This report is the annual barometer of digital adoption, skills, attitudes, funding and support needs across the sector. Every year since 2017, we have asked charities to tell us about their experiences with digital and share their insights to inform funding and support. This year, we are incredibly grateful to the 635 charities who took the time to contribute, as well as the 30 stakeholders and user testers who collaborated with us to ask the right questions.
The 2024 report would not be possible without the support of our partners Catalyst, Microsoft, Pixeled Eggs and Stopgap, all of whom have helped shape and make the report a helpful resource for the sector. We are very grateful to have their support.
In 2024 our aims were to:
- track charities’ changing digital priorities, skills, confidence and attitudes
- understand how charities are engaging with AI
- identify the support and funding charities need to move forward with digital
- build further insights about the needs of small charities
- understand specific priorities and barriers facing charities led by marginalised groups.
In 2024 we have built on our diversity, equality and inclusion approach developed with our consultant Eshe Kiama Zuri. They also helped us undertake targeted outreach with specific marginalised groups so that we can gather data about their digital funding and support needs. We are again very grateful for Eshe’s support, guidance and challenge.
If we had to summarise the 2024 Charity Digital Skills Report, it is a year when tech use across the sector has evolved and yet overall digital progress remains static. We can clearly see the impact of the cost of living crisis on charities and their organisational development. A lack of capacity, headspace and financial pressures are all preventing progress with digital.
Yet despite these challenges, it’s promising to see half of charities are approaching digital strategically and 80% of charities see digital as an organisational priority. Our data also shows us that charities are getting to grips with AI tools and technology.
Once again, our report shows how charities need time, capacity, people, support and funding. This is vital to develop their digital and data skills, leadership and use of digital tools and infrastructure. We can see that there is a significant gap between the digital capacity in large and small charities. In turn, the smaller charities in our sample are more likely to be led by people with lived experience and specific marginalised groups.
The contrast we see in the report between AI adoption, perennial gaps in skills, leadership challenges, and funding needs indicates how emerging tech adoption across the sector may be held back by systemic issues in the sector. Now is the time to tackle, and close, these gaps, or the sector will run the risk of being left behind in the AI revolution.
Thank you for supporting our report.
Zoe Amar and Nissa Ramsay