Charities often know what is not working, but not exactly what the finished digital solution should be. That is where a good discovery process and experienced digital guidance can make the biggest difference.
A brief is not always the starting point
A charity does not always begin a digital project with a neatly defined specification. Sometimes it has a broad brief. Sometimes it has a list of problems, pressures and ambitions, but no brief at all.
The charity may know that people struggle to find the right information, that staff are repeating manual tasks, or that its current systems no longer support the way services are delivered. What it may not know is what the finished platform should look like, which features it needs or how everything should connect.
That is not a weakness. It just highlights that a proper discovery and consultancy process is needed.
Start with the problem
Early website conversations naturally gravitate towards pages, features and visual preferences. These elements feel tangible and make it easier to get started.
But a list of requested features does not always reveal what an organisation, or its audiences, really need. Before deciding what to build, ask:
- Who needs to use the service?
- What are they trying to do?
- How do they first encounter the organisation?
- What could stop them taking the next step?
The same questions apply internally.
- What do staff and volunteers need behind the scenes?
- Where is time being lost?
- What information needs to be collected or reported?
- Which parts of the process are disconnected?
The answers may point towards a conventional website. They may also show that the project needs to connect public information, registration, service delivery, administration and reporting.
Mapping the routes in
We recently worked with Marauders Men’s Health, a Welsh charity supporting men through walks, activities, peer connection and access to appropriate help.
The charity needed a professional bilingual website, but the wider requirement was more involved than presenting information online.
Someone might arrive looking for immediate support. Another person might want to understand what happens on the first walk. Others might be interested in volunteering, donating, referring someone, finding a community partner or simply deciding whether the organisation felt right for them.
The team also needed practical tools to manage registrations and attendance across a growing programme of activities. Mapping these different pathways allowed us to consider the full experience, from first discovering the charity through to joining, attending an activity and becoming part of its community.
Let the right features emerge
Marauders did not come to us with a detailed technical specification for every part of the finished system. They understood the outcomes they needed: reach more men, explain the charity’s work clearly, make activities easier to discover and manage, and improve registration and check-in.
Our role was to translate those needs into a workable digital service. The resulting platform brings together the public website, bilingual content, activity listings, a community partner directory, registration, personal QR codes and event check-in.
The public-facing experience was only one part of the task. Staff and volunteers also needed to publish activities, update partner information and manage volunteering opportunities without manually designing new pages or relying on several disconnected systems.
Walk leaders can select an activity on their phone and check people in by scanning a personal QR code. They can also find a registered member by name or contact details when someone does not have their code. The same system records attendance, supports on-the-day safeguarding and creates more dependable data for reporting and funding applications.
This is an important part of digital consultancy. We don’t expect a client to define the exact technical answer before the project begins – they need to understand their organisation, audiences and objectives. Our role as a consultant is to help turn that knowledge into the right solution.
Keep the solution proportionate
Digital transformation does not always require a major custom platform, a large internal team or an extensive technical roadmap. Small charities often benefit most from carefully connecting a manageable number of well-chosen tools.
The aim is not to include every possible feature. It is to remove friction where it matters most, while making sure the organisation can operate and maintain what has been created.
That can mean using established technology as the foundation, then adding bespoke functionality only where it serves a genuine operational need.
Marauders now has direct control over its activities, stories, volunteering opportunities and partner information. The team has described the platform as intuitive and easy to use, while early feedback shows the charity feels far more credible thanks to a professional website and a joined-up system.
It is still too early to make detailed claims about measurable results, but those early responses matter. Confidence, credibility and ease of use are important outcomes for a growing charity building its profile and capacity.
The same thinking, at scale
Our work on Am, the bilingual platform for Wales’s creative and cultural community, involved far more content and technical complexity. The discovery process showed that the project was not simply about redesigning pages. It also needed a clearer information structure, better search and filtering, and simpler bilingual publishing for busy editors.
The scale was different, but the starting point was the same: understand how people use the platform and how the organisation needs to manage it before specifying the solution.
Ask better questions
A successful charity digital project does not always start with a tightly defined end product. It starts with a clear understanding of the problems, followed by the right questions and a willingness to explore what the organisation actually needs.
Before commissioning your next website or digital platform, ask:
- Are we describing the outcome we need or prescribing a solution too early?
- Have we considered every way someone might access our support?
- Where are staff and volunteers repeating work or relying too much on manual processes?
- What evidence do we need to collect, and how can the platform capture it without creating more work?
- Can our team realistically manage the proposed solution after launch?
A strong digital partner should be comfortable working with uncertainty. Their role is not simply to build what has already been specified, but to help the organisation shape a practical, proportionate and joined-up service.
For charities without extensive digital expertise in-house, that guidance can be just as valuable as the finished website.
