Wombletech: making good use of the things that we find

If you grew up in Britain in the 1970s, you’ll remember the Wombles – those industrious creatures on Wimbledon Common who made useful things out of what other people had thrown away. “Making good use of the things that we find” wasn’t just a catchy theme tune. It was a genuinely sound philosophy.

It’s also, as it turns out, the best possible approach to digital tools for charities, advocacy organisations and lean comms teams operating under real budget pressure.

I’ve started calling it Wombletech. And I think it matters more now than it ever has.

The problem with bespoke

There’s a persistent instinct in the third sector – understandable, but expensive — to treat every digital problem as unique and therefore requiring a custom solution. A bespoke CRM. A custom-built member portal. A specially commissioned tool that does exactly what you need and nothing else.

Sometimes that’s the right answer. More often it isn’t. More often, the thing you need already exists, costs a fraction of a bespoke build, and would work perfectly well if someone took the time to configure it properly and connect it to the systems you already use.

The real cost of bespoke isn’t the build. It’s the maintenance, the dependency on whoever built it, and the inevitable rebuild when the person who understands it leaves.

What Wombletech actually looks like

The AI conversation is a good example. Over the last two years, the number of genuinely useful, affordable AI tools available to small organisations has grown dramatically. Tools for drafting and editing communications. Tools for summarising long documents. Tools for automating repetitive tasks that currently eat into someone’s working week.

Most organisations we work with are either ignoring these tools entirely – waiting until they feel more certain, or until someone gives them permission – or they’re looking at expensive enterprise platforms when a £20-a-month subscription would solve the same problem.

The gap isn’t usually budget. It’s awareness, and the confidence to experiment.

The Wombletech approach

Before you commission anything custom, ask these questions:

Does this problem already have a solution that exists off the shelf? Could a combination of two tools you already pay for solve this if they were properly connected? Is there a free or low-cost version of this that would cover 80% of what you need? And – honestly – do you need this to be perfect, or do you need it to work?

The organisations that use their digital budget most effectively aren’t the ones with the biggest tools budgets. They’re the ones who know what they’ve already got, use it properly, and connect the pieces intelligently.

A small manifesto

Wombletech is not about cutting corners. It’s about not reinventing the wheel when a perfectly good wheel already exists. It’s about choosing the right tool for the job rather than the most impressive-sounding one. It’s about using what you have before buying what you don’t need.

Great Uncle Bulgaria would approve. And frankly, so would your finance director.

This is the first in an occasional series on practical digital thinking for organisations that don’t have a large in-house team. Wombletech will return.

Upwards Digital works with charities, advocacy organisations and civil society groups across the UK. Almost all our work comes through referral. If you’d like to talk about your digital setup, we’re easy to find.