Tip 1: Take your inspiration from others first
Before you decide to listen to the employees in your organisation and put digitalisation on the agenda, you first want to know how intensively your competitors are dealing with the topic of digital transformation. You know that your competitors have failed in their attempt to implement a central CRM system across all countries - for whatever reason - so it is clear that such a technology project is out of the question for you. Gather all rumours carefully and listen to what industry representatives tell you during breaks at conferences and symposia - they have a vested interest in making you competitive. Observe carefully and only when your direct competitors have successfully digitised do you take the next step.
Tip 2: Don't take your cue from other markets
Other sectors may be caught up in digitisation - the telecom sector, the financial sector, the automotive industry. Your target groups are in the 50+ age group and they are not digitally engaged. And even if digitalisation has taken hold in other countries and markets, budgets have been shifted from analogue to digital and new target groups have been opened up through new channels, your country is simply always a few years behind. So don't look at what's happening in other industries and how companies are changing, because your own industry follows its own laws - which you know very well.
You have always waited for those who introduce a new method or tool to fail first. When a technology becomes established on the market, there is still time to seriously adapt it to your own organisation. And don't stress that pioneers may occupy markets and stake their claims - you still have plenty of time to catch up because of your technical edge and a full war chest.
Tip 3: View digital transformation as a zeitgeist movement that, like all other trends, will be over in a few years.
Just as you were convinced for decades that your organisation's involvement online would only affect a small target group, that social media would remain just a pastime for young people and people out of work and would never be used by any serious company or government official, it is equally clear that your core business will continue to generate revenue in what is derogatorily referred to as the old economy.
Just as computers have replaced typewriters, more and more tasks are now being done with mobile phones. So there is no reason to treat digitisation as a separate issue or even to proclaim a digital transformation.
Tip 4: Don't let unessential peripheral issues keep you from your work
Income from digital fundraising contributes less than 7% to your bottom line. The subject matter is complex, there is a lot of data available and working through it takes time which is then unavailable for traditional business. Young employees will take care of it for you. From the behaviour of digital users, you can't draw any conclusions about your regular customers and short-term trends are of no interest to you. You are also not interested in which search queries people use to find your website and which topics they consume there. And you are certainly not interested in how many of your donors, who you gained through social media, are still donating after 5 years and how many of them became permanent donors due to which communication measures.
Tip 5: Leave the data where they belong: with specialists.
You have always had an aversion to handling data since your school days, and there are plenty of nerds who deal with it. You are well in control of your organisation, you make decisions after careful consideration of all arguments given by your most important staff members. Good ideas always prevail and you don't trust any statistics that you haven't falsified yourself. Avoid looking at where data is being collected, processed and analysed throughout your organisation and, for heaven's sake, don't correlate data from different sources! It is enough for you that GDPR requirements are being met. Furthermore, you are not liable if something happens to the data - after all, there are professionals for that.
Tip 6: Regard digital transformation as a series of technology roll-outs.
At the request of the fundraising leadership, new staff was hired for online fundraising, even though it was clear that the budget needed for this could not be recouped immediately. A lot has been invested in the new website and digital fundraising tools incur licensing costs that can hardly be covered by income. The social media department is hip, produces increasing numbers and is already clearing prizes from the advertising industry. When staff had to move to home offices due to the Covid situation, your organisation was well positioned because the IT department had taken care of cloud solutions, office software and laptops in time. Communication actually worked quite well via WhatsApp, email and Zoom. Even for data handling, you have an external GDPR consultant and a data analysis who embellishes the quarterly reports with attractive pie charts. So there is no need to look at digitalisation as a whole and accompany the cultural change with organisational development.
Tip 7: View digital transformation as a project, not an initiative
You want to make your organisation more connected to the internet? A website relaunch project was approved for this purpose. The introduction of social media almost blew up in your face when shitstorms broke out all the time? With the Social Media Guidelines project, you brought the communications department back on a more even keel. And when your donation processes became unmanageable, you got everything back on track with the CRM 2.0 project. Digital transformation is also set up as a project, with an analysis phase, a clear start and, above all, an end point at which your organisation is digitalised. After that, work can finally get back to normal.
It is best to have your project management clearly outline when exactly which step has to happen so that nothing goes wrong. Plan every detail and do not reserve more budget than necessary.
Tip 8: Leave the "digital transformation" project to staff from the IT department. Digital transformation is not the responsibility of the management/board!
Your organisation is where it is today because you have always used your know-how to make difficult decisions and its experience to endure many an issue. Where others have been burnt, your organisation has remained level-headed; where others have done things by the book, you have shown early initiative. So why now intervene in the finely balanced departmental and power structure, bypass the staff and take over an issue and lead the way as the executive board with the flag of digitalisation? Better hand the project over to Brigitte from the HR department. She knows a lot about digital because she always makes such beautiful PowerPoint presentations.
Tip 9: Create a new department between communication, marketing and (digital) fundraising.
Digitalisation is the hot topic today. Your predecessors completely missed the train and the task now is to catch up on everything that has been overlooked over the years. Since there is hardly any know-how in the departments, you set up a new department into which everything digital is moved. Then find a young, ambitious graduate from a technical college, give him/her a chance and see how far he/she gets. The costs for such a position are manageable, should he/she fail, he/she can be released again, should he/she be successful, he/she can be integrated into the IT department afterwards and given other tasks like the web presences, innovative IT projects, all customer relationship management measures and of course all data topics. Pay these specialists well so that they don't run away right away, because they have a high market value. And in meetings with the staff, mention how you manage to initiate profound changes through innovative leadership. The staff will love it and the motivation of the established leaders will go through the roof. There is no fear of a competence dispute or questions of accountability arising, because the roles and tasks are clearly communicated.
Tip 10: Don't use external advice
What are consultants supposed to tell you that you can't Google yourself? If it were about technical know-how that you don't have in your organisation, it would make sense to buy it in. But who knows your organisation better than you? So go ahead and make all the mistakes that other organisations have made before you and start from scratch. Discuss as intensively as possible how long it will take for your traditional target group to become digitally affine.
And if there is someone who has already accompanied organisations like yours on the Digital Transformation Journey, don't listen to him/her. Employ him/her for a while and when it comes down to the wire, let the contract expire. Just don't let them tell you how to run your organisation.
Good luck!