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.
We’ve been blown away by the demand for our Building Digital Skills Fund and have taken the decision to temporarily close to new applications.
Since launching in early 2024, we have awarded almost £3million in grants across the North East of England and Glasgow. The Fund will re-open in Autumn 2025.
We will be in touch via email with Community Anchor organisations who have not yet applied.
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