Newid: Digital for trustees event series — week 1 recap
Here at WCVA we’ve been busy delivering a few different things as part of our work for Newid. One of these was the Newid: Digital for Trustees event series, a two week programme of inspirational lunchtime talks to support trustees with progressing digital within their organisations.
If you missed them, don’t worry, I’m here to summarise some of the key messages and takeaways from the series in a two-part blog.
I’m Catherine Joseph, Resilience Team Administator at WCVA, and as someone who hadn’t realised how much depth and variety there was to digital in the charity sector, I found the events fascinating. Not only did I learn a lot about digital in the sector, but I was introduced to the ways that it can and will be used to shape the future, and the ways we work, teach and learn.
Here’s a recap and some of my key takeaways from the events of the first week.
Event 1 — Small actions, big differences: Trustees share their experiences of trying digital
In the first event in this lunchtime series, Rhodri Jones, Head of Digital Services at WCVA and trustee at Aberaeron Memorial Hall, and Joe Stockley, Trustee for WCVA and former Communications Officer shared their reflections on digital. COVID-19, of course, has been a strong undercurrent that has pushed and highlighted the need for digital, most significantly when we all moved online in March 2020 (a strategic and operational challenge to say the least!). Joe shared the value he sees in trustees communicating with, and learning from, digital experts within our own organisations. And if we don’t have those experts yet, using the wealth of online learning materials available.
The importance of one person not hoarding all the knowledge on digital was emphasised; if they’re removed then so are their expertise, open source sharing is the way forward. Also, having an understanding of time pressures and the limits of your organisation is vital; little and often wins.
Rhodri facilitated a discussion around digital, and trustees shared their experiences, challenges and tips on different topic areas, like social media, online payments and gift aid.
The event concluded with Joe sharing some of the ways that he believes digital enables positive changes: it allows meetings to be inclusive for more people, smaller organisations are able to reach further, and practical measures such as digital payments for events create efficiency. The group discussed staff resistance with an overall consensus that the way to approach this is through collaboration and clearly stating why things need to change.
Event 2 — Digital: How do we know if we’re doing it right?
Zoe Amar, digital expert within the third sector and Trustee of Charity Digital led this event on how to know if we’re doing digital right.
Participants discussed the opportunities that digital brings, with all agreeing that hybrid events and meetings, digital accounting, digital platforms and digital inclusion in the community are all means for positive development.
Digital skills were a large part of what Zoe talked about; specifically, to what extent are these skills needed and the outcomes they can bring for organisations. The risks that digital can bring were also highlighted, such as the unavailability of face-to-face services because of a dependence on delivering using technology.
With digital fundraising, it’s important to understand what donors want and how this is changing (for example, the rise in living costs will have an impact), and how organisations need to adjust their fundraising activities accordingly. Zoe noted how important it is to get the balance right between using in-house resource and external support, as well as having evidence-based targets, which could mean expectations need to be dialed down to match.
Event 3 — Supporting the digital leader in your organisation
This event was led by one of the Newid team, Marc Davies, Digital Programme Lead for Cwmpas). Marc shared an overview of the Digital Strategy for Wales, which outlines Welsh Government’s aims for digital inclusion, data and collaboration, digital services, digital skills and digital connectivity. The Centre for Digital Public Services was launched following the strategy, as was the development of the digital service standards for Wales and the creation of three Chief Digital Officers[1]..
To get the participants thinking, Marc gave an explanation of the ways that digital compliments service delivery, and the need for a collective definition within an organisation of what digital looks like for them. This shone a light on the nuance and detail that truly goes into digital success. It is a lot more than hybrid meetings and websites, that’s for sure!
Marc finished with some tips for good habits for digital leaders to implement, such as building healthy digital relationships, becoming curious about what ‘good’ looks like, encouraging research and knowledge exchange, and the re-use of ideas and sharing across teams — the approach of trying, testing and trying again.
Event 4 — Digital strategy with Cwmpas
Marc Davies also led the week’s closing event on Digital Strategy. The Digital Strategy for Wales is a little over a year old, launching in March 2021. Wales is considered behind the other UK nations in implementing digital, but with that being said, a lot of work is going into progressing digital development here in Wales. We can also benefit from the wealth of resources already out there from organisations such as Catalyst, SCVO, Third Sector Lab, Charity Digital, NCVO and Heritage Digital. These can help us speed up our development (when utilised and adapted to suit the needs of individual organisations of course!).
Marc took the participants through what a ‘good’ strategy looks like in a Welsh context:
· to be aligned with organisational strategy,
· to be short and about cultural as well as digital change,
· to be responsive, agile and user led.
The idea of ‘baby steps’ was encouraged with this process, it won’t be an overnight success by any means. There will always be some barriers that will require an extra push to overcome, like lack of funding, lack of time and lack of skills. As part of Newid, Cwmpas will be developing resources to support organisations with developing their digital strategy and planning the next steps in their digital journey.
The event was drawn to an end with some food for thought: to know your priorities, include those who aren’t tech savvy in the process, set up systems with sustainability in mind and to think about the impact on business continuity.
Check out summaries of the rest of the event series in our next blog.
[1] Chief Digital Officer (Welsh Government), Chief Digital Officer (WLGA) and Chief Digital Officer (NHS Wales)
