How to transform your charity with digital technology

To deliver ambitious change, charities need to be strategic and make the most of the tools available. By working smarter with digital technology, many charities can accelerate meaningfully towards their vision.

 

But, lacking enough time and resources, charities often struggle to identify the perfect approach, the skills they need to build, the best technology to adopt to help them work more effectively. The ‘Charity Digital Skills Report 2025’, for example, found that a lack of headspace and capacity is limiting 63% of charities to progress digitally.

 

So, in this article, we provide you with a head start, exploring the digital tools available at a discount through TechSoup that can help you on the journey to winning back time, becoming more strategic, and leading your charity to success.  

 

 

Explore the full TechSoup product catalogue 

 

 

Tech for leadership and teamwork 

 

Achieving great change not only requires a vision and determination. It also requires charity leaders to excel at the practical: staying organised and collaborating with their teams effectively.

 

Product management tools can help leaders with overflowing to-do lists, whose teams are just about keeping their heads above a constant flood of tasks. To co-ordinate work, streamline processes, and manage time more strategically, work management software like Asana can help.

 

Team collaboration can also benefit from technology that allows teams to share access to information, especially when working remotely. For example, Microsoft Office products allow multiple users to share files and co-author in real time.

 

When managing trustees specifically, OnBoard can help centralise board information and activities, enabling everyone to stay on the same page when constructing the charity strategy.

 

 

Tech for user research and data analytics

 

To be sure that your charity is spending time on the activities that make the greatest impact, it’s important to thoroughly understand those who are using your services. With surveys, charities can hear directly from their service users about their needs, priorities, and motivations. QuestionPro can help you gain feedback from your community and create reports on your findings.

 

The ability to analyse data is similarly key for charities to make the right decisions, with many already using digital platforms such as Tableau to help. These can give you the ability to visualise and analyse the data you collect (whether that’s about your services, donation trends, or volunteers), enabling strong data-driven decision making.

 

 

Tech for cyber security 

 

Effectively managing threats means that charities can focus more of their time on their mission with confidence that their systems are well-defended. It means keeping the data of your stakeholders safe and building a strong level of trust with your community.

 

Cyber security is particularly a challenge for small charities, with nearly a quarter (24%) saying they have poor or non-existent cyber security protection in 2025. Charities can create a secure internet connection using Cisco routers, security appliances, switches, VPNs, and virtual firewalls. Charities can also protect against viruses, spyware, and other online threats with antivirus like Bitdefender.

 

Specialised tech can also help you securely manage private information and navigate the internet securely. For example, Dashlane can help to securely store passwords, payment methods, and other private information. 

 

 

Tech for fundraising and marketing

 

The two top priorities for charities in 2026 are attracting funding or donations (52%) and digital communications and fundraising (51%), according to the ‘Charity Digital Skills Report 2025’. It is important to charities to continually raise more funds and increase their online engagement to help deliver their missions.

 

But fundraising and marketing success in charities can suffer when they lack useful data insights to drive meaningful engagements with their stakeholders.

 

Constituent relationship management systems (CRMs) are a way to keep all data about your stakeholders, such as your donors, in one place, and analyse the data to learn quickly and improve your interactions. For example, Microsoft Dynamics 365 allows users to create reports, import data, track correspondence, and deploy a searchable knowledge base to better understand and interact with charity stakeholders.

 

To improve your quality of communications on social media, tools with audience intelligence like Hootsuite and Audiense can provide insight into your online community and how you can more meaningfully speak to them about your cause. For many charities, being strategic on social media is invaluable for raising awareness, raising energy, and raising funds for their causes.  

 

Explore the full TechSoup product catalogue