Now in its fifth year, the Charity Digital Skills Report is an annual barometer of digital skills, attitudes and support needs across the sector. The report tracks how these have changed year on year and analyses how other key building blocks for digital change are progressing, including understanding user needs, leadership, strategy and governance. The … Continue reading 60% of charities now have a digital strategy
7 Steps to Ensure and Sustain Data Quality
Before data science became mainstream, data quality was mostly mentioned for the reports delivered to internal or external clients. Nowadays, because machine learning requires a large amount of training data, the internal datasets within an organization are in high demand. In addition, the analytics are always hungry for data and constantly search for data assets … Continue reading 7 Steps to Ensure and Sustain Data Quality
4 tips for launching a successful data strategy
Becoming a data-driven fundraising organisation isn't as simple as amassing loads of data. If it were, more charities would already be reaping the rewards. A bald allusion to the Rime of the Ancient Mariner comes to mind, “Data, data everywhere, but not a drop to use.” Which data should we collect? Which department “owns” the … Continue reading 4 tips for launching a successful data strategy
Educational fundraising: how to structure your Regular Giving year
Whether you are working for a school, university, college or are outside the world of education: when creating a Regular Giving programme, there tend to be a number of pillars. Telephone campaigns, mass mail appeals and more bespoke approaches usually end up being core parts of your programme. Of course this depends on the data … Continue reading Educational fundraising: how to structure your Regular Giving year
How to design kick-ass pages and products by simply asking some questions
Every organisation wants to design digital solutions with a rich user experience. To do this, they need a thorough understanding of how people interact with technology and experience these solutions. As humans we are hardwired to spot certain patterns and responses in our surroundings. We use these responses and patterns when we are solving problems … Continue reading How to design kick-ass pages and products by simply asking some questions
Data doesn’t speak for itself: Why data storytelling is important
Almost all data is a recording of past events - what has happened before. People have to explore and analyze it to find historical truth, in the hopes it can reveal trends, inform the next direction to take, and act as a guide for the actions necessary to improve the future. For analysts in an … Continue reading Data doesn’t speak for itself: Why data storytelling is important
5 Ways to Make the Case for the Back Office in Fundraising
Perhaps the easiest answer is to acknowledge that leadership rarely has a fundraising background. But leaders are more likely to interact with the frontline officers. Their experience with fundraising is seeing and perhaps participating only in the cultivation and asking process. Their line of sight to the rest of the organization is limited. And it … Continue reading 5 Ways to Make the Case for the Back Office in Fundraising
How to Develop Effective KPIs
Of course Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) are important. But, when push comes to shove, KPIs are only really useful if you identify the right ones for your cause. They will only deliver mission-critical data if you use the KPIs and analyse what they tell you on a regular basis to inform your decision making. In … Continue reading How to Develop Effective KPIs
CASE-Ross Support of Education Survey 2021
The CASE-Ross report, released by the Council for Advancement and Support of Education (CASE), shows new philanthropic funds secured by UK and Irish highereducation institutions was £1.09 billion during the 2019-2020 reporting year. The new funds secured from philanthropic sources has remained higher than £1 billion for the third year running though average new funds … Continue reading CASE-Ross Support of Education Survey 2021
Cat People and Dog People
Are you a cat person or a dog person? The answer to that might impact your choice of a (potential) mate. The experiment on an online dating site randomized the same male in two different photos, one holding a cat, one not. Women then “swiped” to show interest. The guy with the cat was considered … Continue reading Cat People and Dog People
