Charity IT latest

SARAH BROWN, deputy CEO of CITIZENS ADVICE MID MERCIA, writes: Citizens Advice provides free confidential and impartial information, advice and support for everything from family disputes to debt and money problems. With the help of 338 individual charities, it does this from more than 3,300 community locations throughout England and Wales. CAMM is one of them – we serve people in South Derbyshire, Derby City, East Staffordshire, Tamworth and surrounding areas.

Identifying the need

Of course, these challenges are even more difficult to overcome when you have a physical disability such as being deaf. According to the Good Things Foundation,32% of people who are registered disabled are unlikely to have the most basic digital skills. And here in Derby, we have the second largest deaf community in the UK, outside London.

This, coupled with feedback from a number of local sources, such as our carer support service and other local agencies, made us realise that there was demand for specialised digital training. We had the expertise – we just needed the resources to be able to provide something that truly met the community’s needs.

Hub for deaf people

Building on the foundations of our existing digital training programme, using the “Learn my Way” curriculum, we created our Digital Hub – a free service to empower those who are deaf or hearing-impaired to become confident online.

The key performance indicators (KPIs) and milestones we monitor are in line with our charity’s wider goals of improving good physical and mental health, as well as relieving poverty and distress. Alongside measuring volume of referrals and sessions delivered, we also seek to assess each client’s digital confidence via feedback forms, while also measuring how our training is facilitating improved online interaction with others, reducing social isolation and increasing confidence to live independently.

Covering everything from the skills to manage money online to using public health services or searching for employment, we wanted this to be delivered by a digital project adviser who is proficient in British Sign Language (BSL) to break down barriers between deaf people and technology – this is where The Access Foundation came in.

Funding a clear focus

We already have dedicated resources to fund our existing digital projects, but they’re based in different geographical areas. The £30,000 grant from The Access Foundation helped us give the project as much focus as it required.

To allow us to measure the impact and outcomes and deliver the training in the most impactful way, we knew we had to launch an entirely separate project. Money was needed to recruit a specialist trainer for 30 hours a week, and also invest in equipment such as hearing loops, tablets and laptops to help us deliver the training into the community.

Other tasks such as creating an accessible web page to help clients access the training, as well as identifying regional training venues and promoting the service, were all essential costs required to ensure the Digital Hub would reach those that would benefit from it.

A flexible approach

I’m sure all leaders will agree that hiring is difficult in today’s climate, and searching for staff with specialist experience is particularly challenging. Due to our unique position, we had many direct links within the deaf community already, which made the process of finding the right person far easier.

Steph, our BSL digital adviser, is BSL level 6 trained and is already a familiar face within the local deaf community. She’s worked with us before in a previous role and adapted to this position instantly, which made the onboarding very smooth and allowed us to kick-start the programme far quicker. We were also able to adapt the direction of the hub using the ideas and thoughts she shared, based on her experience and knowledge of the community.

This flexibility even in the initial implementation stages, has been a key learning for us and we will continue to run on a very flexible model. Even after conducting initial research and interviews, we found that many preconceived ideas of what our clients would want to get out of the training were quite different to the reality.

By listening to our clients’ needs and adapting the training, we have now added a very specific webinar onto our programme to help people navigate through the Derby City Council website, helping them to pay council tax or apply for a blue badge – just one example of how a collaborative approach can help the end-user to make the most of the service and resources available.

100% satisfaction rate

Launching in January 2023, the service delivery commenced in March 2023. After the first six months of the project commencing, we had delivered 46 one-to-one sessions, supporting 30 individual clients, and reached around 1,200 people through social media and low level support.

To date, 50 new partners have been engaged to promote the project through referrals and four volunteers have been recruited to help deliver the project in more locations. 12 people have explicitly expressed an increase in digital confidence, and 31 clients have demonstrated improved skills in five key areas, while 87% of people expressed increasing confidence to live independently. We’re proud to have achieved a 100% satisfaction rate.

In the rest of 2023, we plan to secure more Derbyshire venues to deliver one-to-one sessions in wider locations, recruit more volunteers and improve accessibility of both our venues and the digital devices that we deliver training on.

We’re thrilled to be able to reduce digital barriers and frustration, and will continue to develop the Digital Hub to reach our goals. By teaching these practical skills, we’re giving people the confidence to live independently, access more services and remove any fear they may have over using something which is becoming more and more essential to everyday life as we know it.

PIERS McLEISH, trustee of THE ACCESS FOUNDATION, writes: The Access Group incorporated The Access Foundation in 2021 to enhance and expand the company’s ability to give back. Following a number of investment and equity cycles we were able to start awarding grants up to a total of £2 million every year by 2026.

Making a big impact

The third and biggest pillar was to “bridge the digital divide”, with the goal of supporting people who are digitally disadvantaged in any way. With our founders having such strong roots in software, this is an important area for us, and somewhere we hope to make a big impact.

With there being very little promotion we were taken aback by the volume and quality of applications that came through. As a grant-making organisation we were prepared to actively research relevant charities to seek where we could make the biggest difference, but they soon came to us.

Citizens Advice Mid Mercia sent in its application during the early stages of the scheme and we were impressed from the start. We want to know what tangible impact our funding will provide, and CAMM provided a well written and considered application. The outcomes were clear and we could immediately understand exactly what they wanted to achieve. Overall, it showcased a cohort of people who needed our help, and the application made us confident that they’d be able to successfully deliver that service.

Helping the highest number

We always assess each application on a case by case basis, but a common theme we look out for is services that are focused towards a clear cohort of people who truly need help. Financially, we want to find programmes that will help the highest number of people for the amount of funding granted. CAMM showed that with £30,000, more than 400 deaf people in their local area would have their lives improved in a very sustainable way. This made our investors very happy too.

This was the first “digital divide” grant we awarded to a charity which focuses on disabilities. Previously we’d worked with organisations which helped people who were struggling financially, so we were pleased to be able to work with a wide variety of causes and groups of people who are struggling with digital poverty.

A lot of people think the digital divide is about quite sophisticated things, but more often than not, charities need to help their communities do things like register with their doctor, apply for benefits or get on the register to receive local help that’s available. The improvements might appear quite basic, but they're helping a huge number of people.

This can be a particularly daunting task for many charities which are still adapting to fast-moving digital environments. Ensuring that end-to-end the volunteer journey feels natural to a new cohort is becoming increasingly important to build a strong, engaged volunteer community.

Awareness of your cause

Knowing there is a new wave of volunteers on the horizon, filled with fresh skills, ideas and energy is exciting. But, before you can get volunteers through the metaphorical door, they have to hear about you and your mission to encourage them to join you.

Digital spaces are constantly under competition as countless brands battle it out for space on timelines, sidebars, banners, and pop-ups. So, adopting a scattergun approach is not likely to harbour strong results.

Creating relevant online content that links through to virtual sign-up forms delivers an easy, one-stop shop for getting your message out there and connecting it with how people can get involved.

Instead of charities using physical sign-up forms for opportunities, which can be misplaced or forgotten in the back office, modern online volunteer management systems (VMS) allow people to apply digitally from the comfort of their home, knowing that their application is being processed straight away. Behind the scenes at the charity, timely and repetitive parts of the application process can then be automated, relieving the strain on your resources.

Automatic reminders can be sent out to update applicants as they progress through each stage, or to check-in with them if they haven't opened the application for a while. Something as simple as these nudges can help boost engagement with sign-ups, and hopefully reduce drop-outs.

Retaining the right people

The average member of the Gen Z group is expected to already live a fast-paced lifestyle surrounded by countless, finely-tuned apps all vying for their attention.

Providing the unbeatable volunteer journey and living up to the expectations of technology among Gen Z is rooted in simplicity and intuitiveness. The gold standard of this is allowing users to get everything they need in one place in a way that just makes sense.

For volunteers, this means a place where they can check out their shifts, what events they have coming up, communicate with others and complete tasks, all without getting lost in a labyrinth of standalone apps all with their individual usernames and passwords.

Being able to dip in and out of training, briefing documents and community news is a welcome feature for busy people who volunteer in their spare time. Similarly, creating a space where volunteers can come together with like-minded people and be invested in your cause together. Simple features like this will help empower volunteers and keep them in the loop like one of the team, while also keeping them motivated to stay involved.

As well as this, a VMS with integrated rotas makes it easier for volunteer teams to manage their tasks. Volunteers can see new opportunities and easily sign up to them, allowing them to develop new skills and experiences to keep them motivated. The ability to keep up with what's going on in real time is what sets the modern volunteer journey apart from more traditional paper or spreadsheet based methods.

This is without mentioning the benefits for volunteer managers, for whom having a centralised approach means that the charity has a clear picture of volunteer contributions, and can accurately measure the impact of its volunteer programmes. As charities look to provide a great overall volunteer experience, managers are freed to support their teams’ success, without the burden of additional admin from disjointed electronic forms or documents that need to be emailed, tracked and stored securely to comply with GDPR.

Building a community

We already know that when thinking about uniting people online, social media is the king. It can form a key player in your toolkit for spreading a message. When you look at the bigger picture of what makes social media so successful, there is another, deeper lesson that can be learned from them: building a community.

Building relationships and a sense of community between volunteers has and will always be an important part of what keeps teams engaged during tough times. While many people may volunteer out of loneliness and boredom, finding a sense of connection through a common mission with others is a driving force behind why some get involved with volunteering in the first place.

For all charity team members, a volunteer management system can become a community hub of co-volunteers and friends. Internal messaging means that all communications stay within the system, so teams aren’t dragged out into different applications or emails, helping to drive engagement. With an online focused community it's even more important to have these channels for communication and compensate for having less face to face time as a group.

Whether your charity has a national or international focus, or you are engaging volunteers in specific communities, features like interactive maps can be utilised to help local groups in a community keep up to date with events in their area. Depending on your aims this can be used to coordinate events with ease, or provide local updates that are more insightful.

Covid-19 thrust us into the era of “co-working”, and this isn’t something reserved for spreadsheets in office buildings. The work done by charities is often complex and requires whole teams of volunteers. A VMS can help to easily show the impact of volunteers by empowering them to record hours, tasks or other measures of contribution taking away the need for managers to record this for their teams. Where ages, lifestyles, skills and availability are varied across a group of volunteers, having a system they can all use keeps them united and working fluidly and more efficiently as one.

Looking forward

Moving to mobile systems is also a great bet on future-proofing your charity’s workflows. As smartphones become more powerful and able to handle even greater tasks, our reliance on them for more aspects of our lives will increase.

Increasingly people's personal lives are stored almost entirely on their phones, from plane tickets to digital wallets, and already many rely on them for their work, while the youngest generations are most intertwined with their devices.

If it’s not already here, it is not so hard to believe that just over the horizon there is a world where people build whole careers working from their mobile devices alone. New workplace practices will become norms as new generations grow up with them and this also goes for volunteers.

Getting the tools together to create a digitally enhanced and intuitive volunteer experience will improve the experience of Gen Z, but it is only the start. At the start of 2023, the oldest among the next generation - Gen Alpha - are beginning to enter their teenage years and it is not long before they enter the volunteer ecosystem too.

It's impossible to say what the landscape of technology will look like in almost a decade, what the next generation will believe in or what their expectations will be. One thing is for sure, however - digitally native volunteers are here to stay, and charities will need to move with the times to keep them interested, and to keep volunteering relevant.

For charities, giving your people the right training and skills can help motivate and empower them, to improve the services and care they deliver. Training and development can be for a range of employees and volunteers, and those in need of new skills or perspectives, including fundraisers, people in contact centres and field workers.

An increasingly important way to offer this training is through digital learning programmes or eLearning. This eLearning approach can bring with it a range of benefits: it’s inherently scalable and doesn’t require people to be in one place at the same time. It also doesn’t need the same level of tutor guidance which can save training budgets, and it can also offer a new level of flexibility to the learner, who is able to learn at times that suit them.

However, if not approached correctly, there can be a range of pitfalls that can lead to poor engagement and overall disappointing learning outcomes.

What is eLearning?

The term eLearning is usually used to describe a predominantly online-delivered learning programme. These programmes can be short and last just a few minutes, or can also be much longer and more involved. For example, some higher education institutions run online versions of their post-graduate courses that can run over two years and attract full-time and part-time students from all around the world.

eLearning courses can include a range of formats from written guides to engaging tutor-led videos, to Zoom tutorials and seminars with experts. They can include interactive tools on learning management systems like quizzes and other gamified elements, all designed to offer feedback and test the learners.

They are specifically designed to be delivered online so they can quite often differ significantly from similar courses that are delivered in-person, and reflect the very different ways that people learn online. When they work well, they’re designed not just to be passive and peripheral, but instead they grab and maintain the learner's attention, giving them the feedback when they need it and making the whole process of learning, active and engaging.

It’s also important to note that just putting some information on a website and asking them to read it is highly unlikely to work for most people. Although this can be a useful way to share information, it’s not what one would describe as an eLearning programme. An eLearning programme needs a more specific focus on design and delivery to be effective, and ultimately for people to learn and action what they’ve learned.

Charities using eLearning

Charities are increasingly turning to eLearning to train staff and volunteers and educate supporters. It’s being used for a huge range of different purposes and even in a range of different ways.

Large charities including the Red Cross, the Salvation Army, and the Make-A-Wish Foundation have used eLearning to provide education, training, and resources to their volunteers and supporters. For example, the Red Cross offers a wide range of online courses covering topics such as disaster preparedness, first aid and CPR, and more.

The United Way has developed an online learning platform to help its network of supporters understand the full scope of its work and how they can contribute. The Salvation Army has also implemented eLearning tools to help its volunteers learn more about its mission and how to best serve those in need.

Benefits of eLearning

There are a range of clear benefits that can make eLearning an extremely useful tool for charities. Many of these are in line with why so many resources and services in our daily lives are being digitised, and are rooted in the ability to make significant efficiencies and scale easily.

Online courses offer an opportunity to scale training far beyond the classroom. They don’t require people to be in a certain place at a certain time and they don't need an expert tutor to be present for all of these training sessions. This saves time, money and resources over time and makes learning programmes far more accessible to more of your people.

Although there is an investment that needs to be made to set up these online programmes, they can often be used over several years with far less ongoing support and resources needed than any in-person equivalents.

These eLearning programmes also allow learners to learn on their own terms. They can do the training at times that fit around their lives and even in the flow of their work (doing the training when they most need it). They can also do this at a pace and in a way that best suits them.

Having this more personalised and flexible approach is important to best serve all your different learners, but it’s also important to note that different people may need different types of support on certain programmes for the best outcomes. This includes offering tutor or peer feedback and offering metrics or testing that help learners to understand the progress they’re making.

One of the other significant benefits of eLearning for charities lies in the unique way it’s delivered. Delivering these programmes online allows you to utilise aids like high quality video and animations that can help to visualise and explain things much more effectively than explaining by teaching or using slides. This is particularly true for teaching complex information and relationships, where this approach can be clearer, more memorable and repeatable (the resources can be re-watched and learning refreshed when needed).

The flip side of this is that simply putting in-person courses online and operating in exactly the same ways (long online videos and articles), will mean learners do not benefit from these unique advantages that eLearning offers.

Overcoming potential pitfalls

There are a range of potential pitfalls with eLearning if not approached correctly. If not designed and delivered with care and with the specific learners in mind, the danger is that the learning will be passive at best. At worst learners will barely begin the courses, let alone work their way through them in any meaningful way. This is particularly the case for aspects that people may consider “box-ticking” training, that needs to be done, but may be considered dry and dull and of no real benefit to them and their general roles.

If you’re unable to get or keep learners’ attention, the eLearning course will not do what you need it to. Online learners can potentially become distracted, half-watching the content and not actively learning. Making the online materials dynamic, to the point and clearly establishing relevance and ‘’why it matters’, you can give learners an understanding of what the course will enable them to do.

Online learning content needs to be delivered and structured in a way that’s more appropriate to how learners view content on digital devices. It should be short, clearly focused and visually appealing. Clearly structuring and breaking down the content into manageable chunks, also lends itself to active learning. This can be further enhanced by taking out any extraneous or unnecessary material around the content that doesn’t matter to the learners.

Being able to give learners effective feedback as part of an eLearning course is another important factor and potential issue if not approached correctly. Effective “active learning” depends on learners receiving effective feedback. This sort of interaction is essential for effective learning, but also for keeping learners focused and engaged.

Not having in mind the specific needs of your learners when designing these programmes is another common pitfall for eLearning. It’s important to understand the unique needs and behaviours of your audience, and build the programme accordingly. For example, are they short of time and likely to consume information on mobiles or is there a wider community or cohort of people they could learn and share feedback with?

Charities doing more eLearning

Developing eLearning based programmes can help in a range of situations, but it’s important that the unique needs and considerations of different learner groups are first fully understood to see if this approach is most appropriate. What’s the information you need them to learn? What sort of support are they likely to need?

Then it’s time to focus on the design and delivery of these programmes. Making sure they are designed with learning best-practice in mind - making them accessible, dynamic and easily to navigate is essential. Then ensuring learners are supported - sometimes with the technology that they view the content on, sometimes through tutor and peer support via facilities like Zoom - is equally important.

eLearning can offer charities huge opportunities to train and develop their people and stakeholders at a scale that has been impossible before now. However, unless this is done properly and designed and delivered in the correct ways it will be an opportunity missed.

As a national charity which works to alleviate health inequalities and food poverty in the UK, we are committed to tackling food inequality by giving families access to fresh fruit and vegetables in their communities. Since 2014, we have been providing support to 10,244 families and 19,176 children across 68 different children’s centres and community organisations.

A challenging process

We know that a family’s economic situation has a direct impact on the food they eat, with healthy food far less accessible to those on lower incomes. That’s why it’s so important that the charity’s organisational model continues to evolve, and we strengthen the systems and assets required to deliver our ambition.

One of the key challenges the charity faced was the creation, processing and shipping of Rose Vouchers to market traders, greengrocers and children’s centres. There was also the need to track each voucher’s journey and understand where families needed additional support.

Before the start of our digital journey, our approach to processing Rose Vouchers involved high volumes of manual work, which included recording each voucher number and related voucher activities on spreadsheets. This meant that children’s centres had to keep distribution records on paper and regularly update spreadsheets. While market traders looking to cash in their vouchers had to manually record the voucher numbers on paper and return them to us.

Once this information had been gathered and recorded, the team at Alexandra Rose would then need to generate statistics such as the number of families and children benefiting from Rose Vouchers, as well as the number of traders and partners involved in the programme.

This information was generated manually, and this not only took a long time, but also increased the risk of human error and the reliability of the data. On top of this, there was a concern that the process would be off-putting and become a barrier to new children’s centres and traders joining the project.

Reaching more families

Although this process was extremely time consuming for everyone involved, it was critical that we captured this information to understand where and when the vouchers were being spent. Working to improve the process, we sought expertise from digital agency Neontribe and explored ways we could utilise technology to reach more families and alleviate the time consuming processes that our staff and delivery partners were facing.

We recognised that enhancing this process would free up resources and allow more time to be spent in other critical operational areas, such as applying for funding from bodies like the National Lottery Community Foundation and Impact on Urban Health, and growing the project to reach more families in more areas across the country.

Working closely with Neontribe and setting out clear requirements, we created a digital solution that would not only enable our operations team to easily scan Rose Vouchers but also provide the same functionality for market traders and children centres too. The Rosie web app is used by traders to request reimbursement of vouchers and the app can be accessed online.

The platform also features an admin portal for staff to manage the creation, distribution and reimbursement of vouchers, in addition to delivering partner access so that we can manage family recruitment, voucher distribution and overall project monitoring data. This made the process more efficient for us and all parties involved, and it has also improved data accuracy, as the scanning process removes the potential for human error.

Producing data driven insights

Leveraging technology has allowed us to understand the Rose Voucher journey from start to finish. It provides us with important information about when and where the voucher was issued, by which trader, and how long it has been in circulation for prior to the transaction.

The increased access to data has allowed us to follow each voucher’s journey, giving us the opportunity to apply interventions, when needed, to help families who may be struggling. It also gives us a platform from which we can monitor for potential fraudulent transactions and with the whole process now digitised, it gives us greater transparency, which is especially important to prospective funders.

The data analysis extends to more detailed reporting than our paper-based approach, helping us to fully understand our beneficiaries, the number of vouchers being distributed and used, churn rates and which centres or traders are processing the most transactions.

Other benefits include the ability to record how many families are currently receiving help from government initiatives like Healthy Start, which offers formula milk and fresh produce to children under four.

This means we can store this information and if needed, submit it to the local authority. This is incredibly significant, as it provides trackable statistics and an overview of vulnerable people that may require more ongoing support, including statistics on the number of people currently benefiting from the initiative.

The simplified process of scanning the Rose Vouchers using the web app means that children’s centres can register new families much faster and are now able to download and access the data, which helps with the ongoing management of the project and support they provide for families. For market traders using the app, payments are sent far quicker than before, and there are no delays for the finance team.

All in all, the technology supports the benefits we deliver to our recipients and allows us to maintain a higher retention rate of children’s centres and traders taking part in the project, simply because the process is much easier.

Joining up the process for everyone involved has allowed us to support more families with the Rose Vouchers for Fruit & Veg Project than ever before and meet the increasing need for access to fresh fruit and vegetables.

The project story so far

The results from the project really do speak for themselves. In May 2023, we reached a new milestone of two million Rose Vouchers that have been distributed and spent with 60 different market traders and greengrocers.

The first million vouchers took seven years for us to achieve in comparison to the second which only took us 18 months. Although this is likely to have been influenced by the pandemic and cost of living crisis, the digital solution has allowed us as a charity to accelerate voucher distribution and manage the demand from the public.

We are immensely proud of our achievements since 2014 and how we’ve been able to expand our outreach. Our market traders are a hugely important part of the process and we’ve been able to increase our numbers from five to 60. In terms of Rose Voucher recipients, the number of families we’ve been able to reach has risen from 300 to over 10,000. And the number of children’s centres we’re working with has jumped from 15 to 68 over the past nine years.

Lessons learned for other charities

For other charities looking to embark on a similar digital journey, there are several key considerations to be mindful of. The first, is not to be afraid of change. Digital technologies have the ability to provide real-time data and deliver greater transparency.

Although this can be daunting and feel like it’s inviting increased scrutiny, it helps external supporters understand how your charity operates, the impact it makes, results delivered and where and how donations make a difference.

Internally, greater transparency not only improves day to day operations but also provides a clearer picture of what’s happening in each department, which facilitates collaboration.

For charities striving to implement technology and utilise digital solutions, it’s important to work with a partner that understands your goals and objectives from the start and can walk you through each stage of the implementation from start to finish. By utilising technology alongside refining our processes we can now work more efficiently and dedicate additional hours to the things that matter.

For us at Alexandra Rose Charity, reducing manual processes has meant that we can now focus on signing up more traders and children’s centres, to help more families access fresh fruit and veg, which is our ultimate long term goal.

Over the last decade, charities have been asking themselves how far to invest in technology to manage their processes. Such investments were once only the domain of larger charities with the resources to build bespoke platforms to meet their unique needs, but those days are long gone. There are now numerous customisable software packages available to charities of all sizes. 

One such option is cloud technology, often the foundation of any charity’s future-proofing strategy. The technology is no longer limited to those charities who can afford big up-front costs, with numerous examples of pay as you go IT software now available. 

But what exactly is cloud technology? The technology enables you to access the computing services you need to do your job such as databases, networking, software, analytics and/or servers remotely. It’s referred to as “cloud technology” because it can be accessed 24/7 from any location, with internet access, without the need for on-site hardware.

Immediate solutions

It was only when the pandemic hit and the world was thrown into a new way of working that many more charities began exploring cloud technology as the solution to their immediate problems. Organisations who had already invested in this technology to support their working processes – be it administration, communication, fundraising or grant management processes – were a step ahead of the game.

Although cloud-based technology has been around for several years, the lockdown provided its moment to truly shine. As organisations scrambled to facilitate home working, they looked to new ways to connect, share and collaborate with their colleagues. With only a stable internet connection required, the trajectory in uptake for cloud technology has meant that charities can continue their work from anywhere, ensuring they could continue to operate as required.

For example, it has been possible for charities, newly using cloud-based software, to leverage their previous investment in technology so as to increase their grant values by 34% during lockdown. This utilising the potential to reduce costs via off-site hosting of data and information.  

Yet the real test may be yet to come. As “the new normal” of remote and flexible work embeds itself within the charity sector, charities will undoubtedly find they need to adapt further to remain effective in an ever-changing landscape.

Of the charities who have been using cloud technology, these have enjoyed increased efficiency, reduced administration and streamlined communication through integrating technology into their processes. But what other benefits can cloud technology have for charities?

Remote working

Remote and flexible working has now become the norm across a great proportion of charities to varying degrees. A recent survey of charity sector employees showed that 73% have changed their policy on remote working since the pandemic, hence this new working style has now become embedded into the expectations of those within the sector.

In fact, 43% of charity employees stated that they wouldn’t consider moving to a new job if it required being on-site. To attract top-tier talent and keep their teams happy in their work, charities should be looking to create an attractive and competitive flexible working offer. 

A key starting point for charities looking to bed in remote working is reflecting on all their internal processes. This is not just about physical equipment. With so many organisations offering improved flexibility, the real challenge is now giving teams the tools they need to succeed in the new working landscape and prepare for future developments. 

Existing frustrations

While systems such as VPNs and remote desktops may have served many organisations well in the short term, they are not without their frustrations - often leaving teams pulling their hair out at the difficulty of using this unreliable technology. Fortunately, cloud technology transforms how teams can work remotely, with only a stable internet connection needed to manage their working processes.

Investing in cloud technology is a clear statement to current and future employees that remote working is here to stay to at least some extent in your charity, and that you care about ensuring your teams have everything they need to do their job well, wherever they are based. 

In a recent survey, over a third of professionals said they'd increased their use of their mobile devices for work purposes since the start of the pandemic, with 75% checking work emails on their phones more than any other activity.

Smartphones have revolutionised how we work, and the lockdown and our transition into the new normal have solidified their status as a “must-have” for increased productivity when working remotely. 

But smartphones can be used for much more than checking emails and sharing files. For charities, having the ability to take care of working processes on the go could be transformational. 

Dispersed workforce

Most charities have stakeholders in various locations, so the concept of a dispersed workforce is not new to the charity sector. From trustees who may have other working commitments, to staff with childcare needs, being able to approve, manage, and collaborate on the go can make huge improvements to your efficiency.

By implementing cloud technology, you can provide teams with increased freedom to work on the go, which could be a game changer for talented individuals. 

Security first

Charities deal with incredibly sensitive data at every stage of their working processes. It is therefore no surprise that during the pandemic data security was a top concern for the sector across the board. It’s likely to have been the first thing that came into your mind when considering the benefits and drawbacks of remote accessibility to sensitive data or information. 

According to data obtained through a Freedom of Information Act request to the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO), 88% of data breaches are the result of human error.

When the world switched to remote working without the safety of on-site data security protocols, many organisations found themselves in hot water over their handling of confidential information. In fact, during the first year of lockdown, there was a 40% rise in fines issued to charities from the ICO for breaches of GDPR. 

With flexible working now both a necessity and expectation within the sector, moving your administration to a cloud-based system can protect against data breaches – holding all associated information and data within secure servers. This ensures your data is shared through a secure cloud-based system, mitigating the risk of human error. 

Additional oversight

Cloud technology enables additional oversight into your network, allowing users to be identified as internal staff members, or those who are external to the network where additional security features should be used.

So when IT support services company AAG’s cyber crime statistics reveal that the UK had the highest number of cyber crime victims per million internet users, the threat posed to the charity sector should not be underestimated. Cloud helps to avoid data breaches and reduces the threat of breaches of GDPR in turn. 

Giving your teams the skills they need to keep data safe and secure should therefore always be your number one priority for data security. 

Increased risk of fraud

Not only are data breaches a serious threat to charities, but so too is the threat of fraud. The Fundraising Regulator has revealed that charity fraud surged by 44% in 2022 compared to the previous year, with over £2.3 million stolen.

In fact, one of the key issues for grant-making charities in particular is the risk of fraud when paying out grants to applicants. This threat will no doubt continue into 2023 and so every charity needs to be on hyper alert if they are to minimise the threat posed to themselves. 

All charities should be aware that cyber criminals go where security is vulnerable rather than targeting what is valuable. As Jason Cobine of insurance broker Cobine Carmelson reveals, despite fraud being noticed quickly, one disaster story saw an accounts department of a UK charity transfer £75,000 after an “urgent” request came from an email it thought was from the CEO. With appropriate training, however, these worst-case scenarios are avoidable.

Another story from Jason Cobine similar to above involved a charity who found their security software overcome when a hacker incapacitated their IT services. The charity then received a demand for payment if it wanted access to thei systems and files which had been encrypted.

Insurance aspect

Fortunately, the charity had invested in insurance which covered the £240,000 cost to reinstate the files. This is why it is crucial to invest in secure back-ups of files in combination with insurance, though digital training of your team remains crucial to minimise risk at every stage.

Whilst the benefits of cloud technology far outweigh the negatives, it is still true that a charity with a greater digital footprint has an increased vulnerability to fraud and other cyber crime. According to the Charity Commission, the most common ways in which fraud occurs is through phishing and through impersonation. This only underscores that effective digital training is the single most effective way to minimise risk and charities should take note if they are to secure their IT services and files. 

More control

If charities are to prepare for upcoming changes and challenges, they need to remain ahead of the curve by investing in upcoming technologies. Cloud technology has the power to give charities more control over their working processes, through centralisation and through securing sensitive data at every stage.

It also means they will be able to adapt to changing working patterns and enable staff to work with increased freedom, whilst making sure their processes are secure through increasing digital training. The charities who implement this today can be sure of a bright digital future tomorrow.   

In the perfect world the “bad guys” or hackers as we’ve come to know them, wouldn’t go after charities. They’d stick to rich corporations with vast IT teams and Teflon-coated firewalls, but as we all know, the world isn’t perfect, and charities are seen as low hanging fruit for those very reasons.

UNDERSTAFFED, UNDERFUNDED AND UNDER PROTECTED. Cyber criminals often think that charities operate on shoe-string budgets, that their computers are old and, so it would follow, that their cyber security practices may be too. They think that staff are working so hard to put food in mouths, shoes on feet or roofs over heads that installing the latest operating system on their laptop often gets overlooked, making charities an easy target.

Key statistics from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) show: cybercrime is a bigger threat than nuclear war; hackers attack every 39 seconds, on average 2,244 times a day; a 480% rise in data breaches reported to the FCA; 279 days is the average time to identify and contain a breach.

So that’s the bad news. The GOOD news is that there is a relatively simple, two-pronged approach EVERY charity can take, to help themselves, starting right now, today – cyber safety and cyber insurance.

Step 1

UPDATE YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM. When you turn on your computer in the morning and it says, “We have two updates to make, shall we do it now or later?” DO IT NOW! These are “patches” that Apple or Windows have made to protect you from an attack. As new “holes” appear in their systems that leave you vulnerable to attack, they make new patches. If you don’t install them, you aren’t even beginning to help yourself.

(Did you know that the 2017 WannaCry NHS ransomware attack was due entirely to departments failing to update their operating systems, despite repeated urgent requests from NHS Digital?) Yes, it really was that simple.)

USE FIREWALLS AND INSTALL ANTI-VIRUS PROTECTION. These really should be standard on every computer system by now. Make sure yours are up to date. It’s easy for subscriptions to lapse. You want to be protected against viruses, malware and have a firewall.

ESTABLISH TWO-STEP VERIFICATION ON ALL DIGITAL ACCOUNTS. This will instantly let you know if someone else is trying to access one of your accounts. So many attacks happen without charities even knowing, giving the hackers plenty of time to run riot in your system, divert emails, set up new accounts, all under your very nose. Stop them at source.

ENSURE PASSWORDS ARE STRONG ENOUGH. Choose a phrase then add a bunch of numbers and symbols. Do NOT use a password twice. The dark web is full of lists of previously used and stolen passwords. If you use “Rover123” on 15 different accounts, you’ve just given the bad guys 15 entry points. See the fascinating image below which explains how long it would take a hacker to break your password based on length and content.

EDUCATE YOUR STAFF. Regular cyber training is essential. New methods of attack are coming up all the time, and you can’t expect your staff to be aware of them simply because you’re “pretty sure they know what to look for”. Keep them up to date – regularly.

CALL-BACKS. Adopt formal call-back procedures to ensure added protection when making funds transfer. One careless click can cost tens of thousands of pounds. Teach staff how to verify an email BEFORE they click on it. It may sound basic but, that’s because … it is.

Step 2

The second thing you need to do is protect yourself with a robust insurance policy, so that should the worst happen, you won’t lose out financially. Here are the specific risks which should be covered by cyber insurance:

DATA BREACHES (GDPR FINES). Charities often accept donations via card payments made on their websites. They will collect personal data (such as donor names, addresses and payment card information) which could result in a costly liability if these data were to be breached by a hacker.

FUNDS TRANSFER FRAUD. As many charities make frequent electronic payments to the partner organisations they support, such as research labs and care providers, they must also be alert to cyber criminals trying to steal those funds as they are transferred out of your organisation. According to CFC Underwriting, a major cyber insurer, charities are far more likely to face a loss through this form of cybercrime than because of a data privacy breach.

STEPS WHICH AN INSURER WOULD REQUIRE THE CHARITY TO UNDERTAKE TO PROTECT ITS EQUIPMENT AND DATA. Cyber insurers expect the organisations they insure to take reasonable steps to protect their networks and data in the same way you might protect your physical assets such as buildings and contents with an intruder alarm or fire detection system.

THE SORT OF EXCLUSIONS CHARITIES SHOULD BE BOTH AWARE AND WARY OF. Due to the nature of their activities, charities are at particular risk when it comes to cybercrime, such as funds transfer fraud. Charity insurance buyers must be alert to any insurance policy conditions that limit or exclude coverage for this form of crime. Indeed, any cyber insurance they establish should assertively cover this type of loss.

While it’s important to ensure any insurance policy meets these exposures, charities must also contend with cyber extortion, malware and ransomware attacks. Cyber attacks can also lead to formal regulatory investigations and even fines, so insurance buyers must seek out cyber insurance policies that address these risks too.

EXCLUSIONS CHECKLIST. Ensure you are covered for:

• Funds transfer fraud.
• Cyber extortion.
• Malware attacks.
• Ransomware attacks.
• GDPR/regulatory body fines.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN AN AVERAGE SET OF CYBER INSURANCE COVERS AND A PREMIUM SET. There’s little standardisation between insurers in terms of the scope of coverage, pricing or terminology used. Some policies will exclude or limit the degree of protection for certain types of cyber attack, so it pays to use a specialist insurance adviser who understands the landscape and who can navigate the charity to the most appropriate solution.

Thorough analysis

Because no two charities are identical, this should start with a thorough analysis of cyber risk – an in-depth review of the specific cyber threats to which the charity is exposed. A good adviser will be able to provide this degree of scrutiny, to help build an insurance solution that’s tailored to the charity’s specific needs. This needn’t be expensive; annual insurance premiums can start from as little as £600.

THE PITFALLS TO WATCH OUT FOR AND COMMON MISTAKES BY CHARITIES. Charities would be mistaken in assuming that their exposure starts and ends with lawsuits for a data privacy breach. Charities are at particular risk from social engineering style attacks (e.g. phishing attacks). Thinking that you’re protected because you use third party providers or spend heavily on IT are common myths.

Not purchasing a cyber policy because you have “good IT security” is like suggesting that you don’t need theft insurance on a property policy because you have high quality locks on your doors. It’s also dangerous to believe that cyber attacks only affect big business. As previously stated, cyber criminals see smaller organisations as low hanging fruit, because they perceive they lack the resources to properly protect themselves. Cyber criminals target the most vulnerable organisations, not just the most valuable.

In summary, a good specialist cyber insurance adviser should be able to:

• Help you to identify what cyber risk looks like – both within the charity sector as a whole and also in relation to your charity’s own domain or network.
• Work with you to provide a risk management service, from staff cyber awareness training to system/process controls – all with the aim of improving your exposure to risk.
• Build a tailored insurance solution that addresses your specific risk profile.
• Provide a robust breach response service should the worst still happen.

It’s an unfortunate reality that the charity sector is an attractive target for cyber attacks. Criminals are unscrupulous in choosing their targets and can all too easily take advantage of charities, and their supporters, for their own gain.

To protect themselves and their data, charities must monitor the internet for any potential threats, even before they happen. The ability to detect leaks of personal details it holds on donors, volunteers, beneficiaries, or employees, appearing outside its own network should be a priority, as well as uncovering the tell-tale signs that an attack on their organisation could be imminent. Finally, charities must also monitor their own networks and practise good cyber hygiene that could deny cybercriminals entry.

Why criminals target charities

The average cybercriminal is primarily focussed on making money and will look to target assets that achieve this goal. They might directly try to steal funds or hold a charity to ransom, crippling services and only restoring them upon payment of a large sum of money. What’s most likely to be their main target is the Personally Identifiable Information (PII) of supporters which they can access by targeting the employees. Charities are a goldmine of this data, holding the PII of thousands, if not millions of individuals. This can be used by cybercriminals in a number of ways to make money.

Once they have the financial details of donors, the fraudsters can use these to steal cash directly from their bank accounts. Another method they use is to imitate the charity and email the donor directly, using the stolen information, to request more funds, known as phishing.

This can be very effective as the person targeted has already shown an interest in the charity and a willingness to donate, so asking for more money won’t seem unusual and is likely to produce results. Criminals are skilled at using techniques which prey on the trust and goodwill of donors and compel them to make emotional decisions by clicking on links that look genuine.

The emails are made to look very convincing, often using the same branding and messaging and, through the use of a technique called typo squatting, they set up fake sites which are made to look like the legitimate charity. For instance, if the actual domain is anycharity.org.uk they might use anycharity.com or anycharitydonations.org.uk.

Coronavirus crisis

This is particularly pertinent over the coronavirus crisis, which has seen people more willing to help out good causes. For instance, criminals were found by the FBI to be masquerading as collecting donations for the American Red Cross but were in fact lining their own pockets. According to DomainTools, which scores a domain on how likely it is to be malicious, 150,000 suspicious coronavirus-related domains have been registered since the start of the pandemic.

Staff working for charities can be a particular target for phishing attacks, which attempt to trick employees into clicking on links. This is in order to obtain their personal information, or gain access to the staff member’s email account. They can send emails from them which appear legitimate convincing others to send money to new accounts or to commit other types of fraud.

Cybercriminals often target charity workers for their credentials so that they can access charity databases rich in donor data. Recent research shows that more than 8 out of 10 charities have reported that their staff have been targeted in phishing attacks.

Finally, they could sell the information online to other cybercriminals. Once they have their hands on this valuable data, they will try to sell it where they can. These are likely to be on forums on the Open and Dark Web, as well as websites like Pastebin that allow users to post information anonymously in plain text. The Dark Web is the hidden part of the internet, not indexed by conventional search engines such as Google or Bing, which cybercriminals use to get around law enforcement to buy and sell personal data.

Charities also need to look out for employees reusing the same – or similar - corporate login credentials to access other third party sites. If these sites are breached, then the staff member may have inadvertently given the hackers all they need to break into the charity’s own IT network.

Need to protect data

Suffering a data breach is serious for any organisation. Yet for charities, whose success is built upon their reputations and the goodwill of supporters, the loss of any sensitive information can be devastating. Many charities provide services for vulnerable individuals, where leaks of data could result in serious physical or emotional harm. Any organisation is at risk - often it’s simply down to hackers taking a chance and testing out credentials from another unrelated breach, and discovering they can be used to target a charity.

This opens charities up to the risks of phishing attacks, identity theft and even having funds taken directly from their accounts. As such, trust in their brand will undoubtedly be damaged if data is found to have been traded by cybercriminals online. This is likely to have a knock-on effect for the charity’s funding as research from The Charity Commission has found that people are nine times less likely to donate to a charity they deem untrustworthy.

There is also the consideration that any data breach could land a charity in trouble with the regulators. The EU’s GDPR stipulates that organisations must have appropriate mechanisms in place to protect any PII in its possession. Failure to do so could result in the organisation having to pay a large fine.

These issues are made worse by the fact that time and resources are in limited supply and volunteers are often relied upon to help deliver services. This can add to the risk exposure, and so requires making sure that helpers and temporary workers, as well as permanent staff, are all up to date with the latest data privacy regulations and have regular training on how to keep information safe. This can be a huge task.

The Covid-19 crisis has without doubt made the situation worse. Charities are also facing a funding crisis never seen before. Those wanting to survive are likely to cut back where they can, which could mean IT security is reduced. This will also be made worse by trained professionals being furloughed, or those who are still working having to do so remotely with varying degrees of cybersecurity.

Protecting your charity

Any organisation needs to make the best use of resources and charities, in particular, have to be careful to get the best possible value from cyber protection. To help them out, the UK Government has created a guide which outlines five key areas that charities must focus on to keep their data safe. These are: backing up data; protecting against malware; keeping connected devices safe; using passwords to protect data; and avoiding phishing attacks.

Much of this advice focuses on simple actions charities can take using protection they already have access to or putting in place procedures to protect information. This includes basics such as turning on firewalls and anti-virus software, as well as changing default passwords. Having a unique password for every user and for every protected asset they use is a cyber security fundamental. A good way to secure credentials is through a password manager, which will generate and store uncrackable passwords.

Another simple step charities can take is to regularly download and install the latest updates for all their operating systems and applications. These will provide security patches for any vulnerabilities in the software that could be exploited by threat actors.

Early warning systems

Taking steps to prevent a data breach, or limit the impact of one, needs to be a priority for charities if they want to avoid damaging repercussions. The key to this is monitoring.

Monitoring the internet for early warning signs of an attack will help charities focus their defences. This monitoring should include detecting if there has been any chatter on social media sites or forums used by cybercriminals that might indicate an attack is imminent. There is also the need to identify stolen information that might appear on the Open and Dark Web. However, accessing sites that are exclusively the domain of cybercriminals requires specialist help.

Charities need to be certain whether any information which appears online is theirs so that they can take swift and decisive action if necessary. This can be difficult as there could be thousands or even millions of credentials to examine. To this end, the use of “synthetic” identities and watermarking data will help to pinpoint whether any information has leaked outside the organisation.

The idea is to mix in specifically created fake credentials, including emails, with real data. If these synthetic identities appear anywhere they shouldn’t, a charity will know with absolute certainty that there has been a data breach.

The consequences of a cyber incident can be costly and far reaching. Criminals are capitalising on global events to make financial gain, yet there are ways to minimise risk and close security gaps.

By keeping a watchful eye on their own data and putting systems in place which can forewarn of potential attacks, charities can prevent the goodwill of their supporters from being exploited.

We all know how important it is to demonstrate impact to donors. This can be achieved in terms of the number of projects funded and various measures of change delivered. But what about productivity? How do you and your donors know that your charity is working in the most efficient way, and trust that time is not being wasted either knowingly or unknowingly?

“So what?” I hear you ask.

Much time lost

Last year, UK market research specialists Sapio looked at the impact of digital content on marketing teams of all sizes. The survey found that an average of 13 days per team member is lost every year due to hunting for digital assets and filing content. From images and graphics, to videos, presentations, documents, spreadsheets and design files – charity teams have to handle an ever-increasing volume of digital assets.

Typically charities have small marketing teams, but have to manage a huge volume of visuals. For example, photographs and clips are regularly sent in from all over the country or around the world. Keeping on top of this, and being able to find all these files quickly at a later date has become burdensome.

It’s typical for teams to use shared servers or Dropbox-style services and content is often not centralised to be contributed to or accessed by staff in multiple locations. It can also be a struggle to share the right assets with the press, as well as important donors. And how can you keep a live log of who has downloaded these without increasing admin?

Digital asset management’s role

The importance of being able to demonstrate impact to donors is critical for a charity. I speak from personal experience here as I previously worked in procurement for the RSPCA. Impact consistently had a bearing on our decision-making criteria.

Adopting software – especially that which has already been popularised in the commercial world – can help you to demonstrate you are forward-thinking and investing for long term gain and support recruitment of new talent who expect these tools in the workplace. Furthermore, it can have an immediate positive impact on performance, contributing toward the enhanced output of a team for all to see.

Digital asset management (DAM) does this. It is dedicated software to help you consistently store digital assets online, so they can easily be found and shared. It makes life much easier for internal teams and enables fast, secure access for outside parties too. This could include volunteers and partners, as well as suppliers and venues.

Working in the same way

Managing files in this way requires everybody within the charity, and even your outside partners, to work in the same way so that the security, organisation and searchability of digital assets is consistent. It empowers everyone to quickly find what they’re looking for, saving long searches and the distraction of colleagues, meaning more time is spent focused on what really matters.

As a result, a wide range of charities are currently adopting DAM. These range from youth-focused organisations such as the Scouts, through to research organisations like the Institute for Cancer Research. No matter whether you’re the World Health Organisation or a community-based charity, today’s DAM can help unleash your team’s full potential.

Cost viability for a charity

While digital asset management (DAM) software has been around in different guises for many years, its shift from on-premise installation to the cloud has opened up use to many more organisations including charities. The evolution to web browser-based SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) means you no longer have to host the software on your own server, nor bear responsibility for infrastructure and updates.

But hold on – what on earth does this mean for the untechnical majority of us? Well in the past, DAM was very much the preserve of big corporate organisations which could afford to implement such software across their staff computers. It required an on-site IT team to install and then update this on a continual basis. Smaller and cost-sensitive organisations faced a huge barrier.

New cloud-based DAM changes the game – now any charity can benefit from state-of-the-art DAM functionality at an operationally viable price point.

There is no need for IT support, nor any requirement to make latest security or version updates. All your files are secure and accessible online and it’s very simple to use without the need for training to get started.

Anyone can download the software and be granted appropriate access to save, search and share files. Being a web browser-based tool makes it far more accessible, particularly for charities with dispersed teams or fundraisers using their own computers, and it relieves pressure on your own IT network.

A benefit of SaaS is that it’s often subscription-based and pricing is dependent on several factors, including how many users will benefit from the tool. This makes it a viable solution for charities of any size. Another advantage of SaaS is that as new features and functionality are regularly added, users have immediate access to these.

Advantages of DAM for charities

FAST SETUP. A typical barrier to introducing new software is the internal education process needed to ensure successful adoption. Modern digital asset management offers an intuitive user interface meaning most can use it right away with little or no training. With easy importing you can easily move content from a shared server into your DAM library in minutes.

GET EVERYONE WORKING IN THE SAME WAY. No more saving to desktops, shared servers or bulging Dropbox and Google Drive accounts. DAM software requires everyone to save files in the same secure way, to be discoverable by others. And when new staff or volunteers join, it immediately supports knowledge sharing. Existing assets can easily be found by new joiners, avoiding duplication of effort. Everybody can see the latest versions of files in real-time to assist version control and avoid duplication of files.

PROVIDE SECURE ACCESS TO THIRD PARTIES. You may work with agencies, freelancers and volunteers. And you may at times scale up your team thanks to funding injections from significant donations or grants, and therefore bring in temporary staff to provide extra resource or expertise. Sharing the correct files these people need can be time-consuming. It may not be appropriate to grant full access to a shared drive or folder, but neither is it desirable to have to regularly split files into multiple folders.

Approved access only

With DAM, admins can allow an approved individual or team access to only the assets you require them to have. Not only is this quick, it helps maintain the security of assets, especially around campaign launches or private fundraising activities.

INTEGRATED TECHNOLOGIES. Searching for files and filtering results has been revolutionised by using tags, keywords, custom fields and metadata. Being able to search by file size and other factors – for example, by which photographer, designer or document creator – also speeds up searches. Facial recognition technology means you can, for example, find every picture featuring a particular ambassador in an instant, no matter how many different locations these were originally saved in.

Google Chrome and Microsoft Office plugins let your users search your media library without leaving their browser-based email, document or presentation. Integration with design programmes, including Adobe Photoshop and InDesign, allows faster editing. File saves are synced with the centralised DAM storage system, so everyone else immediately has access to the latest version. Daily workflow time-saving quickly adds up.

WHITE LABELLING. Customising the appearance of your DAM platform with your charity’s own branding is very popular. This means your files reside in what appears to be a natural extension of your internal intranet or external website, rather than being hosted by a third party such as Google, Dropbox or WeTransfer. Furthermore, charities can easily create branded portals for media and supporters to download campaign materials.

Software easy to introduce

You can be up and running with a DAM solution in hours. Easy importing allows you to effortlessly upload content from your shared server and other locations into your new online DAM library. A good setup example is facial recognition. You can tag one photograph with the individual’s name, and then be amazed as the technology does the work and instantly finds all photography featuring that person.

A common concern is the time it can take to train staff to use new software, but the best DAM providers offer an intuitive user interface, meaning most people can use it right away with little or no training.

DAM software is hosted on the likes of Amazon Web Services. This not only ensures excellent security and reliability, but means storage capacity can grow with your business requirements. Once DAM is introduced into a charity it’s often adopted widely once the benefits are clear for all to see.

Seamless to integrate

As you consider what new technology and software will make the greatest difference to the performance of your team, consider: what will be seamless to integrate; what can be used immediately by all; and what can naturally scale with your operations? The more productive your team can be, the more effective both your fundraising and subsequent delivery – and ultimately, the greater the impact on your cause. If donors see the results of greater productivity for themselves they’ll know the charity they support is a very well managed one.