Charities are finding investing in and resourcing digital effectively is a significant challenge, whilst 44% are either poor at or not using AI tools in everyday work.
Since 2024 we have asked charities to self-assess their core digital skills and capacity. This year we introduced a new skills rating of ‘good’ to bridge the gap between the ‘excellent’ and ‘fair’ ratings.
Highest-rated core digital skills
- Using digital tools in everyday work: 16% rate themselves as excellent at this, compared to 27% of charities last year. However, almost half (48%) rated themselves as good, and only 28% rated themselves as fair, compared to 64% last year. The overall trends across these categories suggest that skills levels are holding steady, if not improving.
- Collecting, managing and analysing data: 81% say they are excellent, good or fair at this, which is an increase on the 72% that said they were fair or excellent at this last year. 18% say they are poor at or don’t do this, which is an improvement on the 27% in these categories last year. Generally, these numbers indicate that charities are progressing in the right direction with data collection and management.
- Using data to inform decision making or strategy: 9% rate themselves as excellent at this, compared to 18% last year, though we were encouraged to see that 33% say they are good at this (a total of 42%). However, over half (51%) say that they are either fair (34%) or poor (17%) respectively. These results indicate there is some way to go before charities become consistently strong in this area.
- Using digital tools in service delivery: 9% are excellent at this, lower than the 18% last year. It is encouraging though that 35% say they are good and 32% say they are fair. The majority of responses have shifted into the good and fair categories, rather than clustered in fair and poor as they were last year. This suggests that charities are working hard to develop their digital service delivery skills.
Key areas for development
The skills areas where the highest proportions of charities say they are either poor at or don’t use are:
- Investing in and resourcing digital effectively: Almost half of charities (47%) say that they are either poor at this (30%) or don’t do this (17%). This is a slight improvement on last year, when half of charities (50%) said that they were either poor or didn’t do this. However, it is now the area where the highest proportion of charities feel they are struggling. We believe this continues to be driven by squeezed organisational finances. As we discuss later in the ‘priorities and barriers’ section, this is the biggest barrier charities are facing, affecting 63% of charities this year.
- Using AI tools in everyday work: Almost a quarter (23%) say they are poor at this, whilst 21% say they don’t do this. This means that 44% of charities either struggle with or are not using these tools. This is a significant improvement on last year, when almost two-thirds of charities (64%) were in these categories, reflecting the developments in AI adoption that we discuss elsewhere in this report. However, only 4% feel they are excellent at using AI tools. Small and large charities report similar good and excellent skills levels. A key difference is that 26% of small charities say they don’t use AI tools in everyday work (compared to only 9% of large charities).
- Keeping up to date with emerging tech trends: Reinforcing our findings on AI skills, 44% of charities are not keeping up with emerging tech trends. Just under a third (32%) of charities are poor at this and 12% don’t do this. This is an improvement on last year when half (50%) of charities said that they were in these categories.
- Conducting and acting on user research: Over a third (37%) are either poor at this (19%) or don’t do this (18%). This is a slight increase from 35% last year, but overall suggests that this is an area that more than a third of charities need to improve. Small charities struggle more, with 42% saying their skills are poor, or they don’t do user research, compared to only a quarter (25%) of large charities.
Encouragingly, charities’ confidence in using AI tools in everyday work has grown significantly this year. However, it’s a concern that almost half of charities are still struggling to invest in and resource digital effectively.
