The collection, storage and management of information are important aspects of digital. Doing these things responsibly and respectfully is vital. 

Data helps organisations understand their supporters, beneficiaries, donors and advocacy targets. This, in turn, makes them more effective.

Data enables evidence-based business and social impact decisions. It does this on both a day-to-day and a long-term basis.

Organisations need to know how people interact with them. They need to know which channels people use and how often. Armed with this intelligence, organisations can design appropriate journeys. Good user journeys satisfy people’s needs and wants and encourage long-term engagement.

Performance data is essential for learning, iterating and improving. It can show how well the organisation is delivering its programmes and services.

To provide useful insights, data needs to be clean. It must also be collected and stored in a secure and compliant way. 

Organisations need technology, processes and skills that bring together data from many sources. They also need to create digestible reports that tell a story.

Things to think about

• How easy is it for you to email everyone who has opened an email but hasn’t taken action within a day of that email being sent?
• Is the implementation of GDPR compliance in your organisation enabling you to communicate better with your audiences, or is it stopping you from doing the basics, such as sending emails to subscribers, advertising on Facebook?
• Does your organisation have an open data policy?
• Does your organisation have reliable sources of data about the context of its work? Are new projects based on the evidence of this data?