This workshop brought together the Concern Extended Digital Team, with the aim of choosing the first OKR they would work on together, for the period September-November 2023.
Background: other work priorities and a strategy recap
The meeting began with each team member outlining their key projects for the period from September to November. Notable projects included budget and operational planning for 2024, a project to maximise the new CRM capabilities, a donor profiling and fundraising portfolio gap analysis project, a social media strategy and preparation for Christmas campaigns.
The team's mission, vision and strategy were then reviewed, and a strategy map based on the team's previous contributions was presented. This covers four main focus areas: learning and growth, internal process, supporter engagement, and financial outcomes.
Drafting objectives
The team then moved on to an exercise to draft objectives for the OKRs.
Improving team use of data
One area for an objective that received lots of votes was around the use and analysis of data within the team's work scope. Amongst the attendees, there was a clear consensus that team processes and ways of working needed to be evaluated and improved. The discussion identified areas such as horizon scanning, ownership of tasks, and data access as areas for improvement. A streamlined testing methodology was proposed, as well as a 360-degree view of team objectives to facilitate progress tracking.
They also discussed the importance of using data to inform team objectives, strategic decisions and continually improve working methodologies. The group deliberated over how data could enlighten their understanding of audience behaviours, motivations and needs, which in turn, informs their content creation strategies.
A draft objective was created: "Better understand and restructure the way we work so that data is at the centre of everything we do." The ultimate aim was to make knowledge and data central to the team’s activity.
Understanding audiences and their behaviours
The team also engaged in a thorough review of current fundraising strategies and campaign plans, considering how to boost their success. Various perspectives were shared, from increasing engagement on social media to improving email campaign open rates and conversion rates.
The importance of understanding audiences in shaping these strategies was seen as key. The group agreed that all strategies and plans should align with data-driven insights acquired from in-depth audience analyses and team learning initiatives. This was encapsulated in an objective "Understanding our current and potential audiences more deeply than ever before".
Selected objective: understanding [social media] audiences better
The objectives were reworded in a inspirational and action-oriented manner. Participants voted on the proposed objectives and "We are understanding our [ and potential audiences] more deeply than ever before" was selected as the focus for the forthcoming period.
It was pointed out that at present the data analysis team was focused on CRM implementation and would not be able to support this objective fully. As a result of this, the suggestion was to focus on social media more specifically.
Identifying Key Results
Defining specific, tangible Key Results (KRs) aligned with team Objectives (Os) is challenging. The discussion focusing particularly on the difficulty in measuring behavioural changes resulting from a strengthened understanding of audiences. Each team member put forward their own KR ideas for discussion, considering how their behaviours and tasks might alter to reflect a deeper understanding of their target audiences, known as the "midlife multipliers".
- X% of digital staff hold a two-way conversation with a social media follower to understand them and why they support Concern each month
- X% pieces of content published on Concern’s social media channels (organic and paid) is created based on a hypothesis of what format, type, messaging would best engage supporters, and results documented
- X supporters on social media are responding to a supporter feedback survey every month
- X staff (including all the team) have participated in training on Concern’s new social media strategy
Some of the team’s ideas leading to this included:
- The need for everyone in the team know which channel is right for which audience and why - us and the department.
- The importance of using social media analytics to gauge the demographics of their social media audience.
- The fact the 'midlife multipliers' objective has generated recurring discussions in recent team meetings and workshops about their suitability as the primary target audience.
- The need for systematic testing and experimentation of new ideas, platforms, and content to understand what works and what doesn't for different audiences.
- The need for testing and experimentation to be documented in a centralised and accessible way.
- The fact that content should not only work for audiences but it should also be beneficial to their organisation.
- The assumption that the key to creating effective and impactful content lies in the ability to relate its purpose to the right audience – and then engage them.
- A view that the goal should not only be income but also to gauge the audience's level of engagement – looking beyond the revenue metrics to consider how involved the audience is.
- The potential that having direct conversations with supporters as part of data collection would offer to develop valuable insights relayed through direct interactions.
- The potential of an insight group to conduct conversations for insights. The goal was to encourage more two-way conversations.