Budgets are under pressure. Teams are stretched. Expectations haven’t changed. If you're working in digital marketing for a charity right now, you’ve probably heard the same message I have: we need to do more, but with less or the same (effectively less in the face of rising ad costs).
And yet, despite the challenges, growth is still achievable. Digital marketers can’t (and shouldn’t) do everything so the ability to focus better is key. Prioritisation has never been more important.
Budget cuts, but not ambition
Over the past few years, many charities saw a short-term boost. Covid created urgency, and with it came public generosity. That led to investment – in people, in platforms, in campaigns.
But the cost of living crisis hit hard. Regular giving dipped. Reserve funding dropped. Most of the charities I work with haven’t had an increase in marketing budget this year – and many are pulling back.
The tricky part? Ambition hasn’t shrunk with the spend. Leaders still expect performance, testing, growth. It’s a tough balance. As I mentioned recently on The Charity Show podcast, it’s a real challenge to be told to do more with less – and still hit the same targets.
Making prioritisation objective, not subjective
To help teams navigate this, I’ve been using a prioritisation framework – something we originally built in Google Sheets. It’s not fancy, but it works.
The idea is simple: turn a long list of ideas and opportunities into something structured. First, capture everything – all the campaigns, experiments, and new channels on the radar. Then score each one against your marketing and organisational goals. These might be things like increasing average gift size, growing brand awareness, or reducing donor attrition.
From there, assign weightings to reflect which goals matter most right now, or which ones align most closely to your departmental or business goals. Once scored and sorted, you’ll have a clear view of what supports your strategy – and what can wait.
It’s not designed to shut ideas down. It’s there to create alignment, show your working, and make sure your team’s efforts are focused where they’ll have the biggest impact.
Pushing back, without saying no
This approach has been particularly useful when managing up. If you’ve ever had a senior colleague say “I read about this new thing – can we try it?”, you’ll know the pressure that creates.
Using a framework gives you something neutral to refer to. Rather than saying no, you can say “this is where it sits in our current priorities”. It takes the heat off – and helps shift decisions away from gut instinct or hierarchy.
It’s also surfaced some surprises. There have been moments when something we assumed was low priority ended up ranking near the top – because it directly supported a major organisational objective. That kind of insight changes conversations.
Don’t forget CRO
Alongside better prioritisation, I always recommend putting conversion rate optimisation (CRO) on the agenda. It’s one of the most effective ways to improve results without increasing ad spend.
That might mean simplifying a donation journey, tweaking a landing page, or removing friction from a sign-up process. Small gains in conversion can lead to big shifts in return on investment – often more than creating new ads or trying a new channel.
Sometimes, the fastest route to growth is to make the most of what’s already working.
Want our prioritisation framework?
If you’d like a copy of the template I use to help charity teams plan their digital priorities, just drop me a message on LinkedIn or email me phil.aiston@manifesto.co.uk