Patrick Nash argues that charities should be doing more to integrate IT into their public service delivery activities.

The current recessionary climate, Government spending cuts and cautious economic forecasts are putting unprecedented pressure on the charity sector.  In an environment where an estimated £13bn of charitable funding has to date been derived from state sources, many charities have already found their financial support has been cut by up to 30 per cent.

It is unsurprising therefore that more charities than ever are re-examining their methods of service delivery and the ways in which technology can be used to reduce cost.

Yet the charity sector has often been seen to drag its feet when it comes to drawing technology to the heart of service delivery. Common concerns have included a) the personal touch will be lost b) the quality of advice will be compromised and c) key groups i.e. the elderly may be excluded due to lack of access to the Internet.

Yet my experience refutes these suppositions.  We recently created an online e-service platform for an organisation helping long-term unemployed manufacturing workers in their late 50’s, using texts and emails routing information on jobs and training.  We were staggered by the high uptake and positive feedback from a population we’d been told had non-existent IT skills.

I would argue that multichannel service delivery, and by that I mean using multiple channels in order to deliver customer service, can help charities to do more with less: providing support to more people not fewer.  For example, the anonymity and individual control that online service delivery offers, means that more individuals are likely to address issues earlier on.  While offering a choice of channels i.e. the web, live chat or the phone allows individuals to feel that they are in control.  

Telephone helplines have been the cornerstone of service delivery for charities for many years, but they do have limitations.  It is easy for a phone conversation to be led by the call handler.  And an individual might be put off making initial contact because they are scared of the intimacy that speaking to someone involves.

I believe that there are five key reasons why charities should actively embrace a multiple approach to service delivery.

• Online contact is not the poor relation.  By utilising the web to its full capacity, you aren’t detracting from the quality of what you offer. You’re actually supplementing it and giving those who need your services more choice about how, when and where to access your charity and receive information, advice, guidance and support.
• Excluding web contact means excluding vulnerable people.  For every person who would walk into a charity premises there will be around 10 to 20 who will pick up the phone.  A further 100 would rather go online.  While some of these will need personal contact, if there is no choice of the preferred channel many will just not bother to get in touch. 
• You can build authentic relationships online.  The web is a brilliant place to build relationships with service users, just look at the success of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.  It’s also a great way to find out who needs more intensive support and target resources at those people.
• Output is meaningless outcomes are essential.  Make sure everyone you help has a commitment to let you know the impact of your intervention.  Make that really easy for them – so that you’ve got strong outcomes data that can be audited.  
• Good service equals excellent fundraising.  Getting the cost-per-service interaction down to a really low level tells a great story for donors and funders – and allows you to target the higher cost services at those who really need them. Your fundraising team will love you if you can say that for every £50 donated you helped twice as many people as last year – these are exactly the sorts of proof points that get donors digging deeper.

However, it would be wrong to dismiss all concerns relating to access to technology, which is why I believe that multi-service delivery for the charity sector is so important.  There will always be some people who won’t use digital channels to access information or support because they don’t have access to technology or the skills to use it.  Offline alternatives are therefore crucial.

From the charity’s perspective upfront investment in new systems, when finances are already tight is an obvious challenge.  A move to a cloud-computing model for example, will for many result in medium to long-term savings. By sharing a server there is no need to pay for periods of redundancy, while capacity can be scaled upwards to deal with peaks in demand.  In the short term many more funding options including ‘pay as you go’ are now available many such initiatives more viable than ever before.

Patrick Nash is chief executive of Connect Assist