Today's digital teams have evolved far beyond merely being a publishing shop for the institution on the web. Today there are three primary, and strategically critical, functions of internal digital teams:

• Publishing - from making simple text pages, keeping important content up to date, to writing and creating rich media like photos, videos, and infographics that tell the stories of your work
• Mobilization (or engagement, if you're not an advocacy org) - pushing content out to various supporter lists and social media, content promotion, as well as community listening, volunteer management, and organizing
• Strategic consultancy - working hand in hand with various internal clients to figure out the most effective way to publish and promote their work, while also leading larger institutional priorities

This is the third in a three part series on digital teams for nonprofits published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review. You can download the benchmark report referenced in the article below for free.

We have been planning and building websites for social change institutions for nearly two decades, and over that time have worked with some of the most well-known social brands in the world, as well as hundreds of lesser-known groups. What we’ve seen across all organizations, regardless of size, is that digital teams—their structure, leadership, and how they are affected by the culture of the institutions where they work—are the biggest predictor of online effectiveness. Without well-structured teams, strong leadership, appropriate skills, and an aligned internal culture, you simply can’t do all the great things you want to do online, sustainably over the long term.

This summer we set out to learn more about the state of digital teams in the nonprofit sector. Finding few resources on the topic, we decided to create the world’s first digital team structure benchmark for the nonprofit sector. We did this in order to start a conversation about the importance of building better teams and the importance of investing in them.

Senior online leaders from 67 nonprofit organizations contributed to the final report. Here are seven of the most important patterns we observed:

The digital function is increasing in importance in nearly all institutions today, yet few are actually managing it in an effective way. While there is no one right way to manage digital, the way most institutions structure their digital teams greatly limits the outcomes they seek, because every innovation they want to do online will be limited by their own internal capacity to dream, execute, and sustain it over time.

This is the first in a three part series on digital team structures published in the Stanford Social Innovation Review.