Trustee digital skills
62% of boards have low digital skills and need to develop their digital skills, whilst 4 out of 10 charities (41%) do not have a digital trustee. Digital skills gaps on boards is an ongoing and systemic challenge
Trustee digital skills
- Just over a quarter have a board with good or excellent digital skills (28%), slightly lower than the 32% last year.
- 1 in 5 charities (19%) say their board has low digital skills, with little digital interest, understanding or support. A further 43% say they could improve on their interest and develop more skills.
- In total, 62% say their trustees’ digital skills are low or could improve. This is higher than the 57% in 2023.
- Both large (54%) and small charities (66%) say their trustees’ digital skills are low or in need of improvement.
- This is a challenge for charities at every stage of their digital journey. Even for charities at the advancing and advanced stages, 51% say their trustees’ digital skills are low or in need of improvement.
- This report has found digital skills gaps on boards every year since the report began and it is clearly a systemic challenge.
Digital trustees
- 39% of charities have a digital trustee. Of these, 11% have more than one person acting as a digital trustee.
- However, 41% of charities do not have a digital trustee, higher than the 35% last year.
- The results are similar by size, with 46% of small and 38% of large charities without a digital trustee.
- It is worrying, however, that for charities that do have digital trustees, 54% still felt digital skills were low, or could improve at board level. This group felt their board most needed to learn more about digital (38%), rely less on one person as the digital expert (35%) and learn more about emerging tech and AI tools. This shows us that digital trustees are only part of the solution to digital skills gaps on boards.
Improvements at board level to drive digital progress
A third (31%) of charities want trustees to learn about emerging tech and AI tools
In order to move forward with digital, most want their board to improve their skills and knowledge in the following five areas:
- Learn more about digital (40%)
- Recruit a digital trustee (40%)
- Understand risks such as cybersecurity and data protection (33%)
- Learn about emerging tech and AI tools (31%)
- Better resourcing in investment in digital and IT (29%)
These results are very similar for both large and small charities and echo our findings in 2023. They are also similar for charities at any stage of their digital journey. Charities that are advancing or advanced with digital have a different top priority and most want their board to learn more about emerging tech and AI tools (rising slightly to 35%).
CEO digital skills
For the sixth consecutive year, charities need their leaders to provide a vision of what digital can help them achieve
- Only 6% say their CEO has all relevant digital skills. This rises to only 10% for those who are at the advancing or advanced stage with digital and have a strategy in place. This shows that digital learning is always important, regardless of progress.
There are two key areas CEOs need to focus on:
- A vision and strategy for digital and data: When asked which digital skills, knowledge or behaviours CEOs needed to change to ensure digital progress, more than half (55%) want their CEO to provide a clear vision for digital, similar to last year. This is closely followed by 40% saying they want their CEO to develop their vision and plan for improving their data and 39% want their CEO to develop and execute a digital strategy (similar to 43% in 2023).
- Learn more about digital tools, AI tools and emerging tech trends: Reinforcing the trend we can see at trustee level, 39% want their CEO to understand digital tools and ways of working, an increase from 30% last year. In addition, 39% want their CEO to keep up to date with emerging trends and AI tools, indicating that CEOs must invest time in horizon scanning. A further 34% want their CEO to understand risks and opportunities for emerging tech.
Small charities
The top skills, knowledge and behaviours CEOs need to develop are:
- A clear vision of what we could achieve with digital (56%)
- Understand digital tools and ways of working (44%)
- A clear vision and plan to improve our data (42%)
- Ability to develop and embed a good digital strategy (42%)
- Keep up to date with emerging trends, tech and AI tools (38%)
Large charities
The top skills, knowledge and behaviours CEOs need to develop are:
- A clear vision of what we could achieve with digital (55%)
- Keep up to date with emerging trends, tech and AI tools (38%)
- Understand risks and opportunities for emerging tech (38%)
- Better budgeting, resourcing and investment for digital and IT (38%)
- A clear vision and plan to improve our data (35%)
