Following years of scandals, as we stand at the beginning of a new decade, what should sector leaders be focusing on? The Charity Sector Data Store already holds over 1500 completed questionnaires and offers insights into key areas to focus on, where we could achieve more realatively easily and at low cost, some of which may surprise you.  

Those using the system report that the weakest functional areas are strategy, communications and fundraising. However, it may come as a surprise to some that we’re actually quite good at compliance and keeping people safe from harm, particularly the regulated charities, such as care, education and hospices. We’re also quite good at managing finance. The long standing and very serious failings in some of our very large charities, don’t appear to be representative of the sector as a whole. 

Overall, the 2019 results are broadly comparable to the 2018 data available, suggesting that whilst real progress has been made in some areas and by some organisations, overall the situation is largely unchanged. 

The lack of strategic preparation is particularly concerning, because lack of realism in planning and sustainability are also reported areas of weakness. An economic downturn would spell disaster for many. However, whilst lack of resources is a major issue, the data shows there is a great deal that can be done to build resilience, without more funding. In particular, ensuring we're aware of relevant issues in the outside world, is a key component of any good strategy, particularly during times of change (like now), but not enough of us are doing it. Related key issues include more focus on identifying and evaluating alternative options to increase impact and ensuring that plans and targets are realistic and cost effective. No doubt, securing more funding will remain a high priority, but funding is in short supply. Whereas making sure that the funding we do have is used as effectively as possible offers substantial opportunity to achieve more.   

Perhaps surprisingly for some, the weakest Charity Governance Code area isn’t diversity, albeit the lowest scored metric of the nearly 500 on the system was encouraging under-represented groups, in recruiting board members. The weakest areas overall were organisational purpose and board effectiveness. If your board hasn’t reviewed its strategy and its own effectiveness recently, now would be a good time to do so. And, in terms of keeping people safe from harm, whilst good overall, many boards still don’t have effective oversight of safety issues and whistle blowing.   

Communications is the lowest rated area, with 33 of 43 indicators at amber. There are lots of opportunities for charities to achieve a great deal more, often fairly easily and at low/no cost. The challenges around digital are well known and too many charities are still missing out on opportunities such as contactless, text donations and the Google Ads Grant, and even in using basic analytics. All 6 of the website assessment metrics are amber, including for fundraising and cost effectiveness. This suggests potential to not only achieve more, but also be better off financially in doing so. Perhaps more surprising, are the weaknesses around core communications. The lowest rated communications metric was having clear, powerful messages that engage audiences, with having realistic outcomes and clarity on what these were, also opportunities to achieve more. Building on digital offers real opportunities in 2020, but getting the basics right is an essential 1st step in exploiting digital and growing fundraising income.   

Forty of the 64 areas are assessed at amber. Whilst having a sufficiently large and engaged pipeline of funders is an issue will surprise no-one, the fact that it was only 8th bottom might.  A key opportunity to improve is in investing in developing fundraising skills and understanding, not just within fundraising teams, but more widely and not least at board level, where trustees need to be more actively engaged. There are also opportunities in how charities identify and engage lapsed, existing and potential future funders, and in assessing the merits of using increasingly accessible technology options, such as those in communications above. The lowest rated metric was having a CRM system that is easy to use, provides the functionality and reporting to exploit data well, and which is also cost effective.

What should we do about this?

Rated 9/10 by its users, the CEF online toolkit, its resource base (the largest in the charity sector) and the quality mark are all completely free and enable any non-profit to increase its impact, financial resources and overall performance.  It takes 2 minutes to register here.