Website looking a bit tired and dated? Data outgrowing your shared drive spreadsheets or free software? Fundraising campaign needed to boost income in the next year? Or perhaps you're designing a new induction programme for volunteers? Maybe you've managed to convince senior leaders that something needs to happen, and even the whispers of possible budget have been mooted… but what do you actually need and how much might it actually cost? And even beyond that, who's got the knowledge you need to make this a success and who's going to be involved in implementing it?

This is an opportunity

In this 'Projects as a catalyst for change' toolkit, we've done something a little different. This is about introducing the principles of transformation via the practicalities of a project or product, and this can start at any level. So yes, this toolkit is for CEOs and directors, but it's also for middle managers – the heads of and managers, the fundraisers and campaigners, the lone wolf and the front line staff exasperated at still using paper processes when everything else in their life is done on their phone.

We've focused on examples like a new website or CRM, but these principles can adapt to any kind of project. The key is realising it's an opportunity for wider transformation and then taking the right steps to position it and deliver it in a way that will have long-term change.

It draws on interviews with over 50 leaders across the UK charity sector who have navigated these challenges first-hand. It also includes expert advice and guidance from the Charity Change Collective (CCC), drawing on our combined decades of experience working in and with organisations on transformation journeys.

It's a really tough time for the sector – operating deficits, underfunded contracts, governance gaps, weak technology systems and leaders stretched thin by firefighting. Charities are also navigating AI adoption, the growing need for their services, a complex and unprecedented economic and political landscape, and a continued digital divide.

Yet within these significant constraints, we found organisations achieving genuine transformation – not through massive budgets or wholesale restructures, but by treating their 'standard' projects as opportunities to build and embed new ways of working and planning.

Case Study

Let's start with a real life example

Principles

Principles of transformation

Throughout this toolkit and our CCC work, we refer to 'transformation' as the combination of people, processes and technology.

We use this model in the CCC to underline the importance of all three aspects of change; all three need to be prioritised as part of a transformation vision and – critically – the projects that underpin this.

This toolkit takes a holistic view of transformation, giving you practical advice that helps you to embed a people, processes and tools approach to the delivery of your projects and priorities.

The toolkit offers five ways to make the most out of planned projects:

Audience

Who this toolkit is for

This toolkit is designed for two audience groups who often need different things from the same transformation:

For CEOs and directors

You're responsible for the strategic vision, but may not be close to the day-to-day realities of project delivery. You need frameworks to assess whether proposed projects will genuinely advance your organisation's mission, guidance on how to structure governance that enables rather than blocks change, and what investment – in time, people, and budget – is realistic given your constraints.

You also need clear, jargon-free, project language and direction that you can use with your wider Director team and Trustees, enabling them to buy-in to your strategic vision and the operational delivery that sits behind it.

For heads and managers, or anyone leading or proposing a project

There's a project on the horizon and you want to make it a success, on launch day, but also in the years after. You can see the opportunity to do it properly, which means it's not a project done in silo that can't scale. But you're stuck – you need specific ideas and frameworks to help with this. You need to shape the case to senior leaders, create practical approaches that work within tight budgets, and strategies for building coalitions across siloed teams. You may also be navigating the politics of colleagues who feel threatened by new ways of working, or maintaining momentum when initial enthusiasm fades.

Context

How projects can be transformation catalysts

A website rebuild, CRM implementation, or even a team restructure isn't just a standalone deliverable – it's an opportunity to reflect on how your organisation actually works and to make meaningful change. These projects force conversations that might otherwise never happen, like:

• What is the problem that we are trying to solve?
• How do different teams describe what they do and need?
• What data do we actually have, or need?
• What do our audiences want and expect from us?
• How are we going to measure this?
• How does this link to other strategies we have/are creating?
• Who should be involved in creating this?
• How do we retain momentum?
• Why would other teams care about this?
• How do we fund it now and in the future?

The charity leaders we interviewed consistently described their projects as revealing hidden silos and assumptions.

The hidden costs of not transforming

Many organisations defer transformation because they feel they can't afford it. Yet the costs of maintaining the status quo are often hidden: staff time spent on manual workarounds, supporter frustration with disconnected systems and dated integrations, missed opportunities because teams don't share information and the steady erosion of relevance as user expectations evolve.

The New Reality research found that organisations with genuine digital integration – where technology and ways of working are woven throughout – deliver better outcomes at lower cost. This remains true. But integration doesn't happen by installing new software. It happens by using project work to build new muscles for collaboration, learning, and adaptation. And doing this through a people-centred approach that foregrounds skills, building understanding and creating trust between teams as part of collaboration.

What good looks like

Organisations that successfully use projects as transformation catalysts share common characteristics:

• Projects meet their goals: You see value in what you have delivered in the short, medium and long-term because of the way that the project was set-up, run and measured.
• Cross-functional ownership: Projects aren't handed to a single team to deliver. Instead, collaboration through working groups or ambassadors empower and bring together people from across the organisation, creating new relationships and shared understanding.
• User-centred approach: Decisions are grounded in evidence about what service users, supporters, and staff actually need, not assumptions based on internal politics, historical practice or 'vibes'.
• Senior sponsorship: Leaders visibly back the work, removing blockers and modelling the collaborative behaviours they want to see. The risk sits with the sponsor.
• Realistic ambition: The scope is achievable within actual constraints, building momentum through early wins rather than attempting wholesale change. Openness to failure is also important – you learn from it.
• Fit for purpose partners: The organisation works with expert agencies and consultants to deliver the project in a partnership model, where they are open to new ideas, healthy challenge and recognise that they have a shared goal of making the project work in the best way possible.
• Upskilling: The organisation identifies skills and capability gaps and defines how to close these, with an approach grounded in personal L&D alongside organisational impact.
• Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI): The project should contribute to the organisation's DEI strategy (or kickstart one) and deliberately push this forward. Any large project investment is an opportunity to change the type of organisation you are and encourage people to think differently.

"10 years ago you needed 'digital' people – and lots of organisations have developed good products and engagement by doing that. Now you need the curious people who can help you test and learn your way into the future despite all the uncertainty."

Jonathan Simmons, CEO, NPC

For managers: building the business case

If you're proposing a project that could catalyse broader change, you'll need to make a compelling case to senior leaders who are stretched thin and may be sceptical of initiatives that require attention and money they don't have. Here's a framework that works:

Start with the pain

Connect your proposal to problems senior leaders already recognise. Don't lead with technology or process improvement; lead with impact and outcomes. If your website doesn't serve users well, frame this as people not getting the support they need. If your CRM doesn't give a unified view of supporters, frame this as relationship damage and missed income or impact. Aligning this to an organisational strategy strengthens your ask as it's more tangible for your senior team – how does it support income generation, growth, engagement, diversification?

Quantify where possible

Gather evidence and data before you propose solutions. How many hours do staff spend on workarounds? What's the drop-off rate on key website journeys? What user data will help you plan for the future? What service could be provided digitally to increase overall impact? This information makes abstract problems concrete and gives you a baseline to measure improvement.

Be honest about investment

Senior leaders have been burned by projects that exceeded their budgets and consumed far more attention than promised. Be realistic about what the project will require – not just money, but time for senior decision-making, staff time away from other duties and the organisational energy needed to embed changes. Think about the long-term too, not just a shiny thing on launch day. As a senior leader, ask yourself what you're happy for people to stop doing to take part in this project. This can't be an unachievable add on to their already packed role.

Show the broader prize

Frame the project as the start of something larger. A website rebuild isn't just a new website – it's the beginning of understanding your users better, of cross-team collaboration, of data-informed decision-making. Be explicit about these secondary benefits while being clear they're not automatic.

Soil Association found that something as simple as a name change could help shift colleague attitudes. Renaming their 'Website project' to the 'Strategic replatforming project' signalled that this wasn't a contained piece of work sitting within the Digital team – it was a large scale initiative with real impact implications. That shift in language – along with other nudges – helped shift the culture and get colleagues engaged.

For CEOs and directors: evaluating transformation/project proposals

When staff propose projects with transformation potential, consider:

1. Is this solving a real problem? Beware of solutions looking for problems. The best catalysts address genuine pain points that connect to your strategic priorities.
2. Do we have capacity to do this properly? A half-done project is worse than none – it consumes energy without delivering benefits, creates cynicism about future initiatives and is often more costly in the long-term.
3. Who will own this? Transformation requires someone with enough authority to convene across silos, enough time to stay close to the work, and enough political capital to navigate resistance.
4. What will we learn? Even if the project delivers its immediate objectives, what new capabilities or understanding will we develop? The learning may be more valuable than the deliverable.
5. Is the timing right? Transformation needs attention. If you're in crisis mode, survival comes first. If you're about to undergo other major changes, consider sequencing.

The Charity Change Collective Strategic Decisions and Leadership toolkit takes you through decision-making diagnostic tests to check the analysis, choices, buy-in, trajectory and learning opportunities of your organisation and project.

"Get the right people around you. 2 or 3 really good people who understand it and are resilient... who can stand up and tell the story of what it'll bring and why it matters."

Tracey Pritchard, Executive Director of Engagement and Income Generation, RSPCA

"You have to be constantly telling the story, everyone working in the open saying 'This is what we've done, this is what we've learned. And we got great results'."

Gareth Ellis-Thomas, Consultant and Former Director of Transformation and Technology, Prostate Cancer UK

Why silos persist

Organisational silos can form naturally over time, but often they're the result of structures, budgets and responsibilities. A fundraising team may prioritise increasing donations, while teams related to service delivery may focus on supporting beneficiaries. There can be a conflict here.

Silos also emerge from reasonable responses to pressures: teams focus on their immediate responsibilities, reporting lines create natural boundaries, and there's rarely time for the cross-team relationship-building that prevents isolation.

The practitioners we interviewed were clear: silos can't be wished away through restructures or mandates. They're broken down through shared work – projects that require teams to collaborate, creating new relationships and mutual understanding in the process.

Using discovery to reveal the whole organisation

A discovery phase at the start of any significant project is your best tool for breaking down silos. Done well, discovery involves representatives from across the organisation in understanding the problem before jumping to solutions. This creates shared ownership of both the challenge and the response.

Practical steps for inclusive discovery:

1. Map your stakeholders broadly. Don't just include the obvious players. Who touches the process you're improving? Who has relevant data? Who will be affected by changes? Who has tried to fix this before?
2. Conduct internal research. Interview colleagues as you would external users. What do they actually do? What information do they need but can't access? What workarounds have they developed?
3. Speak to your audiences. Find ways to speak to your users – your donors, campaigners, members, service users – and ask about their experiences and expectations.
4. Share findings openly. Discovery insights should go to everyone who participated, not just the project team. This builds trust and surfaces additional perspectives.
5. Create space for reaction and feedback. People need time to process what discovery reveals. Schedule follow-up conversations rather than rushing to solutions.

Cross-team working

The most effective transformation projects establish ways of working across teams, such as working groups that bring together people from different teams. These aren't just steering groups that meet occasionally to review progress – they're active participants in shaping and delivering the work.

Elements of effective working groups:

• Diverse membership: Include people from different teams, levels, functions, and perspectives. Junior staff often see realities that senior leaders miss.
• Clear mandate: The group should know what decisions it can make versus what needs escalation.
• Protected time: Participation should be recognised as core work, not an extra burden.
• Visible support: Senior leaders should visibly endorse the group's work and act on its recommendations.

Communities of practice – an evolution of a working group

What they are

A community of practice is a group of people, united by sharing the same practice. This 'practice' could be a skill, responsibility or an interest e.g. digital content or innovation.

Housing charity Shelter have communities of practice as a core part of their digital framework: "Communities of practice are non-hierarchical and long-term, and focus on how to accomplish something rather than what it delivers. They can define best practice, create learning opportunities, reduce duplication, or be used as support networks."

A community of practice usually includes people from across an organisation, removing hierarchies and departmental/team boundaries; breaking down silos is one of the key successes of communities of practice. Typically, the community includes operational roles that have delivery responsibilities, rather than leadership.

"The opportunity to share challenges out loud and have those challenges validated by others ('I find that a challenge too!') and then working together to find a solution is not just comforting, it's also empowering."

Megan McChesney, CBC Digital Labs

What can communities of practice do?

• Accelerate learning and development as they are a unique place where people who do the same thing are sharing and learning from and with each other.
• Create safe environments for learning, trying out new things and sharing experiences.
• Encourage members to start taking ownership for knowledge management and sharing – working together to build a better practice.
• Contribute to increased morale and motivation as people feel more empowered and that their learning needs are being met.

"The secret to a resilient, happy organisation is to be one that invests in learning and development of its people and its whole."

Emily Webber, Building Successful Communities of Practice

"To get to things like proper human-centred design and customer centricity, there's a journey that people who've grown up in traditional organisations really have to go on. Yes, they have expertise, but they have to place the needs of the customer first."

Gemma Sherrington, Former Interim CEO, Save the Children UK

Why user research matters

When you feel like you know your users, research with them seems like a luxury or an expensive box ticking exercise. It's not – it's a way of focusing the outcomes of your project or addressing holes in your knowledge or strategy.

The practitioners we interviewed consistently identified user research as the most valuable investment in any project, yet it's often the first thing cut when budgets tighten.

And it doesn't need to be expensive – it could start with a survey or talking to 5 people. But there should always be a plan to learn more so you can continue to adapt and scale.

Research isn't just about your external audience either. Internal stakeholder research is an ideal starting point for any project and internal user research doesn't just improve the immediate project, it builds organisational capability: staff who've participated in research think differently about their work, becoming more curious about impact and less attached to assumptions.

User research on a budget

"If all the money that had been spent on digital transformation had been spent on user research, quality user research, the entire sector would be in a better place and would have transformed itself quicker."

James Gadsby Peet, Director of Digital and Strategy, William Joseph

Formal user research requires resources some charities don't have. But there are approaches that deliver genuine insight without major investment:

• Talk to five people. Just five user interviews can reveal a varied and diverse number of usability issues for products, and can surface fresh insight on everything from marketing campaigns to services.
• Use existing touchpoints. You likely already interact with your users through email, social, services, events, etc. Can you add research questions to existing conversations?
• Analyse what you have. Website analytics, search logs, support tickets – these are all sources of user insight.
• Usability testing. Watch how users use the platforms or systems you have now so you can see the issues, barriers and frustrations.
• Test prototypes early. It's cheaper to test ideas before building them.
• Build research into routine. Regular, lightweight research is more valuable than occasional major studies.

If external user research really is out of reach, or you don't feel there's value because your new project is such a radical change, then make sure whatever you're building is an MVP and you can research and iterate on it as soon as you're able. Most crucially, be aware of confirmation bias – our temptation to listen more to user research findings that align with our assumptions than those that challenge them. Real value comes from active listening and being open to being wrong.

Involving diverse perspectives

User research should reflect the diversity of the people you serve. This isn't just about inclusion – it's about accuracy. If your research only captures certain voices, your insights will be skewed and your solutions may exclude or harm the people you're trying to help.

Practical approaches:

• Pay participants for their time – incentives mean you get a more diverse audience
• Offer multiple ways to participate: in-person, online, written, via advocates
• Check your recruitment channels – are you only reaching digitally-confident users or regular contributors?
• Share findings back to participants, showing how their input shaped decisions

"Fixed ideas about expertise will give way to adaptive capabilities. So-called soft skills will become the new hard skills over time because of the increasing rapidity of change."

Owen Valentine Pringle, Vice-Chair Elect, Charities Aid Foundation

Building capability across the organisation

For transformation to stick, capability needs to spread. This means investing in the skills of existing staff – not just training courses, but opportunities to practice new approaches in real work.

Approaches that work:

• Learning by doing: Include diverse staff in project teams where they'll develop new skills through actual work.
• Internal communities: Create spaces for people interested in new ways of working to connect, share learning, and support each other.
• Reverse mentoring: Pair senior leaders with junior staff who have different expertise.
• Peer support: Pair people who can learn from each other.
• Protected time: Skill development requires time away from immediate pressures.

But people are busy with their own jobs?

You'll probably hear this at least once. It's true, but this is why embedding and not expecting is important. There should be an understanding supported by the senior team – and HR – that playing a part in a new product, process or strategy is a part of everyone's role.

Strategic hiring

Every hire is an opportunity to shift organisational culture. New staff bring fresh perspectives, challenge established practices, and model different ways of working. Yet many organisations hire reactively – filling gaps rather than building capability.

The practitioners we interviewed emphasised that digital, data, change management or other specialist transformation roles are most effective when they're positioned to work across the organisation rather than within a single team.

Questions before hiring:

• What problem are we solving? Be specific. 'We need digital expertise' isn't a job – it's a vague hope.
• What is the priority for this role? If your priority is data, get a data expert. If it's brand and content, get a content and brand person.
• Where should this role sit? Reporting lines shape impact. A transformation role buried in IT will struggle to influence the strategic decisions or programme delivery.
• What authority will they have? Responsibility without authority is a recipe for frustration.
• Who will support them? A lone change agent will burn out.

The Charity Change Collective Skills and Capabilities toolkit contains insights and examples of how organisations have driven impact through transforming their skills and capabilities, and advice on how to make change in your organisation.

When it works

The organisations that achieve genuine transformation share a common feature: senior leaders who actively sponsor change rather than merely approving it. This means more than signing off budgets – it means removing obstacles, modelling new behaviours, and staying engaged when things get difficult.

Elements of effective senior sponsorship:

• Anchor in organisational strategy: There is a clear line from the organisational goals to the project's objectives and outcomes.
• Visible engagement: Senior leaders should attend key meetings, ask questions, represent the work in relevant senior conversations and show genuine curiosity about the work.
• Political cover: When resistance emerges, sponsors actively manage it rather than leaving project teams to fight political battles.
• Resource protection: Budgets and staff time remain protected even when competing priorities arise.
• Decision-making: Sponsors support teams to make their own decisions where possible, and are available for timely input, unblocking work rather than becoming bottlenecks.
• Owner of risk and failure: Sponsors need to accept that the risk sits with them and failures can happen.

When it doesn't work

Equally common were stories of transformation efforts that stalled or failed due to governance problems.

Warning signs to watch for:

• Approval without engagement: A project is approved by the senior leadership team and budget allocated, but no trustee takes active interest in progress.
• Competing sponsors: Multiple senior leaders claim ownership with conflicting visions.
• Decision paralysis: Key choices are deferred, revisited, or escalated unnecessarily.
• Resource raiding: Project staff or budget are reassigned to 'more urgent' priorities.
• Scope inflation: Senior stakeholders keep adding requirements without adjusting timelines or resources.
• Distance and blame: The opposite of risk ownership – the sponsor blames the delivering team for failures without support.

Structuring effective governance

Good governance enables rather than constrains. Consider these core elements:

• Clear decision rights: Document who can decide what, emphasising autonomy for project teams within reasonable risk. This prevents unnecessary escalation and speeds delivery.
• Regular touchpoints: Short, frequent check-ins work better than long, occasional steering groups. Fortnightly is often right.
• Show-and-tell culture: Regular demonstrations of work-in-progress keep stakeholders engaged and surface problems early.
• Escalation paths: When blockers can't be resolved at project level, there should be a clear route to senior intervention.

What good agency relationships look like

The practitioners we interviewed consistently described their best agency relationships as true partnerships characterised by:

• Transparency and honesty: Both sides share challenges openly. The agency understands your real constraints – budget, internal politics, capacity – and you're honest about what's working and what isn't.
• Healthy challenge: Good partners push back when they think you're heading in the wrong direction. They bring expertise and aren't afraid to use it, even when it means difficult conversations.
• Shared goals: The agency cares about your outcomes, not just delivering their scope. They're invested in the project succeeding beyond launch day.
• Knowledge transfer: Great agencies don't create dependency. They build your team's capability as they work, ensuring you can maintain and evolve what they've built.
• Flexibility: Rigid contracts and fixed scope rarely survive contact with reality. Good partners adapt as you learn together.

Getting the most from external partners

1. Be clear about what you need. Before engaging agencies, understand whether you need strategic thinking, delivery capacity, specialist skills, or all three. Also think about your highest priorities: brand and design, content, campaign strategy and planning, tech – whether you have certain complexities or requirements. Different agencies excel at different things.
2. Be open to the expertise. Agencies should challenge you and give advice based on their experience. Listen to them and be open to changing your way of thinking or requirements. Likewise, you should challenge your agency and work with one that listens and adapts to your needs.
3. Share your constraints openly. Agencies can only help if they understand your real situation – including budget limitations, internal politics, and capacity constraints.
4. Give them access to stakeholders. Don't filter all communication through a single point. Let agencies hear directly from users and internal teams.
5. Be honest about feedback. If something isn't working, say so early. Good agencies would rather adjust than deliver something that doesn't meet your needs. A good agency will feed back to you too. This is collaborative working.
6. Plan for after they leave, or what ongoing support looks like. From the start, think about how you'll maintain what they build. Good agencies will help you build this capability.

Choosing the right partners

When selecting agencies or consultants, look beyond portfolio and price:

• Do they ask good questions? Partners who want to understand your challenges before proposing solutions are more likely to deliver what you actually need.
• Do they challenge you? If they agree with everything in the first meeting, they may not bring the fresh perspective you need.
• Can you imagine working closely with them? You'll be spending significant time together. Cultural fit matters.
• Do they have relevant sector experience? Charity sector experience can help, but fresh perspectives from other sectors can be valuable too.
• Are their values aligned with yours? Your partners should act as an extension of your organisation, following the same values – whether that's valuing diversity, acting to support environmental sustainability or operating in a way that follows your brand values.
• What do others say? Ask past clients specifically about how the agency handled challenges and disagreements.

Tools & Frameworks

Practical tools and frameworks

There are a million resources and tools to help you on your way to delivering the perfect project, but we think these are ones to really help you get unstuck, be informed, and make that tangible business case:

Digital maturity assessment

Digital maturity is an assessment framework that measures digital strategy effectiveness. The methodology looks beyond performance data and KPIs and instead measures the how; your people, processes, channels, capabilities, skills and ways of working.

There are several definitions of digital maturity, the digital agency William Joseph uses this:

"Reaching digital goals that are linked to organisational goals. A continuous process, including digital channels, content, capabilities, skills and projects. The process is iterative, with reflections at each stage and realistic milestones for each stage of maturity."

A strong digital culture, shared understanding and alignment on cross-organisational goals are fundamental to achieving high digital maturity. Likewise, silo-working, lack of understanding and support, and low digital skills across teams leads to a weak one.

Some of the benefits of digital maturity include: a consistent language and way of framing 'good' for digital across the organisation; a clear way to measure digital that does not require in-depth knowledge, skills or experience with digital tools, platforms or metrics; and creating a starting point for your strategy journey that can be reviewed year-on-year using the same parameters.

There are several ways to assess digital maturity, depending on your budget and organisational needs. And there are also different ways of assessing digital maturity based on where you're at in your journey, with one way being to use a standardised approach to benchmark yourself against others and another being a more bespoke approach that focuses on where you're at now as an organisation and where you want to get to.

We recommend the following:

NCVO tool

This is a good entry to digital maturity where you can familiarise yourselves with the terminology and approach. One benefit is that it is free to access. However, it was created in 2016 and has not been updated and so therefore doesn't reflect the trends and reality of digital change and external landscape since then.

Go to the NCVO tool →

Benchmarked assessment

Digitalmaturity.org is an assessment tool that measures digital strategy effectiveness. The methodology looks beyond performance data and KPIs and instead measures the how; your people, processes, channels, capabilities, skills and ways of working.

The Digitalmaturity.org framework has 17 core competencies for digital maturity grouped into four areas: Attitudes and Foundations (Culture, Leadership, Collaboration, Innovation, Budget); People, Skills, and Processes (Capacity, Recruitment, Learning, Project Management); Systems and Information (Technology, Data, Reporting, Insights); and Outputs and Experiences (Communication, Optimisation, Internal Systems, Service Delivery).

Data from the assessment is used to create averages, statistics, graphs and detailed breakdowns of your digital maturity results. These results can be segmented by team and across time as well as benchmarked against other organisations.

Go to Digitalmaturity.org →

Custom model

Anchoring your digital maturity assessment in your organisational strategy means that digital change is always moving in the same direction as the wider organisational needs, and that digital becomes a true enabler of change.

A custom model can be used across the life-cycle of your organisational strategy to track progress alongside digital, fundraising, marketing and online service performance.

Find out more about a custom model →

Content maturity

Content Maturity is an alternative way of looking at organisational capabilities and culture. It sees content not as a subset of 'digital', but as a different lens into how well your organisation functions and how ready it is for the future.

How good is your organisation at creating and maintaining effective content, efficiently? How mature is your content culture? What about your structures, tools and workflows?

The Content Maturity tool analyses where you are and gives a rich set of insights into your organisation's current content capabilities and how you could improve.

Sign up to use the tool on your own, or to get a special link that your whole team can use, so their answers are collated in one place, email hello@contentmaturity.com

Go to the content maturity tool →

Content and data audits

Before building anything new, understand what you have. Content and data audits are unglamorous but essential as they reveal duplication, gaps, and inconsistencies that would otherwise undermine new systems.

A digital content audit typically covers:

• What content exists and where (websites, social media, databases and systems)
• Who owns and maintains each piece of content
• How often content is accessed and by whom
• What's accurate, outdated, or duplicated
• What your audiences need and expect from your content
• Gaps – what information do users need that doesn't exist?

You can try using this Content Health Checker for your content audit.

Go to the Content Health Checker →

A data audit typically covers:

• What data you hold and in which systems
• Data quality: completeness, accuracy, consistency
• How data flows between systems (or doesn't)
• Who can access what, and whether that's appropriate
• Compliance with data protection requirements

The Charity Change Collective Data and Measurement toolkit goes through how to assess, manage and make the most of your data.

Journey mapping

Journey maps visualise how people interact with your organisation over time. They're useful for identifying improvements, but also a powerful tool building shared understanding and driving longer-term change. You can see the steps a user takes, the barriers, the opportunities of that journey, but you can also see how every step and goal has a knock on: where content needs more consideration, or there's a heavier data requirement that means more manual workarounds. You can also see where cross-team involvement adds value or there needs to be more testing, for example. Most of all, a journey map can evolve into something that shows end to end service delivery for both external and internal users.

Creating effective journey maps:

1. Choose your focus. Map a specific user group or persona completing a specific task – not everything for everyone. This can be internal users too.
2. Base it on research. Journey maps should reflect reality, not assumptions.
3. Include emotions. Capture how people feel at each stage – frustration, confusion, relief, satisfaction.
4. Show touchpoints. Where do users interact with your product or organisation?
5. Identify pain points. Where do things go wrong? Where do users drop off or struggle?
6. Spot opportunities. Where could small changes make a big difference to user experience?

Troubleshooting

How to spot when things aren't working

Transformation is hard. Projects stall, resistance emerges, momentum fades. The practitioners we interviewed were honest about failures as well as successes. Here's their advice for common challenges:

"We can't get senior buy-in"

This is the most common barrier. If you're struggling to engage senior leaders, consider whether you're speaking their language. Frame proposals in terms of mission impact and organisational priorities, not technology or process. Quantify the cost of inaction. Find allies who already have senior ear. Start smaller – demonstrate value before asking for bigger investment.

"Other teams won't collaborate"

Resistance to collaboration often reflects genuine concerns – worry of extra work and burden, scepticism about benefits, or historical bad experiences. Listen to understand the real objections. Look for quick wins that demonstrate value to reluctant partners. Involve resistors in shaping the approach rather than presenting finished plans. Sometimes you need to start with willing teams and let success attract others.

"We don't have enough resources"

Resource constraints are real but can become excuses for inaction. The question isn't whether you have enough resources for ideal transformation – it's whether you have enough for meaningful progress. Reduce scope rather than quality. Focus on the changes that will have the most impact. Document the trade-offs you're making so senior leaders understand what additional resource would enable.

"The project keeps changing scope"

Scope creep kills transformation projects. Establish clear governance for change requests. Quantify the impact of additions – not just cost, but timeline and competing priorities. Create a 'parking lot' for good ideas that shouldn't be in this phase. Sometimes you need to pause and replan rather than accommodating endless changes.

"We've lost momentum"

Momentum fades when benefits feel distant or obstacles feel insurmountable. Break work into smaller chunks with visible progress. Celebrate wins, however small. Reconnect with the original purpose – why did this matter? Consider whether the approach needs adjustment or whether you're facing temporary resistance that will pass.

"Staff are resistant to change"

Resistance often indicates legitimate concerns that haven't been addressed. Are people worried about their jobs? Do they not understand why change is needed? Have they been burned by previous initiatives? Listen before dismissing concerns. Involve resistors in shaping solutions. Acknowledge what's being lost as well as what's being gained. Some resistance reflects problems with the change itself – be willing to adapt.

"We don't have the money"

Budgets are always tough, so work within your means. For now. Your business case needs to be a solid start, whether that's £10,000 or £100,000. Use it wisely. The investment now will fund the MVP (Minimum Viable Product). If you can focus on priorities, measure outcomes and iterate small to make improvements, you can make the case for longer-term investment and change.

Take the CCC projects as a catalyst for change self-assessment

Before diving into the action steps, take the CCC self-assessment to understand where your organisation currently sits.

Take the self-assessment →

How to structure the project and prioritise

Transformation can feel overwhelming. Here's a practical starting point:

Appendix

Ten principles for transformation through projects

Warning signs checklist

Watch for these indicators that a project is at risk:

• Senior sponsor disengaged or unavailable
• Decisions being deferred, revisited, or escalated unnecessarily
• Scope expanding without adjusting timeline or resources
• Working group membership shrinking or meetings being cancelled
• User research being cut or deprioritised
• Staff time being redirected to 'more urgent' priorities
• Key stakeholders not responding to communications
• Progress updates becoming more about process than outcomes

Conversation starters

Use these questions to open discussions about transformation:

• "What do we know about how our users experience our services?"
• "When did we last fundamentally question how we do things?"
• "What would we do differently if we were starting from scratch?"
• "Which teams should be working together more closely?"
• "What's stopping us from making changes we know we need?"
• "How do we currently measure whether what we're doing is working?"
• "What skills do we need that we don't currently have?"

Between us, we bring hands-on experience across the areas that matter most in charity change:

We're a collective of practitioners who work with charities individually and together, bringing the right mix of experience to the challenges nonprofits are facing. Whether at the start of the change journey or deep in the middle of it, we've been there.

What connects us is a shared belief that transformation isn't about any one of these things in isolation. The charities we've seen succeed are the ones that work across all of them — people, process and technology together.

All our events, toolkits and writing are built on this shared belief.