Room 1: Strategy

How to Design and Deliver a Digital Skills Programme
Speaker: Kim Lewry, The Royal College of Surgeons of England
Hear about how Kim conducted a skills audit and used this data to develop and deliver and Essential Digital Skills Programme for all staff in the organisation. The programme was based around Microsoft 365 apps – the tools they already had access to but were not utilising to their full potential. Kim also developed and rolled out a Digital Accelerator Programme – an application based programme of six modules focused on more advanced digital skills such as prompt engineering and service design. The motivator behind these programmes was to drive change from within. By giving staff the skills, and more importantly, confidence they needed in the post-covid digital workplace we find ourselves in they could be more efficient and collaborative.

How To Empower Your Team With Digital Skills
Speaker: Tori Ellaway, CAST
With the rise of AI and other rapidly evolving digital tools, mastering digital skills has become all the more indispensable for charities striving to fulfil their important missions. More than half of charities rate themselves as poor at digital fundraising, and recent FutureDotNow research reveals that 54% of the UK workforce lacks essential digital skills. It’s clear we have significant work ahead.
Join us at CAST for an insightful webinar where we’ll unveil our collaborative journey in developing a comprehensive digital skills framework. Partnering with The Scout Association and 13 diverse charities, we’ve created a tool to empower staff and volunteers with the digital skills they need, starting from the essential to the more advanced. Many of the tools and resources in the framework are vital elements of any digital fundraiser’s toolkit.
During this session, we’ll share our development process, highlight the challenges encountered, and, most importantly, outline the top strategies these organisations are using to foster a culture of continuous digital learning.

How To Create, Optimise and Promote Your Next Charity Campaign To Make the Most Impact
Speaker: Oliver Beldham, JustGiving
Looking for a tool to create team spirit for your next event or inspire people to come together for an appeal? JustGiving Campaign Pages have so many benefits for both you and your supporters. In this session JustGiving will share:
– When to use Campaign Pages and how to create one in just a few minutes
– Tools and resources to make your page engaging and impactful
– Examples from other charities’ successful campaigns to take inspiration from
– Best practice tips to promote your campaign and reach more people
– How to easily track progress and report on your campaign
Leave the session with fundraising food for thought and practical tips to take your campaigns to the next level.

Influencing Change Through Influencing Leadership
Speaker: Vicky Charles, Shelter
This session will outline different approaches to influence leadership as to organisational change. We’ll be
exploring how to use evidence, options for overcoming resistance, how to work within the culture,
examples of success and learnings based on many years experience of influencing leadership to invest in
Technology, Data and Digital changes across the charity and public sector.
Key learnings from this session include:
– The need to use evidence to support the case for change
– Ways to overcome resistance to change
– How to shift perspectives to lead change

Room 2: Skills

Running From a Standing Start: Launching and Growing Your First Digital Fundraising Campaign
Speaker: Muna Hussen, Raisely
It can be daunting to launch your first digital fundraising campaign. It can be even scarier to grow a campaign that may have been successful or one with trials. In this session, Muna will take you through some step by step guidances of launching and growing your first campaign. You’ll look at a variety of different campaigns, from donation forms, to appeals to peer to peer. You’ll learn what makes a great converting donor journey as well as how to add a little magic to your digital campaigns.

Testing Fast and Cheap – How To Build Learning and Innovations Into Your Fundraising Campaigns
Speaker: Kamie Kilty, Social Sync
In this session we will cover a variety of ways that you can build learning and optimisations into your campaigns to drive better results.

Key Data Skills for Charity Impact
Speaker: Dulcie Vousden, DataKind UK
Join DataKind UK to explore new ways to get to grips with your data in order to better understand your audiences, evaluate what’s really working, and engage your team. Learn how to ask the right questions of the data you collect, ways to share and translate your outcomes that are accessible for your whole organisation, and the next steps to take to build your team’s data skills.
DataKind UK has over ten years of experience supporting third sector organisations of all shapes and sizes to make best use of their data in order to draw out insights, overcome sticking points, and work through operational challenges to better achieve their purpose. Join their Head of Data Science Dulcie Vousden and be inspired and energised by practical approaches to using your data.

EDI and Digital Skills – What Everyone Needs To Know
Speaker: Tree Hall, NEUROnique
In an increasingly digital world, digital technology can play a vital role in empowering individuals to thrive, promoting positive change and supporting a more equitable workplace. Digital literacy can create opportunities, enhance accessibility and amplify marginalised voices. But this can only happen when inclusivity is at the heart of digital design, and when everyone understands the barriers that neurodivergent and disabled communities face, and embraces the need to put inclusion and belonging at the heart of EDI strategies. Join Tree Hall as she uses her lived experience as a late-diagnosed AuDHD (autistic & ADHD) adult to bring to life the need for inclusive digital design, the positive impact it has, and as she shares some of her own digital strategies and tools for thriving at work.

An Introduction To AI – Helping Charities Prepare Today, For Tomorrow
Speaker: Victoria Lyons, Dementia UK
This user-friendly session is aimed at charity professionals, breaking down the basics of Artificial
Intelligence (AI). Victoria will focus on boosting awareness, knowledge, and confidence in using AI to
benefit charitable organisations and activities. She will also will address potential risks and ethical
considerations, ensuring responsible AI use.
Join this session to unlock the potential of AI and shape a brighter future.

Developing Great Community Management Skills
Speaker: Nana Crawford, Marie Curie
Don’t overlook the power of a strong community. Learn what skills you need and why setting boundaries is important for you and your team.

Delegate Bag Sessions:

Paid Social & Ads Skills for Fundraisers
Speaker: Alice Rath, Zoe Amar Digital
Does your organisation need to be running paid ads? This session will be focused on the WHY of paid media – why run paid media campaigns and the benefits can it have. We’ll cover in detail the key components you need to consider when launching a paid media campaign, and the essential skills you need for running an brilliant campaign.

How to Grow Your Leaders’ Digital Skills
Speaker: Alice Kershaw
This session will cover how digital knowledge and confidence is shared with leaders across the Wildlife
Trust federation. Covering different approaches to ensure engagement, value and strategic links across
the many different contexts of the Trusts, Alice will talk about the workshops, resources and governance
of supporting leaders around digital.
Key learnings from the session include:
– How to talk about digital
– What barriers there might be
– Potential approaches to try