Building Digital Skills Fund
The North East of England and Scotland are experiencing high levels of digital exclusion. Community Anchors are well placed to, or already are, responding to this, tackling digital exclusion and helping to close the digital divide. The Building Digital Skills Fund was set up to support these Community Anchor organisations to apply for a grant of up to £100,000 over a period of up to three years.
Since launching in early 2024, we have awarded almost £3million in grants across the North East of England and Glasgow.
Digital Champions
We have launched an exciting new volunteering initiative for our colleagues at Virgin Money who want to be part of addressing the challenges our local communities are facing when it comes to digital poverty. Through the programme, Virgin Money colleagues are trained as Digital Champions and will spend time in their local communities assisting people with immediate digital needs. We’re currently on-boarding foodbanks from across the UK where we are piloting the programme.
If you’re from a food bank or community organisation and would like more information about this programme contact us at info@virginmoneyfoundation.org.uk.
Volunteer and Connect Fund
Digital Poverty does not only affect adults, 20% of children in the UK live in digital poverty too. We want to change this by providing support to children so that they become digitally confident.
Our colleagues at Virgin Money who volunteer with a school (for children aged 5-16yrs) or organisation that supports children’s education outside of mainstream schooling, can apply for a grant of up to £2,000 for the school to help tackle digital exclusion. From kit to lend out to families facing digital poverty, to new software and digital skills training, the grants will work to build the digital confidence of young people around the UK.
To date through the Volunteer and Connect Fund:
- 173 Colleagues have applied
- 176 Schools have been awarded
- Those schools have told us that over 35,000 children will be more digitally confident