Charity Digital Leadership Retro
We held another fascinating discussion with some of the charity sector’s top leaders in digital. Here’s the biggest opportunities and challenges they’re seeing at the moment.
1. New ways of working
Equalised power structures & international hiring
The power dynamic was skewed for an international org with a London base, in terms of who got to speak, how many projects people got etc — heavily weighted towards those in the office. With remote working that has balanced out — people literally have the same amount of space to take up now!
They have also hired more people internally from branches in other countries, which they should’ve been doing before as it rewards loyalty and brings a valuable perspective to decisions being made.
Ideas to maintain connections when working remotely
Working remotely has affected many peoples’ ability to build trust and communicate effectively with colleagues.
That being said, just because you’re in a room with people doesn’t make it an effective conversation or an engaging way to build trust.
A few ideas from the group to maintain connections and build an effective culture:
- Kitchen: somebody starts a video session everyday, once or twice a day. Anyone can pop in and won’t know who’s there, it’s the teams’ opportunity to try and meet people across the organisation.
- Coffee roulette: online filter puts you with random for online coffee chat. Donut is particularly good for this if you use Slack — https://slack.com/apps/A11MJ51SR-donut
- Cooking sessions went down well — but most only had two in the year
- Social zooms outside of hours aren’t very popular — everyone is too tired of their screen by that point!
- Film watch along via Whatsapp: there’s no pressure to be on screen, gifs and reactions. Disney+ even has a tool that allows you to start watching a film all at the same time and you can do the same on Netflix with Teleparty (netflixparty.com)
- Daily check ins are largely valued. Sometimes it can be frustrating but was less work chat and more office environment chat. Those that had recently started new roles really missed that.
Future considerations for an inclusive hybrid model
The whole group and their organisations have a dawning realisation that when we go back into the office, it won’t be the same. Most haven’t even started planning for it.
Many felt that the quality of their work has improved by being outside of an open plan office thanks to the focus it allows.
In the old world, the office had become the default social setting — reducing the time you spend with actual friends. Many were looking forward to the social burden of heavily socialising in your working environment being lifted.
For those that don’t drink, or have regular family commitments, there was also a feeling that it was a more equal playing field. There is less influencing going on in a pubs and bars — many hoped this would continue.
Overall, it is a less intimidating environment for those introverts who know they need to network with and influence people, now everything is done on zoom.
Managing work-life balance with specific rituals
There was a range of views on this. Some people felt that without the physical space of getting to an office, everything was more contained in their own head, and were finding it harder to switch off.
Others experienced the new ways of working as something that has allowed them to explore the benefits of owning their own time more. They felt able to sit down and plan their working week, ensuring it didn’t take over their whole life anymore.
Those with a more positive experience had tended to keep some of the rituals of commuting. This usually included having a specific start and end to each day, based around some time where you can reflect, even if for 10 minutes.
Overwhelming digital channels — just pick up the phone!
The tools that we all started using in the initial ‘Emergency’ situations have become adopted as standard.
This can lead to tense or difficult situations being managed through slack messages back and forth when in real life we would’ve just sat behind each other’s computer and dealt with it together. Everyone said that they’ve learned to just pick up the phone when things get tricky as it’s a much more effective way of sorting things out.
A book recommendation if you’re interested in arranging your week so it’s not constantly interrupted by emails / Slack / Teams messages etc: https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/308/308635/a-world-without-email/9780241341414.html
Organising diaries in a world of constant screen time
Many of the group discussed the mental and physical strain sitting on a day’s worth of video calls can take. A few ideas that people came up with to reduce the stress of it all:
- Start all meetings at 05 and finish 45 so you get time in between to reset and walk around
- Establish a team start and end of day, where people log off and aren’t expected to be on calls, email or Slack
- Implement a meeting free day
- Turn off self view whenever possible
- Choose certain sessions that you can turn your camera off for
- Reclaim, x.ai and Calendly are all great tools to help manage your diary — keeping space in it for important things like lunch!
Conferences are both dead and alive
A lot of people thought that conferences ‘were dead right now’. Whilst there has been an explosion of content, the vast majority of on-demand wasn’t being watched. The networking, meeting aspect of them simply hasn’t been replicated well enough online to make it worthwhile for most.
The counter to this, was from those at smaller organisations — they have found the accessibility of content that they would never have seen otherwise a huge benefit. Previously the chances of travelling to London for a day’s worth of sessions was impossible given budgets. Now they can watch industry leading speakers for a fraction of the cost and without any of the logistical challenges.
Others also thought that networking was actually easier in the digital world. Being placed in breakout rooms with a specific item to discuss and being able to see everyone’s names is much less intimidating for many than an open room of people to try and speak to.
Working from home is hugely different depending on your circumstances
Everyone had experienced the difference between those with comfy spare rooms and those that are sharing dining room tables or working from a bedroom. It was commented that most of the people calling for a remote working model in the future fall into the first group!
The best organisations had been responsive to this — providing office space if possible for those without effective home working set ups. Moving forward it was unclear how most were going to tackle a hybrid situation — is it remote first or office first? This is a question that all organisations will have to answer for themselves very soon.
2. Charity digital during the pandemic
Digital services have seen increased demand and don’t always have the capacity to meet it
Those that worked in digital all commented on the extra demand that’s been placed on them and their teams. Since the pandemic almost all services and fundraising have switched to be digitally led.
From running training on Zoom to building their own specific products to supporting Facebook fundraising, many digital teams didn’t have enough people to do it all. On top of that, prioritisation has been lacking given everything has been of equal, emergency importance.
Most said that this was starting to get better — with both digital and other teams getting better at managing workloads. However a lot are still feeling pressured to deliver more than ever before.
Some things that people are trying to get better at now the dust is starting to settle:
- Measuring the impact of activities — whether service delivery or fundraising
- Creating roadmaps to plan around
- Building leadership understanding of digital opportunities
- Making space to test and learn whilst also delivering fully formed services
- Managing the need for many of these services to be always on in a way that is scalable for people
Digital fundraising has come of age
Everyone said that they are seeing increased levels of trust in Facebook fundraising from the public. Some said that they couldn’t believe how well their online fundraising had done since the pandemic.
There are still lots of questions about how long term the support will be. With minimal access to data and ownership of the supporter experience, it remains to be seen whether charities can count on this support being with them in 12 months+
For those dealing with major donors, they had equally seen a switch to digital services to engage their audiences. For many it has actually been easier to see front line services through a virtual tour than it would be to access the sites physically due to safeguarding procedures.
Most don’t see a return to 100% physical events ever again.
