With the combination of sensitive data records, funds, and limited cyber security resources to protect them, charities can look like prime targets for cyber criminals. The 2024 Cyber Breaches survey from the UK Government revealing that around a third of charities identified cyber breaches or attacks in the last 12 months.   For today’s podcast, sponsored by PIR.org, the organisation that looks after the .org domain name globally, we are joined by Vinita Srivastava (Executive Leader - Product...

​​As the world moves from in-person to remote, how can charities build lasting relationships with supporters? ​The picture might seem a bit bleak. Data regulation has impacted outreach opportunities. The pandemic and advances in technology have resulted in changes in supporter behaviour. Trends show a decline in the number of people supporting charitable causes.  ​But the loss of old opportunities presents new ones – charities have an opportunity to rethink how they engage with supporters....

The world has gone digital, and tin many ways, that’s great: processes are quicker and easier than ever before, information is transmitted seamlessly across the globe, and new opportunities have been unlocked far and wide. But what about those who can’t experience these numerous benefits?  People of any age and socio-economic background can be excluded from using devices and the internet, meaning that everyday tasks such as accessing information, staying in touch with friends and family, and...

During the cost-of-living crisis, many supporters have had to review how much they can continue to support their chosen charities, often causing a drop in income. With the number of lottery players in the UK still growing, Your Hospice Lottery and Make a Smile Lottery explain how offering supporters something in return (such as a chance to win money), can help retain and grow income during times when all charities are feeling the financial strain of rising costs.  The session, a recording...

We might have to whisper...but 2024 looks…promising. Giving trends suggest an uplift. The economic outlook is encouraging, with lower inflation, wage growth, and more spending power. There is a strange feeling in the charity sector, one that we have not felt for years: optimism.  That optimism will shift fundraising. We still expect flexible giving to deal with the cost-of-living. We still expect ‘inverse giving’ to dominate and we expect charities to move away from big social media...

It’s been a year of perpetual crises: the hangover of the health crisis, the emergence of geo-political crises, national and international economic crises, and an environmental crisis. Charities had to navigate various issues, overcome myriad threats, and practice resilience in the face of all challenges. But, in the face of such challenges, we’ve also seen so many positives. Charities have shifted towards flexible giving, found innovative solutions to service user demands, embraced new and...

Our 2023 Climate Action campaign may be coming to an end in December, but that doesn’t mean we should stop acting on climate change. Indeed, climate change won’t stop acting on us.  Our survey ‘Climate change in the UK charity sector’ found that more than four in five charities are concerned about the impacts of climate change but the majority rate the sector at a six out of ten in how well they are enacting sustainability in their organisations.  Clearly there is still work to be done....

This year, Charity Digital has been focused on climate action, aiming to raise awareness about climate change, show charities how digital and tech can help them to minimise their carbon footprint, and empower charities to take meaningful action to protect our planet. But we, along with many other charities, are still trying to improve our environmental impact. Our survey found that although 88% of charities are concerned about climate change, only 48% are taking serious action to address it....

More than four in five charities see digital as more of a priority as a result of the pandemic, according to the 2022 Charity Digital Skills Report. Demand for digital services has increased, with 72% of charities actively working towards progressing with digital through tools, skills, infrastructure, and more. But what, exactly, does progress look like? The charity sector has grown significantly in confidence when it comes to basic digital skills, but the digital world changes rapidly and...

Web accessibility is increasingly a priority for the charity sector in efforts to reach more people and improve the lives of the people they serve. Around 1.3 billion people around the world experience significant disability, according to the World Health Organisation, representing one in six of the world’s population, many of whom are our beneficiaries, donors, volunteers, employees, leaders, and supporters. Web accessibility is essential to enable everyone to participate in your...

Content people are a nervous bunch. We write in darkness, surrounded by books, shrouded in mystery. Many of us picked our roles precisely because we did not have to speak, or because we could speak through writing. But, on occasion, writers and editors have good ideas. And, on even rarer occasions, we might want to share those ideas, with other people, in the actual real world. The Charity Digital Content Team wanted to improve our delivery on podcasts, reduce our nerves and eliminate stage...

More than four in five charities are concerned about the impacts of climate change, according to Charity Digital’s recent survey, Climate Change in the UK Charity Sector. Yet only 52% of charities say environmental sustainability features in their strategy. But what do these findings actually say about the charity sector? Charities may well be concerned about climate change, but are they taking meaningful action to address it? If not, what is preventing them from doing so?  In this podcast,...

2023 has proved another challenging year for the charity sector. The Cost-of-Living crisis has provoked a Cost-of-Giving crisis, meaning many charities have been faced with less funds to deal with increased demand. But, as ever, we’ve seen charities prove their resilience with a host of novel fundraising solutions and creative forms of service delivery.  In 2024, charities will go even further. They may flex their muscles with flexible giving, invert expectations with inverse giving, prove...

How you speak to your audience matters. From building trust, to being clear, showing respect and sensitivity, and differentiating your charity from others, it’s important that you get it right. Using the right tone of voice is about being intentional with your words in order to build the best relationships possible with service users, supporters, and other stakeholders. However, communications can often take a back seat in the charity sector, with crisis after crisis exacerbating more...

Content is ever evolving, and it is now evolving at rapid speed. The content of today looks drastically different to the content of five years ago. And content in five years will look drastically different to the content of today. We want to discuss how it might look, the main changes that may take place, the core trends that are set to define the future of content, and so much more. Our guests discuss the unstoppable growth of video content and livestreaming, the mirroring effect of content...

Three years after the beginning of a global pandemic, and now months into a cost-of-living crisis that shows little signs of slowing, the 2020s have been a tumultuous time for the charity sector. As we leap from crisis to crisis, charities face a rise in demand for their services, concerns over their ability to fundraise, and rising costs themselves in order to keep the lights on. For those working in the charity sector, meeting these challenges over a long period of time can lead to...

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has already long impacted our lives, but recent developments in the technology have created a frenzy around its possibilities and risks. While some are excited about saving time and money with new AI technologies, others are sceptical and would much rather proceed with caution. The most common ways AI is used in 2023 are to respond to people via text or email, answer financial questions, plan a travel itinerary, craft an email, prepare for a job interview, write...

There are lots of theories about life working in the charity sector. We’ve heard that it provides huge job satisfaction, that it is bureaucratic and frustrating, that it pays badly or well, that the benefits are few or many. Surveys suggest a sense of fulfilment, but also point to an unhealthy work culture, high expectations to go above and beyond, and a poor work-life balance. So we thought we’d clear the air. We use our knowledge from working with people across the sector, our experience...

Content bots are a form of generative AI that create content in seconds. ChatGPT, Jasper, and various other platforms generate content at overwhelming speed, averaging around 20-30 seconds to respond, offering complete articles, lists of facts, and even poems. The content bot can provide huge benefits to charities. But they also pose substantial risks, not just in terms of your organisation, but in terms of wider social problems they create. So charities need to practice caution when using...

Climate change is a process that affects all life on Earth, and many charities are working hard to defend humans, animals, and other life from harm as it progresses. Campaigning is one method these organisations can use to do so. Although 89% of organisations regard campaigning as a vital way to achieve their mission, many don’t “feel free” to speak out, due to fear of public backlash, fear of political backlash, fear of breaking rules, and fear of losing funding. In this podcast, join our...

Tech has always played a paradoxical role in the history of climate change: as both problem and solution. Tech is one of the main drivers of greenhouse gas emissions and pushes us further into the climate crisis. Tech also helps us to limit our emissions and deal with the various impacts of the climate crisis. The choice rests on humans and our collective choices. We need to ensure that, now and in the future, we use the right tech in the right way, reject catch-all and one-stop solutions,...

This podcast is sponsored by the Public Interest Registry (PIR), the non-profit organisation that powers the .ORG domain.  Looking after your cyber security is a constant process. Cyber threats grow more sophisticated, new tools to tackle them arrive on the scene, and charities must stay up-to-date in order to stay secure. In 2022, 30% of charities were able to identify a cyber attack that happened over the last year, with almost two in five of these attacks impacting their services and 19%...

Reports of the death of written content have been greatly exaggerated. Blogs were the second most created form of content in 2022, according to research from HubSpot, while reports from Statista found that How To articles were the most popular content formats.  Whether it’s a blog, website home page, or a press release, writing is essential for communicating with your audiences, for establishing your charity as an informational authority in its field, and for helping your organisation reach...

As a team, we are thinking a lot about climate action and how charities can get involved. Our 2023 Climate Action campaign aims to impart those findings to our audience. In this podcast, we think beyond why it’s important to talk about climate change to discussing how we and other charities can talk about climate change. We ask: how can charities talk about this complex issue in ways that are both accurate and make sense to their audience? Join host Lisa Chomette with guests Ioan Marc Jones...