A trustee guide to board management

Leadership plays a critical role in digital transformation. How a charity integrates and interacts with digital technology is led by decisions made by trustees and charity leaders in the boardroom. In there, a digital strategy is shaped, with a view for how digital technology can support a charity’s goals.  

However, the 2024 Charity Digital Skills report revealed that only 6% of charities said their CEO had relevant digital skills. When asked which digital skills, knowledge, or behaviours CEOs needed to change to ensure digital progress, 55% wanted their CEO to provide a clear vision for digital. Furthermore, three in five charities say their trustees’ digital skills are low or could improve.  

“This is a challenge for charities at every stage of their digital journey,” the report concluded. “This report has found digital skills gaps on boards every year since the report began and it is clearly a systemic challenge.” 

When it comes to digital leadership in the charity sector, there is clearly work to be done. Digital technology is essential for helping charities meet their goals, improving how they deliver services and communicate with stakeholders, and driving maximum impact. But if their leaders lack understanding of the opportunities and challenges of the digital landscape, it can be difficult for charities to progress. 

In this article, we explore how charity leaders can become more digitally-savvy, from knowing the right questions to ask about software to creating useable governance policies – with support from OnBoard’s Board Management System Buyer’s Guide.  

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Lead from the top 

Familiarity with digital is what charity professionals want from their leaders. This means that charity leaders need to have at the very least a basic understanding of digital technology themselves, with firsthand knowledge on how it can improve efficiency, support collaboration, and generally make our working lives easier so we can focus on what matters: serving our communities.  
 
The best way to become more familiar with digital technology is to use it. Experiment with it. Identify key areas where digital technology can solve problems – including in the boardroom. 

When it comes to investing in digital, charity boards need to be able to ask the right questions; exploring security credentials, how it works with other technology, the features that make it an improvement from what you were using before.  

Board management software can not only facilitate these discussions, but investing in it brings digital into the boardroom itself. Charity leaders making a charity more digital can show that they themselves have invested in technology that supports their aims. They have reviewed the security features and user experience, and spent time determining whether software will work with the skill level of the current board. 

Board management experts OnBoard’s comprehensive Buyer’s Guide explains: “Too often, however, board management software solutions are complicated and difficult to use. This creates a poor user experience that weakens adoption.” 

But, it adds, if directors use board management software, “it can fundamentally improve your meeting experience and outcomes” and ensures “board members are well-prepared and ready to engage in important strategic decisions” The guide points to a recent OnBoard and Avannis survey which found that the vast majority of board leaders anticipate board management technology will be increasingly integral to boardroom functions. 

Charity boards need to lead from the top when it comes to digital. OnBoard’s Buyers Guide can provide charity leaders with a helpful starting point, giving them a framework they can apply when adopting other digital tools. For example, the guide explores seven key security features to look out for from vendors, which can be applied not only to board management software, but any digital platform that will be handling sensitive data.  

The guide also lists three core considerations when evaluating user experience, from design to support offered. Is software accessible on the devices your trustees use? Is the layout easy to use? And can directors find guidance easily when they need it? 

Prioritising digital policies 

To build confidence with digital technology throughout an organisation, it is important to have clear policies for how it should be used. For example, a data governance policy will outline best data practices to ensure it is protected and compliant – which apps can it be used with and how?  

With the advent of artificial intelligence (AI), charities are navigating new technologies that come with new risks, as well as rewards. It is essential that charity boards engage with those risks now during the testing phase, before adopting the technology wholesale. Creating an AI policy can help with that, ensuring that everyone within the organisation is on the same page and using AI in the same way. Creating a policy helps employees use AI with the confidence that they are acting according to the charity’s best practices.  

These policies can be used to inform decision-making later and it is vital that they are easily accessible, particularly for trustees. For charity boards, being able to easily access resources such as your AI policy or digital strategy makes it easier for them to discuss opportunities, identify and manage risks, and refer back to the best practices outlined earlier. Everything is in one place, making productive discussions far more likely than if board members are constantly having to search to find the information they need. 

With the digital landscape evolving all the time, it is crucial that charity leaders are prepared, equipped with reliable and accurate information that will shape the direction of their organisation. Board management software can make this – and the work of digital leadership – much easier.