Empowering charities in the digital age: Lessons from The Brilliant Club and Deloitte Digital Connect
The 2024 Charity Digital Skills Report reveals an ongoing challenge in the non-profit sector: squeezed organisational finances and lack of headspace and capacity are preventing charities from progressing with digital. More than ever, bridging the digital skills gap requires collaborative efforts across all levels and sectors.
Enter Deloitte Digital Connect, a programme run by Deloitte in partnership with CAST designed to help charities amplify their impact by enhancing their digital capabilities. As the third edition of this initiative concludes, we had the opportunity to speak with Sophie Callin, Product Manager, and Nikki Labrum, Chief Digital Officer from The Brilliant Club. This UK-based educational charity shares insights into their experience with the programme and its impact on their organisation.
Putting reciprocity at the heart of skills-based volunteering partnerships
When Sophie and Nikki from The Brilliant Club applied to participate in Deloitte Digital Connect, they saw it as an opportunity to tackle pressing organisational challenges and accelerate their digital transformation efforts. Nikki explains that Deloitte’s presence within the programme helped to lend weight to internal initiatives, making it easier to gain buy-in from stakeholders: “The credibility associated with working with a brand like Deloitte was appealing: it helps validate the approaches we’re trying to implement across the organisation.”
At the heart of Deloitte Digital Connect lies the concept of skills-based volunteering. Sophie, who was part of a cohort of 30 charity digital leads, was paired with David Rushton, a mentor from Deloitte, who brought a wealth of experience in data analysis and product development. David helped Sophie work on her own organisational challenge, which was to explore how The Brilliant Club might improve post-assessment completion rates for their students. “It’s really important that we look at this piece to help us demonstrate our impact. This is crucial for securing funding and attracting more schools to our programmes,” explains Nikki. As well mentoring support from David, Sophie and her peers also had access to Deloitte subject matter experts through masterclasses and workshops.
For The Brilliant Club, the mentorship and wider support on the programme led to tangible outcomes. Sophie discovered untapped sources of information and the support helped build confidence in her abilities. She was also able to leverage their existing data more effectively, building stronger business cases for future product developments. Her mentor’s fresh perspective also challenged existing processes, encouraging the charity to think differently about their approach to user-centred design:
“We don’t always question why we do things a certain way and if we can be more efficient with how we use our data. So it’s really useful to be able to speak to my mentor David and have him question things and suggest new ways of approaching a challenge.”
David reflects on his experience as a mentor: “Being involved in a real-life challenge and picking it apart not only helped Sophie but it gave me more confidence in myself and improved my consulting skills.” This mutual benefit and reciprocity lies at the heart of Deloitte Digital Connect and it challenges the old assumption that this kind of support relationship is a ‘top-down’ affair. In reality, an effective partnership is one where both parties gain new perspectives and sharpen their skills in a reciprocal way.
Challenges in embedding digital across charities
While Deloitte Digital Connect provided valuable insights and digital tools, it also highlighted the unique challenges charities face in their digital transformation journeys. Nikki points out that resources aren’t as readily available in charitable organisations, making it difficult to implement changes quickly.
“The main challenges are around time and resources,” Nikki explains. “It’s tough to justify deep thinking time in the current financial climate for charities.” This resource constraint is a common theme across the sector, requiring charities to be creative and strategic in their approach to digital transformation and innovation.
Another challenge lies in building and maintaining digital capabilities within the organisation. Recognising that digital transformation extends beyond the IT department, The Brilliant Club initiated a ‘tech leads’ group. This cross-functional team aims to spread digital skills throughout the organisation. “We’re also working on embedding digital capabilities into our hiring processes,” Nikki shares, highlighting the long-term vision for building a more digitally savvy workforce.
This approach addresses a common challenge in the charity sector: the concentration of digital skills in a small, often overstretched, team. By distributing these capabilities more widely, The Brilliant Club is laying the groundwork for sustainable digital growth.
Sophie also emphasises the importance of continued learning and networking:
“The challenge is around continued exposure to other perspectives and ideas. Maintaining a network of other product managers in charities and continuing to learn from others is crucial,” she says.
This highlights the need for ongoing support and open collaboration in the charity sector, beyond one-off programmes or partnerships.
Looking to the future
Despite these challenges, The Brilliant Club remains optimistic about the long-term impact of their digital transformation efforts. By improving their ability to demonstrate programme impact through better data collection and analysis, they aim to reach more students and secure more funding. And with Sophie successfully completing Deloitte Digital Connect, they now have what Nikki calls a “one-woman digital agency”!
Both Nikki and Sophie, as well as the whole cohort, have also been invited to join CAST’s Digital Leads Network to help them sustain momentum and to carry on developing digital knowledge and skills through ongoing peer-to-peer learning.
David’s parting advice to charities embarking on similar journeys is to always keep the user at the forefront:
“Always keep the question ‘What impact will this have on the user?’ at the front of your mind when approaching any new topic. It will keep you honest to your objectives.”
If you’d like to access some of the resources shared on Deloitte Digital Connect, take a look at this open resource hub.
Interested in more reflections from the Deloitte Digital Connection? Read Advice NI’s experience and insights on how they carried out user research to help them make their website more inclusive and accessible.
