Deloitte Digital Connect: A window into the world of a digital volunteer
Last November, 28 charities and social enterprises embarked on the second version of Deloitte Digital Connect, a programme developed by Deloitte and CAST to connect digital leads with expertise, advice and a network to support their digital development.
The six-month programme offers access to specialist workshops, masterclasses, mentoring, volunteer support and a peer community. Whilst some of the support is delivered by external experts, much of it is provided by Deloitte and CAST’s own specialists — as was the case with the workshops that kicked off the programme in November. The series of eight sessions included introductions to user experience, service design and user research, as well as prototyping, strategy and storytelling.
Each workshop was led by a Deloitte volunteer with particular experience in the field. Volunteers responded to a callout on Deloitte’s internal volunteer hub and shared their areas of expertise, so that these could be matched up as the programme was designed. One such volunteer was Molly Reid, a Senior Consultant who ran an interactive workshop on digital strategy. We caught up with Molly to find out about her motivations for taking part, her reflections on the experience — and her advice for anyone considering volunteering in a similar capacity.
Why did you decide to volunteer your expertise for Deloitte Digital Connect?
Molly Reid (MR): I always enjoy volunteering alongside my job so thought this would be the perfect opportunity to combine my interest in volunteering with what I can give back to charities from a business development point of view. I also understand that some charities have struggled shifting into the digital space and ways of working so I wanted to help with this!
Have you had experience of running training sessions with charities in the past? If so, how did this compare? If not, how did it feel running a charity-focused session for the first time?
MR: I haven’t run one of these sessions before but I really really enjoyed it. The team were so great in dedicating time to build the sessions and all the attendees were engaged and interacting across the two days. It felt great to be able to help with the knowledge we have and share with the organisations so they leave the sessions with clear next steps on how to create / drive their digital strategy.
What did you enjoy about the experience?
MR: I enjoyed having another focus in my day when building the content, knowing it was going to assist organisations that have signed up for support in digital strategy. I equally enjoyed the interactive workshops which enabled us to have a better understanding of unique organisations and the great impact they are having on others.
Has the experience given you any new insights into the social sector that you could share with us?
MR: Not necessarily new insights but a strong reminder that all organisations are at totally unique stages in their digital journey (even if they have been around for 10s of years), I met some who were still locking down their branding basics and others who wanted to focus more on their personalised communication strategies and customer segmentation! It was great that we were able to utilise the workshops to help organisations across different maturity levels and generate some ideas to take away that were relevant to them.
Would you do anything differently if you ran the session again?
MR: I think the audience would benefit from being divided up into “basic maturity” and “developing well” during the interactive workshop sections, as conversations were quite separate when I had two extreme differences in digital maturity because their recommendations didn’t necessarily relate to each other.
What would you say to a colleague who was considering volunteering their experience in this way?
MR: DO IT, such a great opportunity to give back in an area we specialise in and where the organisations are understaffed.
Discover 50+ digital resources shared with Deloitte Digital Connect participants at the Resource Hub, which is free and open to all. And if you’d like to connect to a volunteer digital expert yourself, take a look at Digital Candle, a service connecting charities needing advice with volunteer digital experts happy to share an hour of support, free of charge.
