Covid-19 has forced many businesses to change the way they operate, and this is especially true within the charity sector. Although the sector is varied in aims and objectives, all charities have had to look at how they operate to weather the storm.
To understand what the road ahead for the charity sector looks like, we have broken things down to three sections:
- People
- Processes
- Systems
We will look at each one to see what it means and the future of the area for charities.
People
People are the driving force of any charity. Whether it is people donating their time or skilled support workers, it is the people that keep an organisation going.
That is why it is vital that you can support them to do their job in the best way possible. Restrictions on distancing and travel have shown both the need and viability of remote ways of working. Creative and expensive solutions have been required in some fields to deliver services, but even the smallest of organisations will have been forced to work from home.
To make these investments worthwhile you need to talk with the people of your organisation. Make sure they are using all the tools available to them, ask what else could make their job easier, and look for ways to support and train them. The changes to Processes and Systems that we will talk about are only one part of the puzzle, getting People to embrace the changes is the key part.
Processes
Processes are how your organisation functions. From the delivery of services to the behind-the-scenes financial workings, everything has a process. Understanding what these are across your charity is important when making changes to People and Systems. For example, you may replace an IT system and not realise that one of the functions it performed was critical to how a team works. Or you may move a member of staff to a different team without realising that their knowledge has not been shared with the old team, resulting in a breakdown of how they work.
The past decade has seen charities required to work more efficiently and this trend looks set to continue. Therefore, it is vital to understand the processes across your organisation so you can make informed decisions about what to optimise. You will even start to see the areas that will benefit most from embracing digital, which gives many charities a clear starting point for improvement.
Systems
IT systems can be complex pains that many teams look at with disdain. This is a real problem when Systems should be the backbone of an organisation and should make jobs easier.
For the future of the charity sector, organisations will need to better embrace digital at all levels. We see this in donators wanting more ways to give and keep up to date, staff wanting their job to be more efficient, and board members needing easier reporting and tracking. The right IT systems supporting your People and Processes can achieve all this and more.
The Next Steps
If you want to start taking the next steps in preparing your charity for a digital future, then contact us today. We have helped charities across the UK to better utilise their current IT systems as well as deliver full digital transformation projects that revolutionise how they operate.