GOING DIGITAL WITHOUT GETTING LOST
- 4 days ago
- 3 min read
Something came up at our planning day that I've been thinking about since, and it connects to a conversation I have with clients almost every week.
"I know I should be doing more digitally. I just don't know where to start."
It's said as if it's a personal failing. It isn't. The digital landscape is genuinely confusing, the options are overwhelming, and most of the guidance available feels like it was written for tech companies with dedicated IT teams, not a two-person CIC delivering community services out of a rented office in Maidstone.
In my experience, the biggest fear clients bring to me is de-personalisation. They assume that going digital means going fully digital, transforming everything overnight and losing the human touch that makes their organisation what it is. When we talk through the reality, that using the right digital tools in the right places can actually give staff and volunteers more time for the client-facing work they love, something shifts. The fear doesn't disappear, but it starts to look more manageable. It's usually fear that holds people back, not lack of capability.
What are the barriers?
When people talk about social enterprises and digital adoption, the conversation usually jumps straight to cost. Budget is a factor, but in my experience it's rarely the main one.
The bigger barriers tend to be three things.
Not knowing which tools are actually worth it. There are hundreds of CRM systems, project management platforms, accounting packages, and communication tools on the market, each with its own pricing model and learning curve. Without a dedicated operations manager, doing the research to work out what's genuinely useful versus what's expensive noise takes time most social enterprise leaders simply don't have.
Fear of disrupting what already works. If your current systems, however clunky, are holding things together, the prospect of pulling the thread can feel terrifying. What if the data migration goes wrong? What if the team can't get to grips with the new platform? What if it costs more than expected and doesn't deliver? These are reasonable concerns, not technophobia.
Not having anyone impartial to ask. Digital decisions tend to happen in isolation: a frantic search at 11pm, a recommendation from someone whose organisation looks nothing like yours, or a sales call from a provider with an obvious interest in the outcome. There aren't many spaces where social enterprise leaders can get genuinely impartial guidance on what makes sense for their size, their mission, and their budget.
Why it matters more than it did
From April 2026, Making Tax Digital for Income Tax became mandatory for sole traders and landlords earning over £50,000, and the rollout to more organisations continues. If your financial records are still living in a spreadsheet or a paper ledger, the pressure to digitise isn't just a productivity argument anymore. It's a compliance one.
Funders are also increasingly expecting digital infrastructure. Grant applications, impact reporting, communication with beneficiaries: the organisations that struggle to demonstrate a basic level of digital capability are finding it harder to compete, not because their work is worse, but because their evidence trail is thinner.
Where to start
The advice I give most people who come to me with this question is simple: you probably don't need to overhaul everything at once. Trying to do too much in one go is one of the most reliable ways to end up worse off than when you started.
A more practical approach is to pick the one area of your organisation that costs you the most time or creates the most friction, and find a single tool that addresses it. That might be your finances, your client records, or just your inbox and calendar. Start there, get comfortable, and build from that foundation.
The goal isn't to become a digital-first organisation overnight. It's to free up the parts of your operation that are running on goodwill and late nights, and give your team, and yourself, more time for the work that actually matters: being with clients, building community, delivering your mission.
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