’s time to look at the benefits, so you can measure them against the costs.

Benefits for your users

Who are your users? They are the people who will be using the digital solutions you’re proposing in this strategy. They might be your volunteers, fundraisers, partners or the people your organisation helps. Whatever they do now, going digital will mean doing things differently, so let's get to know them a bit better.

Personas

There are lots of ways to describe your users. We’re going to look at using 'personas'. A persona is a fictional character you create. It represents a group of people who will use your digital solution.

Creating personas will help you focus your strategy on the kind of people it's most likely to affect.

Personas can help you:

Pick the digital platforms that are right for them
Decide when and where to share your ideas online
Work out how to help people get the best out of your digital content

Focus on what is important to them, removing things that might get in the way.

Persona types include:

Beneficiaries: People who might use the services you offer
Donors: Individuals, corporate, grant givers
Volunteers or Fundraisers: People who run events, hold raffles, work in shops
Partners: Those who work with you regularly
People looking for specialist information: Press, policymakers, researchers, government agencies
Team members or volunteers: People who are going to use the new digital solution

Building your personas

Your personas can include information on:

Name, age, location. What their role is – in life and for the organisation?
Family, work, hobbies and interests. What they enjoy, and what they don’t.
How (or if) they use technology. What devices, sites and apps they use.

Create three to five well-rounded persona profiles to represent your main user groups. Try to put yourself in their shoes and create real people. Try not to create stereotypes!

If you already have personas, you can take this as a chance to check they are up to date.

Benefits for your business operations

What benefits will your ideas bring on a day-to-day basis? Here, we’d like you to think about the routine tasks and activities that take place in your organisation.

Income generating - for example, a social media-based fundraising campaign
Time-saving - Like a tool that speeds up your contact with service users
Reaching your target users – For example, using an online marketplace to reach the right buyers
Expanding your audience – If you promote your service through a website or social channels

It’s a good idea to jot down your thoughts about these benefits for your organisation. Note how you might measure these – this could be money raised, time saved, or supporters added.

Measuring impact

Measuring impact can show how you’re working towards your target. It also helps you see what isn't working. So, you can stop doing it - or do it differently - to improve your service.

Only collect what is useful to show the impact against your objectives. Check what your software can offer you or use Google Analytics for number of users, number of visits, etc.

Reality check: Review your key objective. What do you want to achieve? Check your choices against this objective
Sense check: Do your plans feel right for your mission, your audience, your brand?
Accessibility: Who are you excluding? Is there a section of your audience who can’t reach your content? How will you address this?

Decide where digital can help.

Rank your ideas

Once you’ve researched potential solutions, you need to decide how to prioritise them.

When you prioritise, you’re working out how important each option is, compared to the others. The aim is to work out which ones you want to use. You’ll also get a feel for the ones you want to start first.

We’ll look at two methods you can use to help you prioritise.

Using a pros and cons list

If you want a quick and easy way to prioritise, try this.

First, write the idea at the top of a two-column grid. Name one column ‘pros’ and the other ‘cons’. Then, list all the benefits of the idea in the pros column, and all the disadvantages in the cons column.

Think about everything you found in your earlier research, like costs and impact on end users.

Using SWOT analysis

The term SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

Here, instead of two columns, you draw a 2 x 2 grid. Use the top-left square to list the strengths that come from the idea. In the top-right, list any weaknesses you’ve noted. The bottom-left square is for opportunities that the idea could bring. And in the bottom-right one, list any potential threats – what factors might cause issues for your organisation.

You need to consider that a SWOT analysis is more complex than a basic list of pros and cons.

Which method to use?

You might decide to use one or both methods. They each have their benefits. Pros and cons lists are quick and easy to make, and can be helpful for small, low-cost or low-risk projects. SWOT analysis means viewing different aspects of your solutions. It can highlight gaps in your research and give you a deeper understanding of the solutions.

For example: if an organisation used a SWOT, this may help them see that they need to do more research to understand the product more, by analysing the threats.