Spring 2025 digital leaders retrospective

We held a retrospective with digital, content and communications leaders from a range of charities and not-for-profit organisations to gauge how things are going and share advice on what people are struggling with.

Here’s their pulse check on the sector and how they are navigating some of the challenges that everyone is facing in their organisations.

Team capacity

The challenge: saying yes when we don’t have the space.

Teams are stretched. And while the intention to be strategic is there, the reality often feels like firefighting.

One standout challenge was the power imbalance between digital and stakeholder teams, where pushing back can sometimes feel impossible.

“If we could apply the capacity planning and roles we do for fixed-term contracts to our BAU, it’d be transformational.”

Some people have tried to influence resource planning by estimating time and enabling their stakeholders to feed into the process. Opening these conversations up means that this is less about a spreadsheet and more about building relationships where flexibility and prioritisation go hand-in-hand.

Tips to try

• Create a capacity planning spreadsheet which is shared and used widely, not just by the digital team.
• Map roles and responsibilities against jobs to be done across digital.
• Apply the same structure and clarity to BAU work as you would for contractors or consultants.

Comms planning

The challenge: agile leadership needs strategy too.

Some people reflected that prioritisation and cadence of projects is often not aligned with their team’s capacity. There was a feeling that some senior leaders want flexibility and ‘agile’ ways of working, but for digital and marketing teams that can sometimes feel disorganised and stressful.

“The plan of the year is too flexible so things come in without things going out.”

Teams are trying to shift the conversation from outputs to intent because without clear goals, audience understanding, and agreed delivery plans, everything feels reactive.

“I need to keep remembering that ‘strategy before tactics’ saves time.”

Tips to try

• For every new project, define the goals, audience, delivery and measurement, no matter how big or small the project is. It’s good practice for you and sets the bar high for rigour around briefing and strategic mindset internally.

• Create a visible plan that tracks both strategic priorities and capacity.

• Protect your thinking time so you have headspace for looking across everything you and your team are doing and making strategic connections.

Reactive social and content

The challenge: signing off content for reactive social media content.

“Four days and 15 people – for one social post!”

The need to streamline reactive social media was a shared theme between many leaders, with issues including sign-off chains being too long, unclear or including too many voices. Some people highlighted that appetite for risk or tensions between media and digital teams can often be at the heart of the problem – especially in crisis or fast-moving situations.

Often at the heart of these issues is a fundamental lack of understanding of how social media operates, not just from an algorithm perspective, but also how audiences or followers consume and engage with content. We recommend increasing everyone’s skillset across hierarchies as a leveller, ensuring that when a crisis occurs, people all have the same knowledge and shared understanding from which to make clear, informed and quick decisions.

Tips to try

• Develop a content governance strategy to clarify responsibilities.

• Create a sign-off process that names each role and why it’s needed.

• Agree a smaller decision-making group who can act quickly – 4 to 6 people plus a director is ideal.

• Role model the culture you want, such as Heads of Digital stepping back to let their specialist teams take the lead.

• Build relationships and understanding before you need them in a crisis.

Prioritising content in website redevelopment projects

The challenge: “Why do you need to spend money on content?”

Some leaders shared frustrations on the internal admin around business cases and planning to ensure that website projects reflect what users and the organisation needs. Senior stakeholders questioning the value of content strategy and design has been a central theme and is something we have observed across the sector too.

Often, website projects are viewed solely as technology projects, with not enough consideration for the experiences we are creating for users, and how these meet their motivations for coming to an organisation’s website.

We spoke about the toll this takes on morale, especially when projects stall or progress is slow. Without leadership buy-in on content, or clear IA and navigation strategies, teams can be left feeling demotivated and the audiences of the website aren’t getting the experiences that they need.

Tips to try

• Approach website redevelopment projects holistically, considering content, technology, design, brand and ongoing management from the outset.

• Bring in specialists early, such as content strategists, UX and IA, to shape the business case.

• Map the content needs of your website to your organisational goals.

• Use real examples to show how content supports the outcomes that leaders care about.

• Track the impact of delays on team development and share that insight with your senior stakeholders.

Collaborative approach to AI

The challenge: navigating fear, hype and unclear expectations.

AI remains a source of both excitement and apprehension. Some teams are experimenting, others are unsure where to start, and most are trying to manage expectations from senior leaders.

“It’s about taking people on the journey, not selling them a finished solution.”

Tips to try

• Treat AI work as a collaborative process, with digital chairing but everyone feeding in.

• Define a clear vision for how your organisation wants to use AI.

• Use tools like our AI policy template and our latest AI Community of Practice blog to support conversations.

SEO strategy

The challenge: is search still working the way we think it does?

Search is shifting. Organic traffic is slowing down for some, and there’s a lot of noise about zero-click search and AI overviews. For most though, the real-world impact is still unclear. That said, teams are starting to adjust how they write and structure content.

“We’re trying to write in the style of AI overviews – short, structured and helpful.”

Tips to try

• Keep tracking organic search via dashboards to spot longer-term patterns.

• Invest in evergreen content that answers real user needs.

• Experiment with different formats such as clear summaries, structured Q&As, and bite-size explanations.

Conclusion

This session was a reminder of how shared the challenges are, and how much we all benefit from hearing them out loud, summed up by one attendees as, “This is all so therapeutic to hear”.

Whether it’s untangling content sign-off chains or redefining what agility looks like with limited team resource, the takeaway is clear. Strategy before tactics. Clarity before speed. Shared understanding before delivery.

Thanks for joining us

Caitlin Pearce (Parkinson’s UK), Graeme Manuel-Jones (BookTrust), Katherine Newbigging (Locality), Matthew Farrand (Maudsley Charity), Dave O’Carroll (Film and TV Charity), John Kundu (Royal Free Charity), Anabel Barrero (Action for Children), Louise Curry (Duke of Edinburgh’s Award) and Jonny Keyworth (Homeless Link).

Next retrospective

Our next digital leaders retro is on 18 September. Sign up to secure your place – spaces are limited!