1 in 5 charities say that their IT provision is poor, affecting their confidence to try new things.
For the first time in the survey, we asked charities for their views on their IT provision. This question is taken from the SCVO Digital Checkup.
- Just over a third (36%) find their IT setup is sufficient for their current needs.
- A similar number (34%) feel that it is good, well managed and does not get in the way of what they need to do.
- 1 in 5 (20%) say it is poor and a regular headache.
- Only 9% say it is excellent and are confident it will meet most of their needs.
- The results are similar for small and large charities. However, large charities are slightly more positive, with 14% saying their IT provision is excellent. Resourcing and developing IT continues to be a challenge for all organisations.
- As we might expect, IT provision poses a bigger challenge to those at the earliest stages of the journey. 33% of those at the curious stage say their IT is poor, compared to 26% of those starting out, 13% of those advancing and 6% of advanced.
The fact that there are relatively low numbers of charities rating their IT provision as good or excellent shows that there is room for improvement across the sector.
More than half of charities are finding their CRM to be a major challenge.
- More than half of charities (54%) are facing significant challenges with their CRM and 33% are finding their fundraising database challenging. In 2022, only 42% of charities told us they needed to review their CRM.
- 39% are finding their website challenging, compared to the 51% who were looking to review their website last year.
- 31% are finding their online collaboration tools challenging, with 22% having the same experience with their project management tools and 20% finding their internal communications tools, such as Slack and Teams, an issue.
- 29% are finding data collection tools such as surveys and online forms to be a challenge, whilst 22% find online accounting tools an issue and 15% having a similar experience with HR software.
- 21% find social media a challenge.
Again, this question shows that CRM systems are preventing many charities from moving forwards with digital. Many can see the urgency of developing their CRM systems and their skills to make best use of them.
“Need the time and commitment from volunteers/trustees to learn to use the digital tools we possess thus far.”
Charities are addressing key safeguarding risks, GDPR and cybersecurity well. However, there are still a small proportion of charities struggling with these vital skills, leaving them and their users vulnerable.
- 47% say they are excellent at safeguarding users, which is encouraging. Last year 18% said they were excellent at digital safeguarding.
- 34% are excellent at GDPR compliance, which is slightly less than the 38% last year. It is interesting to compare this to our earlier question about digital priorities. 46% see improving data security, privacy and GDPR compliance as a top priority for the next 12 months.
- This year, we asked charities about their responsibilities to safeguard staff and volunteers from harmful content. 45% feel they are fair at this and 33% excellent.
- 49% are fair at cybersecurity and 21% say they are excellent, a slight increase from 18% last year. However, one in five (22%) are still poor at this.
Almost half (48%) of the charities we spoke to want to use data more strategically, but many are facing operational issues with it, including data collection and making the most of their CRM.
Data was a growing priority for charities in 2022. This year, we decided to ask more about this, including a new question about the challenges they face.
- Previous questions about skills found that 59% feel they are fair and 28% say they have poor skills to collect, manage and analyse data.
- The biggest challenge, faced by 48% of charities, is to use data to inform strategy and decision making. It is noteworthy that in an earlier question, 59% plan to address this, specifying that their top priority for the next 12 months is to use data and insights to improve their services or operations.
- 4 out of 10 charities lack the time to focus on data.
- Charities also face a range of operational challenges with data, from collecting the right data and analysing it (both 39%), whilst 26% find making the most of their CRM (including reporting) an issue.
- 1 in 5 (22%) lack data skills and a similar number (21%) find it hard to engage the rest of their charity with data.
- 18% are hampered by relying on free or freemium tools and 17% don’t know which system or tools to use.
If a system or tool is causing challenges for your organisation, could you tell us more? This might be your database, CRM (Customer Relationship Management system) or website.
This was a free text question designed to elicit in-depth information about challenges. Responses fell into several categories.
Website
“We are in the process of developing a new site and this takes up a lot of time and energy and we are aware of some of what we don’t know but also that there are probably some things that we don’t know we don’t know. We have a new CRM system and this will require a change in culture to make it work. We have a new person in post to take this forward as part of their job but again it takes a lot of time. In both cases we have the money for site/CRM but it is all the other resources that we struggle with, especially time across the team.”
CRM
“Our CRM is set up more for our service delivery operations (delivered through partners) rather than for digital marketing and fundraising.”
“We are in the process of revamping our CRM (Salesforce) which wasn’t very usable.”
“We need a CRM and accounting software but are struggling to find funds to be able to afford the ones we want.”
“We use Salesforce for volunteer management but not for fundraising (currently just Google Sheets for this). It’s too complex to use and involves a lot of expensive 3rd party support. We need a CRM/database that we can manage ourselves, which also helps us with donor relationships and tracking funding applications.”
Disjointed tools
“We have more than one database and the platform on which our client data is held will need to change later this year so we need to streamline.”
“We have had rapid growth as an organisation over the past 4 years (up to 300%). We have tried to use new systems and adapt to better share but nothing has a strategy, it is not consolidated and some of the systems don’t speak to each other so we are spending time on multiple platforms without connecting together.”
“We operate with too many CRMs and have too many points of entry/contact through our website, making the digital ecosystem unwieldy.”
Lack of time and money
“The CRM we chose last year isn’t fit for purpose with our website/mailchimp/eventbrite. Both website and CRM have been a headache, and neither work well at all for all staff – lack of capacity to get it working properly and lack of funding to pay for website upgrades.”
“Our CRM is managed by our national HQ, they limit our access. We lack funds and staff time to do a better job of handling data and keeping the website and socials up to date.”
“We have spent a lot of money on our Volunteer Platform and faced many issues trying to get it live. Largely due to custom legacy code within our old CRM, failures from our web agency and moving to a new CRM.”
Skills and culture
“Using Salesforce isn’t fully ‘baked in’ to our culture across the team so some members are very advanced at this and others would struggle to pull basic reports.”