Charity Tech Waltham Forest

Impact: need has increased, but reach has fallen

Despite attempts to transition digitally, the majority of local VCOs in the research have been unable to reach as many of their service users during the pandemic as they did pre-covid. On average, service usage has fallen 43% – we estimate this impacts 39,000 individuals in LBWF, most being young people, many of whom are vulnerable.

This contrasts with a national picture of many larger charities quickly pivoting services to digital delivery and extending their overall reach. Reduced reach is set against a backdrop of greater social sector need due to isolation, insecurity and anxiety across all age groups due to the pandemic. In our modelling, we estimate a doubling of need means only 29% of LBWF residents are receiving VCO services that can make a difference to their life.  

Regardless of the reduction in reach, the positivity, passion, commitment and creativity from each and every representative involved in the research must be celebrated. During the most challenging time in their history, there has been a very loud and powerful collective, ‘we can’ message. Organisations have never faltered with a dialogue suggesting that they just ‘couldn’t’ or that it was ‘too difficult’ to transition services. Despite the very real challenges of the virus, these Charities and CICs have balanced managing their businesses, with the additional well-being needs of staff and volunteers, as well as finding new ways to reach their users and offer an alternative programme against a backdrop of reduced resource, time and funding to do so.  Read Driving with the brakes on – a recognition and celebration of tenacity and positivity in Waltham Forest for more.

Necessity has seen unprecedented digital initiatives within local VCOs, such as on-demand videos, podcasts, online training/support resources, interactive workshops, digital storytelling, and content initiatives via social media and website platforms. The majority have targeted existing users, with a few serving new users. However, digital isn’t always the answer. Delivering what is powerful face to face, doesn’t always have the same impact digitally. Performing arts video conferencing in particular, suffers sound lag and quality issue.

Additionally, for some, service usage lacks the same engagement: ‘it’s just ‘not the same.’ is a regular complaint. Other less digitally engaged user groups present different challenges, such as ex-offenders and the elderly. The research found a mixed response to the quality of service enhancements, which contrasts with a more positive initial outcome to innovation within national charities. Unlike national charities, only a few local VCOs had planned technology roadmaps when the pandemic hit. The absence of this key strategic tool was a factor in hurried design and compromised implementation.

Digital exclusion in this research setting goes hand-in-hand with more widely recognised financial exclusion. Waltham Forest has a very high child poverty level, with Walthamstow now 9th worst in the UK.

Many families and individuals have not been able to access services at home as accessibility is limited to poor quality devices, typically mobile phones. Additionally, many families and young people lack access to reliable WiFi services, instead they have pay-as-you-go mobile phone contracts without the needed data allowances to access digital provision. 

A few VCOs have tackled aspects of this shortfall with low-cost tablets, refurbished computers and corporate-sector help. This most basic building block of digital inclusion, that most of us take for granted, ranks highest in the digital needs survey.

Discrete pockets of digital expertise exist locally with few organisations regularly using specialist service providers. Some VCOs access strategic partnerships well for technology and user support, but most lack the know-how for these relationships. Other support initiatives such as tech buddies and listing services offer signs of hope, but lack scale. Historic digital funding has mostly been inaccessible, although that’s significantly shifting at the time of writing.

The overall picture in LBWF is fragmented, incomplete and inefficient. The survey also hints at inexperience within local VCOs of what’s required for digital management and innovation. This shouldn’t be so surprising considering the speed of digital change and the lack of specialist technology resource and skills in local VCOs, given an average staff base of six and few formal trustees.

This contrasts with larger national charities, where reports such as the annual National Digital Skills Report for VCOs help inform best practice and facilitate collaboration and strategic partnerships, often with larger technology providers. There is little evidence of digital collaboration across local VCOs to pool expertise, improve delivery quality, meet target timescales and achieve cost efficiencies. The result is much slower progress, duplication of effort and inevitable repeating of each other’s mistakes.

Safeguarding is a particular concern, which has meant some local VCOs have avoided transitioning online almost entirely. For others, the absence of detailed policies and control processes in this area is a risk they’re looking to address as they go along – or they’ve reduced scope to stay compliant. 

For services delivered in-person, process management and user engagement can rely on human interaction and basic record keeping. The absence of robust customer relationship management (CRM) type systems in all but one organisation means processes such as online access control and contact management become much harder. Related is the task of monitoring and evaluating service delivery online (M&E). Here, few undertake the same level of online record keeping and outcome tracking that traditional offline services are subject to. The complexity of implementing new technology, and the skills gaps discussed previously, contribute to a sector-wide local problem of the de-prioritisation of back-end systems that are a necessary foundation for digital user engagement. A situation – and pain threshold – that larger organisations have mostly overcome.

Our interviews and survey responses identified inconsistencies in safeguarding and M&E, with survey responses scoring more highly than interviews and desk-top research would have suggested. We attribute this to a combination of terminology and VCO experience and believe the qualitative interview research is a more accurate reflection.

Grant funding that can be used at a VCO’s discretion for technology investment is generally not available, but seen by almost all local VCOs in the survey as important. Most funding remains programmatic and specific to service users. Information and guidance on how to access digital-only grants is not always obvious and so little accessed. Some VCOs with skilled bid writers are though ‘punching above their weight’ here, and accessing this finance. 

As this research report has progressed, the landscape for digital funding has been moving fast, with multiple funders coming forward to support the sector. This may prove a double-edged sword, with proficient bid writers disproportionately securing emergency funds that are less needed, to the disadvantage of others working out their technology needs over a slightly longer timeframe, at which point technology-themed funding may have dried-up. 

Digital individual giving/fundraising is not yet remotely developed in the borough and the absence of traditional giving is a major issue for the sector. Only one VCO has raised funds through digital channels – consequently, it’s now seen as a crucial area of digital service enhancement, an understandable response to a funding crisis. 

Nationally and with larger organisations, unrestricted funding and digital grant funds also remain the exception, and part explains why half of larger charities still don’t possess clear technology strategies (National Charities Digital Skills Survey). Individual giving online is though far more evolved with larger charities, where the ask is more smartly integrated into multi-channel stakeholder engagement.