VANEL works with organisations across North East Lincolnshire supporting them with their technology and digital issues. Our observation has been that technical skills, digital maturity and adoption of technological solutions is pretty low across our sector.
Gratifyingly most groups now at least have an email address (now ancient technology!), but many still lack a website (!!). Social media competence is patchy. Use of in house data systems vary widely. Few organisations create apps. Digital skills in volunteers, staff, management and boards differ but are generally low skills.
Technology has continued to march on and is leaving our groups even further behind. There is a really key question as to how important some of this technology is – either now, soon or in the future – to some groups. But managers, boards and committees need to really be considering where their organisations are heading (digitally) and deciding how they are going to get there.
NCVO publishes an annual report on “The Road Ahead” – looking at what is going to be affecting our sector in the next 12 months. From this they published an interesting article recently – “Tech Trends for the sector in 2018”. Read it here.
It’s interesting reading and it talks about the key trends our sector needs to be considering. But if you’re a small charity that barely maintains a website, how are you preparing for: big data, blockchain, artificial intelligence and more? (Have you even considered these?)
These are not science fiction. They are here now and large charities are embracing these tools. If we’re really serious about our causes, the beneficiaries we’re helping and the issues we want to overcome, then we need to be learning about these issues and deciding how we can embrace them.
If you want a quick idea of some of the issues, trends and activities around digital technology in our sector, then take a look at the tech update for March from Civil Society here. (Ignore the date – they’ve put 2017 rather than 2018 in the title!)
So?
So that’s all very interesting, but how can you and your organisation tackle this?
If there’s someone in your organisation interested and willing to follow through then that would be helpful. I often argue that charity boards/committees should have a “Technology Trustee” to ensure that the organisation is considering the impact of technology properly. There also should be commitment to improvement ‘from the top’.
Whether you are technology familiar or not I’m holding a half-day workshop at VANEL offices on 9th May 2018 (pm) with the title of “Facing up to a Digital World”. The session is only open to VANEL member organisation and is free to attend but booking is essential.
There will be a lot more details about the event next week. But in the session we’ll first look at the future – what’s arriving now or on the horizon and what does it mean. Then we’ll look at the present – where are we already with technology. Then it’s about the journey – how do we learn or change from where we are now to reach the future of technology using it better. It’s about helping you understand what all this technology means (blockchain anyone?), helping to decide what is, should or could be relevant, and then collectively coming up with ideas and approaches that might help us to get there.
It isn’t a training session – but hopefully you’ll learn lots. And we certainly don’t have resources or all the solutions to help support you with everything. But if we have a discussion around these ideas, perhaps it will help us all to benefit from technology a bit better.
Watch out for details, contact me (Karl) for more information or to book.