Why change?

Our Vision

What is the long term vision for what you want to achieve with this campaign?

More sustainable transformation in the sector. A more impactful and adept, not-for-profit sector which can survive and scale to realise their mission in an increasingly complex digital age.         

What needs to change?

Based on the problems we’ve identified that contribute to the current situation, what needs to change?

We need to move from a not-for-profit sector that appears old fashioned and is stuck in industrial structures and ways of working, making it slow to respond to the needs of supporters and beneficiaries in the 21st century to a  more impactful and adept, not-for-profit sector which can survive and scale to realise their mission in an increasingly complex digital age.         

How can we create that change?

Our research has highlighted a number of systemic issues plaguing the sector. Through impact and effort analysis we have identified the levers we can push and areas where we can deliver solutions that work through co-design with nonprofit leaders. They are: 

1. Frame and communicate the value of organisational transformation to not-for-profit leadership

• Articulate the burning platform and show organisational transformation is needed to achieve your mission

• Create a cross-sector narrative and inspirational examples to show the value of transformation

• Highlight/Provide guidance about the opportunities to deliver more impact through transformation

  2. Leadership: Developing confidence, knowledge and skills around transformation 

• Ensure senior leaders see the importance of, and take ownership of relevant transformation work

• Enable digitally (and data-)minded CEOs of the future

• Enable senior leaders to feel confident to lead their organisations to meet shifting needs and demands in the modern age

  3. Culture /  accountability / investment

• Help orgs build cultures and structures of accountability

• Create a connection between an ongoing investment in change and organisational success in the sector 

  4. Structure / ways of working

• Move orgs from decision making by the committee to collaborative decision making among experts close to the work from relevant parts of the organisation and based on data/ user-insights 

• Design a silo-busting model for how the departments work together to create an effective organisation

Who can help?

Who do we need to bring about this change? Who has influence? Who is affected? And who can we collaborate with?

• Not-for-profit change makers: executives, senior managers, boards 

• Digital leads in not-for-profits - middle management and down

• Any enablers e.g. finance and HR

What influences?

What relationships, trends or events currently have influence/help sustain the current situation or could shift it?

• Cost of living is fuelling a lack of thinking and investment in transformation, while increasing the pressure and need for organisations to transform…

• A legacy of organisational transformation being technology-focused without enough consideration of the cultural, process and people change management required to create sustainable shifts (e.g. CRMs)

• A buzz around emerging technologies like AI has piqued interest in technology amongst C-suite and Trustees - can be an opportunity to reset the narrative around the need for transformation 

Goals

What is the specific goal for this project?

Our goal is to shift the sector’s narrative on ‘digital transformation’ away from a focus on digitising and updating old technology to holistic ‘organisational transformation', where radical shifts in culture - transforming people, processes and technology - help us thrive in and respond to 21st century needs.

Objectives 

What do we need to do to bring this about?

• Provide the narrative of why this shift is important  (burning platform/change or die, benefits, opportunities)

• Understand what’s holding the sector back 

• Understand the mindset of not-for-profit leaders 

• Co-design solutions with sector leaders to effectively shift this mindset towards transformation of their organisations

• Provide support to leaders to embark on and lead this change

What’s the story?

What are the key elements of the new narrative we want to create?

Our organisations are losing strength and relevance as society transforms faster than they do.

The society has been transformed by digital technology, but also by Covid and the generational shift in the workforce and in our supporter base. All leading to the tension between the new power and the old power. 

We want to see a more effective, more efficient and more inclusive sector. We want to see organisations that can better realise their vision in an increasingly complex and challenging market, which is continuously changing with every technology advance. 

The answer to HOW we create this shift is in the hands of the sector. We are providing the analysis and the framework and working with leaders in the sector to design the solutions. 

Outcomes 

What does success look like?

• Not-for-profit leaders wanting to take part in co-design 

• An increasing number of people pilot the co-designed tools and feed back their lessons 

• An increasing number of invitations for us to talk about the process

• Commissions of our consultancy (individual and collaborative) by organisations to support them in their process

Indicators 

• Attendance numbers for our co-design workshops

• Certain role types attending our workshops (not just the coalition of the willing?)

• Number of people who agree to test co-designed solutions 

• Qualitative feedback from participants on the process and lessons learned from testing

• Invites for talks and presentations

• Visits to the website

• Email signups 

• Briefs sent to commission consultancy work 

• Unconnected third parties sharing our narrative unprompted

What do people need to do?

How can audiences and allies help bring about this change? What are our asks to them?

• Get involved in co-design

• Encourage and make space for people across your orgs to get involved

• Test pilot solutions coming out of the process

• Exchange your experiences with us and colleagues

• Design new solutions, including work on solutions to ‘how may we’ statements we didn’t pick

• Share what you are learning along the way

What do we need to do?

What are the key activities and tasks that we need to do to support people to take action and create a shift?

• Publish our process

• Organise co-design workshops and events 

• Feedback/reviews of tests of the tools we co-designed 

• Create resources overview that not-for-profit leaders can turn to

• Create networking opportunities 

• Share insights at events/ conferences 

Assumptions 

What assumptions have we made about how the system will respond? Why do we believe this plan will succeed? 

• Leadership is where the change needs to be initiated from  - this is a well known fact in the work of (digital) transformation

• Leaders need confidence to take forward transformation which comes from:

  • clarity on why transformation is important, why it isn’t just about technology, what the benefits and opportunities are 

  • tools which will help them demonstrate to others the importance of organisational transformation (or transition)

  • a safe space to test and exchange with like minded people

Risks

Why might this plan fail? What resistance could we face? Are there risks to us?

• We don’t get the level of response from senior leaders of not-for-profits that shifts the narrative

• We run out of energy to keep doing this

• We can’t make the case for (digital) transformation by co-design, what we’re asked for is research

• Leaders do listen but do not want/have the capacity to change how they operate, hence the shift is not happening. 

Tracking & measuring

What will we track and measure to show we are making progress towards our objectives?

• Number of attendees of the 11th June event (and from a range of roles and orgs)

• Number of people engaging w co-design

• Number of people taking co-design solutions to testing 

• Visits to website 

• Email signups and clicks 

• Qualitative feedback from workshops and leaders