Looking for more charity digital transformation inspiration? Read the stories of how organisations have made hard won progress with charity digital transformation this year. If you’d like to share a case study of your charity digital transformation, please email us with more information on zoe@zoeamar.com.
Ben Sykes, Head of Digital Digital, Data & Innovation, Blood Cancer UK
Over the past 12 months at Blood Cancer UK, we’ve worked to embed user-centred design as the way we build, design and grow all of our products and services, by training people to use our bespoke Innovation Framework.
We’ve actually had an Innovation Framework for over five years, but despite good engagement from small pockets of the organisation, it often felt optional to most. By making a strategic decision to base our work on understanding the problems people affected by blood cancer face, and with backing from the exec, we rolled the approach out across the whole organisation.
The framework is a simple, step-by-step way for teams to explore real problems and come up with better ideas rooted in actual user needs. It lives across SharePoint and Miro, with tools and techniques to support each stage.
To embed it, we ran mandatory, hands-on workshops with every member of staff, starting with leadership. We also set up a cross-team Innovation Panel to help shape, test and move ideas forward.
We’re already seeing the impact of listening more closely to the needs of our audiences across all our products and services. Redesigning website journeys using the framework has helped grow visits to our health information pages by 78% in the last year. One fundraising event, Walk the World, developed through the framework, has brought in ten times the income of comparable events in the sector.
It hasn’t all been smooth. Making space for this work is still a challenge, and we’re not yet reaching our goal of protecting 20% of time for innovation. But we’re making steady progress to help the charity better meet the needs of those we exist to serve.
Sarah Clarke, Head of Membership and Insight, CharityComms
We have always kept our finger on the pulse, using multiple data sources to check in quickly with how projects are going or what direction we could take next to improve processes or ways of working. Now we want to develop our strategic abilities in how we think about data and make it work better for us.
We’re thinking about what data we’re collecting (is it needed; is it useful?), how and where we’re collecting it, and how we use that information to make changes. This helps to innovate and improve our processes, create better member experiences, and share the CharityComms effect.
Reviewing our approach has allowed us to get rid of unnecessary legacy data points, like unused fields in sign-up forms. We’ve also been running new initiatives with our CRM system (Customer Relationship Management), using the ‘cases’ function to better track enquires and patterns.
Our hope is that our CRM becomes the beating heart for audience data, with better connections across our other systems. This means the CRM becomes much more useful for the whole organisation.
The most important aspect in this vision has been considering everyone in the organisation – not just how they use data, but what do they need to know and when?
Regularly sharing insights and information reduces silos, improves collective understanding, and fosters more collaboration. We’ve seen this in big and small ways, from new CRM report filters that reduce admin time to dedicated team channels.
Data isn’t just about numbers or pulling the stats for the next annual report – it helps us tell our story, make more informed decisions, drive change and better meet audience needs. It’s a journey, and that’s why we’re continuing to foster a culture of learning and continual development, underpinned by a new data strategy.
Graeme Manuel-Jones, Head of Digital, BookTrust
BookTrust’s new strategy in 2021 shifted our focus to children for whom reading for pleasure early in life makes the most difference: children in families on low incomes, and in foster care, kinship care and adoption. Since its last revamp in 2017, the BookTrust.org.uk site hadn’t kept pace with our new direction and ambitions:
- Unaffordable and unsustainable platform
- Infrastructure such as site search was failing
- Didn’t reflect our operating model or new priority audiences
- Hard to navigate – sprawling content and confusing user journeys
We needed a new site to:
- Reflect our strategy and operating model, and address our audiences
- Provide a sustainable, extensible foundation for the future
- Establish better content governance and decentralisation.
Our head of service design was the main internal ‘client’, supported by our COO as project sponsor, and we also created a cross-team project group. Our own team included a dedicated project manager for six months, and three short-term editorial roles during early 2025.
Using our in-house analytics and UX skills, we ran workshops to identify stakeholder and audience needs and then produced a detailed brief. Having this clear understanding of our challenges helped us to secure funding as well as to fully brief and assess the 10 agencies invited to tender.
We selected William Joseph: their response to the brief showed how their abilities and approach dovetailed perfectly with BookTrust’s. They brought web design and technical development skills, as well as the extra capacity needed to deliver a large-scale project at pace. Building on our extensive insights, they conducted user research and testing with 150+ of our external practitioners, and they recommended Craft as our new CMS, as upgrading our ageing licensed CMS would have been too costly.
The phase 1 launch in April saw the site streamlined from 24,000 pages to fewer than 6,000.
The new site lets us ‘create once, publish everywhere’ as we offer content and support in the formats that suit diverse user needs.
Phase 2 of this project will include decentralisation of content creation and governance, freeing the Digital team to focus on strategic and developmental projects.
John Adewole, Founder, IFB Gaming
IFB Gaming partnered with NHS England and collaborated with Community TechAid to tackle digital exclusion and e-waste through Empowering Futures. By distributing SIM cards, establishing Data Waypoints, and distributing refurbishing devices, we ensured marginalised and excluded individuals and groups in Southwark borough of London stayed connected, supported, represented, and included.
Data was vital for reaching healthcare services, warmth support, further education. and essential public services. I led IFB Gaming to distribute over 200 SIM cards to people on low income, refugees, and others with limited digital access.
We also created three community-based Data Waypoints—trusted venues like in Southwark—where individuals could get informal digital help and pick up SIM cards.
To extend impact, we collaborated with Community TechAid to redistribute refurbished devices to digitally excluded individuals. We also collaborated with Greater London Authority to influence digital inclusion policy in London through stories. This not only provided essential tools but reduced e-waste and promoted circular technology use, all in line with the capital’s agenda.
Outcomes and Successes
- 200+ individuals gained mobile connectivity
- 3 active Waypoints supported regular visitors
- 20 refurbished laptops and 1 smartphone given to people in need through Community TechAid
- Raised awareness of digital access as a basic right and green priority • Published on London Assembly by Greater London Authority
Challenges and Lessons Learned
We faced challenges with funding for operational costs and limited infrastructure in some venues. Trust-building was also crucial—working with local groups helped ease concerns. Our partnership with Community TechAid showed how environmental and social goals can align.
Conclusion
This initiative demonstrated that digital inclusion and sustainability are deeply connected. With local trust, low-cost tools, and collaboration, we can build a more connected and equitable future.
Finally, I leave you with Joseph’s story—his journey is a powerful reflection of why this work matters.
Stuart Pearson, Head of Innovation and Business Development, Citizens Advice
The rising cost-of-living crisis has put unprecedented pressure on Citizens Advice, with demand for our services soaring. To address this, our main digital initiative this past year has been the development and pilot of Caddy, an AI-powered Q&A tool. The rationale was clear: we needed to amplify our human advisers’ efficiency and reduce pressure on supervisors, not replace them. Caddy searches trusted knowledge bases to generate draft responses for advisers, which are then critically reviewed and approved by a supervisor before being shared with a client.
Our approach was collaborative from the start. Advisers were integral to Caddy’s design, ensuring it genuinely supported their workflow and met real-world needs. Their ongoing feedback shaped its functionality and built crucial trust in the system.
The pilot results have been highly successful. Caddy achieved an 80% accuracy rate, and we cut average case response times by 50%—from 10 minutes down to just 4. This significant efficiency gain allows us to help tens of thousands more clients in need, reducing their waiting times for vital advice.
We navigated challenges by remaining transparent and committed to improvement. Adviser feedback highlighted the need to expand Caddy’s information sources, which we are now addressing. A key lesson is that for AI to succeed ethically, it must be an assistive tool with non-negotiable human oversight. Community involvement, through initiatives like our work with the People’s Panel for AI, is essential for governance. By making Caddy open-source, we hope to encourage responsible AI adoption across the charity sector as we prepare for a national rollout. Our experience proves that technology thrives when it empowers, rather than replaces, human expertise.
Sylwia Squires, Technology Lead, Surrey Coalition of Disabled People
Tech Angels is a free service run by the Surrey Coalition of Disabled People, providing devices, digital literacy, training and confidence-boosting support. Their aim is to support people who are most at risk of becoming isolated due to digital exclusion.
The Coalition’s main initiative is to provide six, 1-1 digital lessons, usually in a member’s own home, or sometimes in groups. A volunteer, known as a ‘Tech Angel,’ makes an initial call to assess the member’s needs and agrees a learning plan. Lessons cover the important basics, such as how to get online, navigate the NHS Apps and online banking, use email, avoid scams, access social media and use Zoom.
Their statistics speak for themselves; from April 2024 – March 2025, 623 visits were carried out by Tech Angel volunteers Surrey-wide. 126 prepaid SIM cards were given out and 18 phones, 106 tablets, 5 MiFi’s, 2 Smart plugs and 3 laptops were loaned.
Diane, a Member from Redhill commented ‘I had a laptop years ago, but I hated it. Now, I email – amazing right!’ Speaking about her Tech Angel, Dennis, ‘Dennis somehow managed to get to my level, he let me do it myself. He was encouraging me to do it the way I need to do it.’
David from Tandridge said, ‘Sean helped me set up the NHS app, which has been a game-changer. Now I can reorder prescriptions online and it spares me painful trips to the chemist and many calls, making life with my disability so much easier.
Tech Angels has had various challenges along the way: a lack of or limited data, data coverage in rural areas and no guarantee of continued funding. Lessons were learned; safeguarding procedures became more rigorous; training was capped at 6 sessions in one go and expectations had to be managed in terms of what Members could achieve. For more information, contact Sylwia.squires@surreycoalition.org.uk