Core digital skills and capacity
Charities are struggling to engage with emerging tech. Many are not resourcing digital effectively. Data skills and user research continue to be a challenge
This year we expanded our focus and asked about capacity together with skills. We also added a new rating of ‘we don’t do this’ to our scale, to differentiate with the ‘poor’ rating.
Top core digital skills
- Basic digital skills: 90% of charities still rate themselves as fair or excellent in this area. However, we are surprised to see that only a small proportion rate themselves as excellent (24%), compared to 64% last year who said their basic digital skills were excellent. There is a clear need to return to basic digital skills and charities need to be more intentional about fostering effective communication and collaboration.
- Data protection and GDPR compliance: 42% rate themselves as excellent at GDPR compliance, up from 34% last year, and a further 48% say they are fair (90% in total are good or excellent).
- Cybersecurity: 22% are excellent at cybersecurity, comparable to last year. Overall, three quarters (74%) say they are good or excellent.
- Safeguarding users of digital services: 68% say they are good or excellent at this.
Key areas for development
The areas in which the highest proportions of charities are saying they are poor or don’t use that skill are:
- Engaging with emerging tech trends: 40% are poor at this and 16% say they don’t do this. This means that over half of charities (56%) are not engaging with emerging tech trends. When we look at small charities, this rises to 60%. For all charities who say they are at the curious and starting out stage of digital, this rises to 65%.
- Undertaking user research: 33% are poor at this and 15% don’t do this (48% in total). This is greater than the 43% who said they were poor at this in 2023.
- Resourcing digital effectively: 33% are poor at this and 5% don’t do this.
- Websites: Almost a third (29%) of charities are poor at making the most of their website. This has barely changed since 2023, indicating untapped potential.
- Data skills and capabilities: 31% of charities are poor or not engaging with collecting, managing and using data. In addition, a third of charities (34%) are poor or are not using data to inform decision making. Continuing a trend from previous years, charities still lack confidence with data.
- Digital service delivery: A third of charities are poor at or not using digital tools in service delivery (36%). Nearly half (45%) say they are fair at this, similar to 2023.
Skills gaps at the early stages of a digital journey
Those at the curious and starting out stage of digital struggle most with:
- Engaging with emerging tech trends (65% are poor at this or don’t do this)
- Undertaking user research (60% are poor at this or don’t do this)
- Resourcing digital effectively (57% are poor at this or don’t do this)
- Using digital tools in service delivery (52% are poor at this or don’t do this)
- Making the most of their website (46% are poor at this or don’t do this)
Skills: engaging audiences
Where charities are most confident
The top three skills where charities are most confident are the same as last year:
- Social media: Similar to last year, 27% rate themselves as excellent at social media.
- Creating engaging content: 1 in 4 (25%) are strong at creating engaging digital content, whilst a further 54% are ‘fair’ at this.
- Email marketing: 15% say they are excellent at this, whilst 41% feel they are ‘fair’.
Where charities struggle most
The areas in which the highest proportions of charities are rating themselves as ‘poor’ are:
- Digital fundraising: 4 out of 10 (41%) are poor at digital fundraising. A further 25% don’t do this, giving a total of 66%. This is worrying, particularly compared to the 55% who said they were poor at this last year. It is noteworthy that 52% say that this is a key priority for their organisation this year. This is a key area of support that charities both need and want.
- Website and analytics data: A third (31%) say they are poor at this.
- Search engine optimisation (SEO): Nearly a third (30%) of charities say their skills are poor in this area. A further 20% do not do this.
- Paid social media advertising: 16% are poor at this, whilst 54% don’t do this.
- Online retail: 14% are poor at this. A further 65% don’t do this.
- Pay Per Click ads (e.g. Google ads): 15% are poor at this, whilst 62% don’t do this.
There are high proportions of charities saying that they do not have online retail (65%), Pay Per Click ads (e.g. Google ads) (62%) and paid social media advertising (54%).
Social media use
Close to 50% of charities haven’t changed how they use social media, despite X’s volatility
In the light of changes to X (formerly Twitter), we wanted to find out if charities have changed their approach to social media. However, we haven’t seen as much change as we anticipated. We can see that:
- Almost half (48%) are continuing to use social media as they always have.
- A third (31%) are spending more time engaging with audiences and 14% spending more time monitoring social media (e.g. for misinformation).
- It’s surprising that only 17% have put more effort into their other platforms, whilst 10% have developed profiles on new social media platforms (e.g. Threads, Mastodon, CounterSocial, Bluesky).
- It is worrying that only 14% are taking steps to protect staff using social media, only 14% are spending more time monitoring social media (e.g. for misinformation) and a mere 10% have developed their crisis management plans.
- There is very little difference between the responses from large and small charities.
- Those who are advancing or advanced with digital have responded more. We can see that for this group, 40% have reviewed their social media strategy, 30% are engaging more with other platforms or testing alternative platforms and 21% are supporting staff more (protecting staff or providing support with trolling).
