How to reimagine charity services in 2026

Note: All event sessions and webinars mentioned in this article are available to watch on our website for free. Simply follow the links!

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In 2025, we launched our Reimagining Services campaign to help charities achieve more for their communities with their available resources, sharing skills and ideas for change.

 

Delivering impactful services is charities’ raison dêtre, and we wanted our guidance to match up to the sector’s needs. Amid the challenges of the cost-of-living crisis, we’ve aimed to help charities in what seems like an uphill battle to delivering their greatest impact.

 

We wanted to inject support, hope, and optimism into the 2025 service delivery landscape – and charities have been on board. In this article, we look back on one year of Reimagining Services – and look forward to what’s yet to come.

 

 

Use digital technology responsibly

 

To boost the effectiveness and efficiency of their work, many organisations look to digitising and staying up to date with digital trends. At Charity Digital, we believe technology used in the right way and to the right extent can be enormously beneficial to society. But we also know that tech is not a silver bullet.

 

Unsurprisingly, artificial intelligence (AI) was a significant theme of 2025 in Charity Digital’s content as a whole. But according to the ‘Charity Digital Skills Report 2025’, only 7% of charities are using AI for service delivery, while 60% are worried about the implications of using AI, including for service quality and data privacy. We suspect, as outlined in our 2025 Reimagining Services report, that the two are related.

 

While it seems that charities are risk-averse when using AI in services, it’s important for them to understand how their users are impacted by AI out in the world. In our campaign, we have explored how the risks of AI are impacting the service users of UK charities. Through our AI hub, we have built resources to help charities decide whether and how to use AI, including in their services.

 

We have also championed charities exercising their values in how they use digital technology of all kinds in their services. We covered how to build inclusive digital projects, how to make digital platforms more accessible, and when to use digital service delivery. Digital inclusion remained a prominent theme to help ensure that no one falls through the cracks of charity services.

 

 

Build trust

 

In 2025, trust in charities reached 6.5 out of 10: higher than the level of trust in banks, the police, ordinary people on the street, private companies, and MPs. Our article ‘Where does charity money go?’ was the most popular article of the campaign in 2025, and it’s easy to see why. As a charity, trust is essential to raise enough funds and make a bigger impact. The article traverses the world of spending, transparency, impact, and public trust to uncover the nuances behind making a bigger difference.

 

 

Users lead the way

 

When service users co-design, co-produce, or co-create charity services, it can help increase the impact of those services by ensuring they respond directly to users’ experiences and needs. And service co-creation can ensure that users are meaningfully involved in the decisions that impact their lives.

 

Our 2025 Reimagining Services survey found that around a third of charities (34%) worked with users to both design and deliver services, while almost one fifth (18%) worked with users to design but not deliver services.

In May, we invited Jon Higgs, CEO of Mind in Camden to deliver a webinar on the subject. ‘A guide to co-producing services with users’ shone a light on the process of co-creation, exploring practical examples, remote co-creation, funding for these approaches, and more.

 

Our Reimagining Service Delivery Summit in June also looked deeply at user-led approaches. The session ‘Designing digital products in co-production with users’ was hosted by Simone Ranson, Head of Digital and Design at Turn2Us, while ‘Co-designing the Period Symptom Checker’ was led by Beth Granter, a digital consultant who developed the tool for the charity Wellbeing of Women.

 

We also produced guides helping charities improve their user feedback processes, including information on beneficiary feedback mechanisms, valuable surveys, effective focus groups, and testing services before delivering them at scale.

 

 

Reframe wellbeing

 

Our campaign has explored how to build and support personal wellbeing amid the pressures of delivering charity services, enabling charity teams to deliver sustainable and empowered change.

 

Our guide to beating crisis fatigue covered how to overcome the challenging emotions that can result from prolonged exposure to crisis. Our summit session ‘How to embed wellbeing in service delivery’ was hosted by Alice Porter and Nadine Tunasi from Freedom from Torture, and covered how charities can integrate a systemic, trauma-informed approach to wellbeing.

 

 

Change mindsets

 

Our campaign explored how simple mindset shifts can help charity professionals make a bigger difference. Our guide to systems change for charities and resources to help collaboration considered how charities can achieve more sustainable and large-scale change with joined-up thinking. We also explored how to exercise radical imagination to help charities think creatively and expansively to build a better future.

 

 

Reimagining Services in 2026

 

In our report, we made three key recommendations for charity services for this coming year. They are:

• Measurement. We noticed that nearly two in five charities are failing to use performance metrics to inform their decision-making. We recommend combining quantitative data with beneficiary feedback to give a full picture of user needs
• Horizon scanning. We found that 53% of charities struggled to keep up with risks and new developments to make the most of digital technology in service delivery. Horizon scanning can empower charities to anticipate and respond to emerging digital trends, risks, and opportunities
• Strategy. We discovered that internal digital skills was a challenge for 47% of charities when providing services, and that there is an appetite for a more digitally engaged leadership that can identify opportunities and invest in the right tools for long-term success. A digital strategy can help you achieve your mission with the right skills and investment

Although it has been a year since its launch, our Reimagining Services campaign is far from over. Check out the dedicated hub to explore how your charity can make a bigger difference with digital in 2026.