Digital Needs of the Welsh Third Sector: Newid’s 2024 Discovery Report

We have published a report of our findings and conclusions based on our research. You can download the full report as a PDF or you can read the report online. 

We took inspiration from the brilliant Charity Digital Skills Report. Their work provides an overview of digital skills, attitudes and behaviours in the Third Sector across the UK. For our research, we wanted to focus specifically on Welsh Third Sector Organisations and have an in-depth look at their challenges, needs and attitudes towards digital. So we spoke with eleven decision makers from charities across Wales with varying levels of digital maturity and size to learn more.  

Through our conversations we heard 

1. Challenges Third Sector Organisations in Wales are facing 
2. What is taking time away from supporting their service users or beneficiaries 
3. Issues digital can help resolve 
4. Challenges digital can’t help with 
5. How Third Sector Organisations are building services 
6. Third Sector Organisation’s understanding of digital 
7. If there was a difference between organisations of different levels of maturity 
8. Aspirations for how Third Sector Organisations could look digitally in 5 to 10 years 

Summary of what we learnt

Strain on the sector 

Organisations face increased demand for their services, compounded by the current cost of living crisis and rising needs of service users. This strain is exacerbated by limited resources and oversubscribed public services. We were told about deteriorating mental health, people becoming increasingly isolated, fewer volunteers and a lack of sustainable funding. 

Admin burden 

A worrying trend emerged of organisations spending a disproportionate amount of time on administration. Outdated systems, inefficient processes, and reporting requirements got in the way of organisations from being able to deliver their core work with service users. We heard that digital can help but has also become a burden because of outdated systems, but organisations are struggling to find the time to resolve this.  

Capacity to innovate 

Not having the time to innovate or rethink things was the most commonly shared barrier to digital transformation. In smaller organisations, they lacked staff capacity and or skills to implement the right solutions and in larger organisations they suffered from multiple systems, over-complicated processes and duplication of data. Most organisations recognised there was a better way of doing things (which added to the frustration), but they didn’t feel they had the time, space and in some cases skills to implement change.  

Digital skills  

Digital skills and confidence are also barriers for some organisations. Whilst some organisations are digitally mature, some shared they lacked basic digital skills such as using Teams, online calendars or connecting to a printer.   

Funding  

Funding constraints result in limited capacity to invest time and resources in digital transformation. Organisations struggle with securing sustainable funding, especially for core costs. There is little funding available to help organisations to do the internal work needed to improve and rethink their systems and service delivery.  

Hope 

Despite these challenges, there was an appetite and eagerness to learn and embrace digital. There is a huge opportunity here to use digital to support organisations to streamline operations, improve efficiency, and ultimately free up time.  

The sector needs support with digital 

Due to the current context people are working in, it’s vitally important to provide advice, guidance, support and solutions that are relevant to Welsh Third Sector Organisations.

We’re using the findings from our research to inform how we support the Welsh Third Sector. 

Prototyping Solutions 

From our analysis, we came up with three things to help the Third Sector. 

• A digital maturity scale, adapted from one produced by the Charity Digital Skill’s report team
• A template CRM that organisations can use, accompanied with guidance on how to use it
• A self-assessment tool that allows organisations to see where they are on their digital journey and the practical next steps they can take  

Thank you to all the people who gave their time to participate in this research.