Digital Technology in the Not-for-Profit Sector Report

This report provides comprehensive insights into how the not-for-profit sectors in Australia and New Zealand have used technology during the past 12 months. We are grateful to the 1,020 organisations that participated in the survey.

The results show that sector adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) has doubled since our 2022 report, with one in four organisations making use of generative AI tools such as ChatGPT. Sixty-nine percent of organisations are currently using or plan to use AI tools over the next 12 months.

While 12% of organisations experienced a cyber security incident over the past 12 months, less than 40% of organisations have implemented multi-factor authentication for all internet-facing systems with sensitive data, and only 13% of organisations agree they have a clearly documented plan to improve cyber security protection. These findings
are concerning given the current cyber security risks and the sensitivity of data held by the sector.

There remain challenges in the sector with regard to capturing and reporting data to understand and measure impact. For two in three organisations, their data is not easy to understand or does not guide decision-making. Just 22% of organisations agree that their system enables them to understand the impact of their services and outcomes.

In digital marketing, only 39% of organisations regularly track and report on the performance of their online presence, with a further 21% wanting to, but not sure where to start.

Consistently, year-on-year, the top three technology challenges have been funding for digital technology, staff capacity and capability and access to affordable, skilled technical resources.

Despite being an improvement from previous years, less than two in five organisations have a digital transformation plan in place. Our findings show that staff satisfaction with technology improves by 24% when such a plan is in place.

We hope that this report will help inform not-for-profits with knowledge and benchmarking to improve digital technology in their organisation.