Read Our Previous Blog In Our Path Forward Series
Discover how charity CIOs are uniquely positioned to lead these transformations, demonstrating that technology-led innovation can deliver greater mission impact while embedding sustainable practices into core operations.
Interested in our Cybersecurity Framework?
Visit our article on how to organise an effective cybersecurity strategy to download a copy of our framework.
New Year with a Cleaner, Safer Digital Environment
Don’t let retired IT assets put your data or reputation at risk. Read the full blog to learn five practical ITAD strategies for securely managing your technology lifecycle across London and the Greater London area.
In the UK charity sector, including London and surrounding regions, technology has evolved from a back-office utility into a core strategic enabler of mission delivery and organisational resilience. This shift is reflected across the sector, with 80 per cent of UK charities now reporting that digital is an organisational priority, despite operating in an environment of constrained resources and heightened accountability. For Chief Information Officers (CIOs) and technology leaders, effectively demonstrating the value of IT investments to trustees, donors, operational teams and service beneficiaries is therefore critical.
Measuring success using thoughtfully chosen Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) ensures that IT investments are purposeful, impactful and directly supportive of organisational goals. This guide outlines best practices for defining, aligning and communicating meaningful IT performance metrics – supported by UK-relevant benchmarks – to help CIOs drive continuous improvement and evidence-based decision making.
1. Developing Meaningful KPIs: Quality Over Quantity
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) deliver real value only when they reflect what truly matters to the organisation, not simply what is easiest to measure. For charity IT leaders, this means prioritising metrics that demonstrate impact, efficiency and user experience, rather than focusing solely on technical outputs. This emphasis is increasingly important in the UK charity sector, where eight in ten charities now view digital tools as an organisational priority, and 92 per cent of charities are using digital tools in some aspect of service delivery. Together, these figures underline how deeply technology is embedded in mission delivery and why its performance must be measured in ways that resonate with organisational outcomes rather than IT activity alone.
To ensure KPIs effectively support mission delivery and maintain stakeholder confidence, CIOs should apply the following principles:
Principles for Effective KPIs
- Mission Alignment: Ensure each KPI is explicitly linked to strategic organisational goals, such as improving service delivery, expanding digital inclusion, or strengthening data protection and cyber resilience.
- Stakeholder Relevance: Select metrics that reflect the priorities of trustees, operational teams, beneficiaries and funders, enabling a shared understanding of what success looks like.
- Actionability: Focus on KPIs that prompt clear decisions or improvements, rather than measures that simply describe levels of activity.
- SMART Criteria: Define indicators that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant and Time-bound to support consistent tracking and review.
Examples of Impactful IT KPIs for UK Charities
- Proportion of services accessed digitally by beneficiaries.
- Average time taken to resolve IT support requests.
- Compliance with UK data protection and governance standards, including GDPR and Charity Commission expectations.
By embedding KPIs within organisational strategy and grounded sector evidence, CIOs can clearly demonstrate how IT investments contribute to tangible mission outcomes, organisational resilience and long-term sustainability.
2. Aligning Metrics with Organisational Outcomes and Stakeholder Expectations
KPIs should not exist in silos. To be effective, they must be clearly linked to organisational outcomes and framed in terms that support trustee oversight, regulatory compliance and informed decision making. This is particularly important in the UK charity sector, where only 44 per cent of charities currently have a formal digital strategy, highlighting a continued gap between technology activity and strategic governance. Aligning KPIs with organisational priorities helps trustees fulfil their duty to ensure resources are used effectively and risks are properly managed.
Best Practices for Alignment:
- Outcome Mapping: Explicitly connect IT deliverables to strategic organisational outcomes such as improved access to services, enhanced supporter engagement, operational efficiency or strengthened cyber and data protection controls. This enables trustees to clearly see how technology investment supports charitable purpose.
- Stakeholder Engagement: Involve trustees, senior leadership and frontline teams in defining what success looks like. Structured workshops, surveys or board-level discussions help ensure KPIs reflect both operational realities and governance priorities.
- Value Communication: Translate technical measures into mission- and risk-focused language. For example, “system uptime” should be framed as “ensuring beneficiaries and staff can reliably access critical services,” while cyber metrics should be linked to safeguarding reputation, donor confidence and regulatory compliance.
For comparative insight, UK charities can use tools such as the Charity Digital Benchmark to assess their digital performance against sector averages and peer organisations. This benchmarking supports trustees in setting realistic expectations, assessing value for money and providing appropriate challenge and assurance around digital investment decisions.
3. Benchmarking and Dashboards: Contextualised Performance Insights
Benchmarking provides essential context for understanding IT performance by showing how your organisation compares with peers across the UK charity sector. This perspective is particularly valuable given that fewer than half of UK charities (48 per cent) say they feel confident using data to inform decision making, highlighting a widespread need for clearer performance insight and comparative evidence. Benchmarking helps CIOs and trustees validate progress, identify gaps and set realistic, evidence-based priorities.
Using Benchmarks Effectively
- Identify Relevant Benchmarks: Draw on trusted sector resources such as the Charity Digital Benchmark and the UK Civil Society Almanac to access comparable measures across digital capability, service delivery and organisational resilience. These tools allow charities to assess their performance against similar organisations by size, income and area of activity.
- Continuous Monitoring: Track performance against benchmarks over time to identify trends, emerging risks and opportunities for improvement, supporting longer-term strategic planning and investment decisions.
Dashboard Best Practices
Dashboards play a critical role in making performance data accessible and actionable. This is increasingly important in a sector where only 44 per cent of charities have a formal digital strategy, reinforcing the need for clear, visible metrics that connect day-to-day performance with strategic intent.
- Clear, Focused Design: Avoid clutter and concentrate on a small number of priority metrics that directly support organisational objectives.
- Tailored Views: Create dashboards tailored to different audiences – such as trustees, senior leadership and operational teams – ensuring each group receives the level of insight relevant to their role.
- Real-Time Data: Where feasible, integrate live or regularly refreshed data feeds to support timely decision making and rapid response to emerging issues.
When used effectively, benchmarking and dashboards enable CIOs and leadership teams to spot issues early, demonstrate progress with confidence and allocate resources strategically, strengthening both operational performance and governance assurance.
4. Reporting and Communication: Making IT Performance Understandable and Valued
How IT performance is presented has a significant impact on stakeholder perception and organisational support. In the UK charity sector, only 41 % of charities report that they feel confident presenting digital or IT data to their boards, highlighting the need for clear, structured reporting that connects technical metrics to strategic outcomes.
Techniques for Effective Reporting
- Narrative Context: Combine metrics with storytelling to demonstrate tangible benefits. For example, describe how a new CRM system reduced case processing times for beneficiaries, linking technical improvements to mission impact.
- Visual Aids: Use dashboards, charts and infographics to make complex data accessible, particularly important in a sector where 48 % of charities say they struggle to use data effectively for decision-making (Charity Digital Skills Report).
- Consistent Updates: Provide regular, scheduled reports – such as quarterly board updates or monthly management reviews – to keep stakeholders informed and engaged.
- Action-Oriented Insights: Pair performance data with clear implications, recommended actions and next steps to ensure reporting drives improvement, not just reflection.
Effectively designed reporting builds credibility with trustees, reassures funders, and reinforces the strategic value of IT investments by connecting day-to-day performance with mission outcomes. Organisations that excel in this area demonstrate higher digital maturity and better resource allocation, providing a competitive edge in service delivery and impact measurement.
5. Continuous Improvement: Using Data to Drive Decisions
Measuring success is not a one-off exercise, it is an ongoing cycle of learning, adaptation and refinement that enables evidence-based decision making. In the UK charity sector, only 34 % of charities report that they regularly review and update their digital strategies, highlighting that continuous improvement is not yet embedded across the sector and underlining the importance of structured review processes in the United Kingdom.
Embed Continuous Review
- Review Cycles: Revisit KPIs regularly to ensure they remain aligned with evolving organisational priorities, sector requirements and stakeholder expectations.
- Feedback Loops: Actively collect input from service users, frontline staff and trustees to refine what is measured and how it is interpreted.
- Data-Driven Decisions: Leverage insights from KPIs and other performance metrics to guide resource allocation, identify training needs, and inform future technology investments.
Given the wide variation in digital maturity across UK charities and barriers such as funding constraints, limited staff capacity, and inconsistent strategy adoption, embedding a culture of continuous improvement ensures IT investments remain responsive, mission-focused and strategically prioritised.
Positioning IT as a Catalyst for Mission Success
For CIOs leading technology in London and throughout the UK charity sector, measuring and communicating success is essential to maximising impact and securing support for digital transformation. By establishing meaningful KPIs, aligning them with organisational priorities, using benchmarking and dashboards wisely, and communicating insights with clarity, charities can ensure that IT investments not only deliver efficiency but drive mission outcomes.
Ultimately, technology should be positioned not as a cost centre but as a strategic enabler, helping your organisation better serve communities, improve resilience and fulfil its purpose.