Digital Leadership in Your Organization

Some of the brightest minds in digital engagement strategy have just released a report and series of articles on the Standford Social Innovation Review about how digital work happens in non-profit organizations. The trends they identify are relevant to all sectors, and should be considered for any organization thinking about how to do digital better.

Who owns and drives digital engagement activities in an organization can look four ways, say authors Jason Mogus, Michael Silberman and Christopher Roy. The most progressive, and perhaps challenging of these models is hybrid digital governance, where there is a centralized group managing overall strategy and tools, but leadership and implementation happens in each department as well.

Another interesting finding is the patterns of digital non profit teams. The report shares findings from surveys of senior online leaders from 67 nonprofit organizations. Here are seven of the most important patterns:

1. Digital teams are communications teams, meaning that most live in communications department, and a growing minority report directly to an executive director.
2. Most teams need more full-time help. Midsized teams in particular (6 to 10 full-time staff) have more full-time equivalent contractors than staff (an average of 8 per team), which offers obvious flexibility but can be financially inefficient.
3. Teams overinvest in social media and underinvest in user experience in comparison with the outcome driven models of corporations, which value analytics and design.
4. More and more are moving from reactive to proactive, playing an innovation and leadership role.
5. Poor organizational structure holds them back.
6. Digital programs could have more impact. 55 percent of respondents describe their programs as “somewhat effective” at serving the needs of their constituents and organization, with another 9 percent reporting they are either mostly or highly ineffective.
7. The future is brighter. Even in this recession, 57 percent of respondents report plans to increase their digital spending next year, with only 10 percent expecting a drop.

Read the free Non-profit Digital Teams Benchmark Report

and here’s their info graphic: