Good Things Foundation

Ten Ways We Worked To Fix The Digital Divide In 2021

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As the year draws to an end, I’m providing you with my top ten moments of 2021 – befittingly, considering that Good Things celebrated our tenth birthday this month! And with us entering our next decade of work, I’ll not only be reflecting on what’s past but what I hope is in store for the future too.

1. We Turned Ten!

I can’t quite believe it. Ten years after setting up with just one government contract, we’re now a charity supporting thousands of community organisations both here in the UK and out in Australia. It makes me extremely proud (and a little bit tired) to think about it!

Our vision – though in different guises – has remained the same: a world where everyone can benefit from digital. To date, we’ve helped over 4 million people worldwide to cross the digital divide to improve their lives and I hope we can continue to have this impact and achieve our vision.

You can have a look at some of my highlights in my birthday blog, here.

Here’s our very first birthday cake. They got bigger and fancier by our third birthday!

2. Beginning Our Work Helping To End Data Poverty 

In 2021 we were delighted to start working with Nominet on a Data Poverty Lab to amplify, agitate and accelerate action towards ending data poverty. We’ve been working hard to discover what the challenges are and to discuss some of the solutions that are emerging. We’ve been listening hard to people with lived experience of data poverty, as well as politicians on the APPG for Data Poverty and meeting with industry leaders. 

One solution that came from the discussions of the Data Poverty Lab and Chris Ashworth at Nominet was a national “databank”, and thanks to the support of Virgin Media O2 I’m thrilled to say that we have launched the UK National Databank as of earlier this year.

So, what exactly is it? Well it’s like a foodbank, but for mobile internet data. The UK National Databank brings free mobile internet data connectivity to people who can’t afford it and who are often experiencing multiple inequalities. We’ll be supporting thousands of vulnerable people in communities across the UK to get connected, and we are already talking to other mobile operators to contribute data into the databank too.

I’ll let the adorable robots tell you more…

3. Get Online Week 2021

This year we ran another successful Get Online Week campaign, with the core message that everyone can ‘Get Online. Get Connected.’ I am delighted to say that we were able to reach over 34,000 people in the UK this year, something that would not have been possible without the passion and creativity of all of our event holders and community partners. It was a campaign that also took place across Australia, and has happened yearly out there since 2018!
To hear more about the incredible impact of the UK campaign, take a look at the Get Online Week 2021 campaign report.

4. Winning Internet Hero Of The Year

In November in one of my few face-to-face outings this year, I went to the ISPA Awards in a posh hotel in London. I was shortlisted by ISPA as their Internet Hero of the Year, and I was surprised and delighted to win. 

The prize was to recognise championing a digitally included nation at a time when it never mattered more. Chuffed for me, the team and the work of our wonderful network of community partners. 

Here’s the award sitting in pride of place in my home office (aka the dining room).

5. Working With Regional Leaders

It’s been excellent seeing regional leaders step up to tackle the digital divide on their own turf. This year, the Good Things Foundation partnered with Mayor Andy Street (West Midlands) and Mayor Andy Burnham (Greater Manchester) to ensure digital inclusion is core to their work. Our partnership together was discussed in our Roadmap for Combined Authorities, which also provides practical ideas for those in charge of developing digital inclusion strategies (regardless of authority type, may I add). As a firm believer in community power, I’m hoping that fellow leaders across the UK will follow suit in the new year.

6. Fixing The Digital Divide In Australia

One of the big moments in the past decade was establishing Good Things Foundation in Australia in 2017. Since then our team in Australia have mobilised a digital inclusion network of over 3000 hyperlocal community partners and reached over one million people. 
Huge congratulations to Jess Wilson, our CEO in Australia, and her amazing team. They published a wonderful Annual Review, do take a look.

7. Collaborating For A Digital Lifeline

We know the pandemic wreaked havoc for millions of people around the world. And we know how communicating, working, and accessing services online was essential.

I was so proud of our work on Digital Lifeline – an emergency response project delivering devices, data and digital skills support to people with learning disabilities in the midst of the Covid-19 lockdowns. Especially as it took a multi-organisation effort to ensure the project was delivered effectively.
I want to share my thanks to our funding partners DCMS (the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport), and in particular our delivery partner AbilityNet. Also a huge thank you to Learning Disability England, the Voluntary Organisations Disability Group, self-advocates and other disability and digital inclusion organisations who contributed to the initiative. More than 5,500 adults with a learning disability received a new device, free data and received digital skills support from one of our local partners – bravo!

8. Talking about Fixing The Digital Divide

It’s been a great year for raising awareness about digital inclusion – with politicians and beyond. We published our Blueprint to fix the digital divide report and Digital Nation infographic, attending the Labour and Conservative Party Conferences this past autumn was truly invigorating and I felt encouraged to see so many friends and allies of Good Things in-person once again.

I’ve spoken at the APPGs (All Party Parliamentary Groups) for Digital Skills, Data Poverty, and PICTFOR (ICT and Parliament), with numerous MPs, and given lots of Zoom speeches. I’ve been on the radio and the TV talking about fixing the digital divide.

The issue has never been as well understood by the media, politicians, and the general public; but galvanising this into support for even more action is a priority for me in 2022. It’s the action that we need if we really are going to work together so that no-one is left behind.

9. A New Connect Up Community

Lockdown meant that many people experienced real social isolation for the first time, and struggled to make contact with friends and family through a lack of digital means or skills. Though we’re gradually progressing to a more open world, we need to ensure that everyone can benefit from digital connections. To make that a reality, I’m proud to say we’ve been working with the Scheinberg Relief Fund to create “Connect Up”.
Connect Up will reach 17,500 older people who have been digitally and socially excluded during the pandemic and equip them with the skills needed to make and maintain meaningful connections with others. What’s different about this project is that it will also create a new community of practice, pulling organisations together from across the nation to co-design and test new ways to support older people to learn new digital skills. I really welcome this kind of collaboration and innovation and feel excited to see what comes out of the Connect Up Community.

10. Partnerships To Celebrate

Finally, I’d like to champion all of the partnership working we’ve done over the past ten years – especially in 2021 – from our community of online centres through to our friends at the likes of Nominet, Virgin Media O2, Mencap, Vodafone, Google, JP Morgan Chase Foundation, Capita, Mastercard, Children in Need, DCMS, Which, Accenture, HMRC, Lloyds Banking Group, Department for Education, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Spor, Welsh Government, and BT. We couldn’t have gotten this far without your contribution and work towards achieving our mission. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you! We literally couldn’t do it without you.

Here’s To Having Impact In 2022…

So whilst it’s a time for reflection it’s also a time to look forward to the future. 

With 10 million people in the UK without the very basic digital skills needed to take part in our digital society, and 1.5 million homes not able to afford internet access, our work is not done! There is still so much more to do.

2021 has brought me much pride but it’s also brought me sadness. Sadness when I hear of the tragic situations that people on the wrong side of the digital divide experience.

That’s why our three priorities for 2022 are:

  • Support as many people as we can who are on the wrong side of the digital divide through working with our amazing network of community partners – the Online Centres Network – and growing this network so everyone has somewhere local where they can get help to use the internet;
  • Grow the National Databank so that hundreds of thousands of people right across the UK can get access to the internet if they can’t afford it;
  • Launch a National Device Bank of refurbished laptops, tablets and smartphones for those people who can’t afford a device can get online too.

Of course all of this is underpinned by the amazing UK national digital inclusion network – the Online Centres Network – and people learning in a supported way with our wonderful free online courses on Learn My Way. 

If you want to help us to deliver our priorities, I would love to hear from you and collaborate on fixing the digital divide with you in 2022.

And with that, I wish you all the best this festive season and a very happy new year!

Wrapping up 2018 for Good Things Foundation

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Tis the season to look back at the year we’ve had at Good Things Foundation. Earlier this month we celebrated our seventh birthday, and I’m so proud of our teams on both sides of the world. Seven feels like such a turning point, and what a good year we’ve had to show it.

Good Things Christmas

My Good Things UK colleagues cutting the annual birthday cake


Here are my top five of so many wonderful moments:

  • Celebrating English My Way’s successes

In February we usually host a smaller digital inclusion campaign – think of it as Get Online Week’s little sister – but this year we decided to do something a bit different and we hosted a campaign called Hip Hip Hooray for English My Way. This one focussed on our big social inclusion project which helps people who live in the UK and who can’t speak any English to learn to speak and read English and help them to integrate more into their local communities. The fab titled Hip Hip Hooray for English My Way campaign asked members of the Online Centres Network who are delivering English My Way to host parties and celebrate their learners’ successes, using a special party pack provided by us. There was bunting! I visited an event at Zest for Work in Sheffield and was blown away by the dedication of both the team running the course and the learners themselves and all of the food the people had brought along representing dozens of countries from around the world. It was an inspirational time.

  • Welcoming new faces to the Good Things Foundation family

This was a year of growth. We’ve expanded right across the digital and social inclusion sphere and that means we’ve welcomed lots of great new people into the Good Things family. And what a great bunch they are! I’m delighted by the enthusiasm and commitment they all have to our aim of a world where everyone can benefit from digital. Once again, to all the new people, we’re delighted to have you on board. To all of the not-so-new staff members at Good Things, you’re brilliant and fabulous, and passionate and committed too, thank you once again for another year of hard work.

  • Hitting 2,000 network partners in Australia

In 2017 we ventured out to Australia, establishing a new Australian subsidiary and winning a contract to run the Be Connected Network, supporting older Australians to use computers and the internet. There has been a crazy amount of hard work gone into getting everything set up, recruiting our team in Sydney, and persuading thousands of organisations to be part of the Be Connected Network. We had a target of 2,000 Network Partners and at the end of October, we did it! And of course, that number is still rising. What a huge achievement by the teams on both sides of the world. A big congratulations to everyone who made this happen and here’s to the hundreds of thousands of older people who will now be able to benefit from using the internet. Find out more about Good Things Australia here.

  • Get Online Week is 12 and goes global

This year may have seen the UK celebrating it’s 12th annual Get Online Week but it was very exciting that we also went global to bring the campaign to Australia as well. Not only were people being supported to #Try1Thing new online through 2,298 events in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, but 768 events were also held across Australia by 570 community organisations to support people there too. Incredible achievements from both Good Things teams and all of the organisations that hosted events to support learners.

  • Awards, awards and more awards

We have been very lucky on the award front this year. Not only did we scoop a Women in IT Award, a Charity Times Award and a Connected Britain Award, in the last few weeks we won two awards at the Learning Technology Awards – the bronze for Best Blended Learning Product and our Learning Team won the gold for Team of the Year. The work that we do is very rewarding in itself but it’s been brilliant to receive this recognition. Congratulations to all.

On top of all of this, we had our amazing Digital Evolution conference; we continued to support people to learn digital skills through our FDI programme; we’re working on a brilliant project with DCMS to create a ‘Playbook’ for local digital skills provision (if you’d like to contribute, you can do so here); we ran a wonderful programme to support women to find their voice and participate in society and democracy, called Voicebox Cafes; we’re working on the local, as well as the global level, in Leeds, Salford, and Stockport; our NHS Widening Digital Participation project has been testing even more innovative approaches to tackling health inequalities in hyperlocal digital and human health systems with medical practitioners, CCGs, and Online Centres, and talking about our findings in the open on our digital-health-lab; of course we’re also working with partners in Kenya; and so much more. (No wonder we’re all looking forward to a rest this Christmas!)

We have continued to work with fabulous national partners who share our vision at Lloyds Banking Group, Mind, Homeless Link, TalkTalk, and Google, as well as new partners too.

And there are even more super exciting things in the wings that I can’t tell you about yet!!!

Thank you to everyone who has worked to make good things happen over the course of 2018.

I can’t wait to do it all again – and more – in 2019.

Digital. Social. Global.

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Last week we hosted our Digital Evolution conference in the BT Centre. It was great to have tech evangelist and Desert Island Discs superstar, Professor Sue Black chairing the day. I have known Sue for a long time and knew she would be an exciting and engaging addition to our line-up. She did not disappoint. Sue, you did an excellent job chairing the day and we were so happy to have you there. Thank you.

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Me with Dr Sue Black and Victoria Rodney of the Mercy Foundation in London. Image courtesy of Victoria Rodney.

There were so many brilliant speakers who all set out to inspire the audience and share their experiences to bring new ideas and learning to the delegates.

A definite highlight of the day for me was meeting members of the Online Centres Network, as always. You might have been inspired by the speakers but you all inspire me. What you do every day, helping disadvantaged people to make the most of everything digital has to offer, to find work, to make new friends, to build their confidence … that’s just to name a few things, you are amazing and it was so brilliant to speak with you. If I didn’t manage to catch you on the day, I’m always happy to chat. Tweet me at @helenmilner.

Some delegates even came from as far as Australia, Belgium, and the Netherlands! The conference was called Digital. Social. Global after all, and it was great to welcome faces from afar. And it was great that Jess Wilson, our National Director in Good Things in Sydney was there and shared some stories and experiences from Australia.

For those who couldn’t make our conference, you can catch up on the different sessions below. I’m already looking forward to next year!

A big week for politics (and football)

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I’m one of those people who listens every morning to the Today Programme (even when I’m in Australia), follows political commentators on Twitter, and who in general feels up to date with politics. However, this week it’s been hard to keep up both on the national level but also here in Good Things Foundation world.

A very French outing

At the end of last week, I sat on a panel at the Local Government Authority conference in Birmingham with three other people, including Debbie Brown, Transformation Director at Salford City Council – a key player in our Digital You project.

From Birmingham, I zoomed off to Paris to attend the France UK Digital Colloque, a meeting of the UK and French digital ministers where they agreed to join forces and share expertise on AI and research, working together to improve digital services, collaborating to develop tech talent. I sat on a panel with some very inspirational women in tech where we discussed inclusion and diversity. It was a great event and I appreciated being invited by Matt Hancock, though this ended up being my last outing with him as Digital Minister.

Digital Colloque

At the France UK Digital Colloque with Debbie Forster and Claire Calmejane

 

This leads me on to…

Following the resignation of some of the Conservative Cabinet the then Secretary of State for DCMS (Digital, Culture, Media and Sport) Matt Hancock became the new Secretary of State for Health, with Jeremy Wright replacing him as SoS at DCMS.

Welcome to Mr Wright and I hope he gets the importance of driving digital inclusion and basic digital skills as much as his predecessor did. The team here at Good Things Foundation are very excited to develop our relationship and work together to help the country reach its digital potential.

And of course we’re keen to keep working with Matt Hancock – our work on Health and Digital/Social Inclusion is now in its second phase and we’re innovating with CCGs and others around the country – something I’m sure the new Secretary of State at Health will be interested in.

And finally…

I was one of those people who on Wednesday night sat on their sofa and shouted at the telly to encourage our football team. We were all a little blue in the Good Things Foundation office yesterday after England’s defeat to Croatia in the World Cup semi-final.

Luckily, we were holding a workshop in the office for the Online Centres who are delivering our Voicebox Cafes project – that’s giving women a voice in democracy – being run with Helen Jones MP, the Chair of Parliament’s Petitions Committee. This cheered everyone up, as we’re always happy to meet the amazing people who work in Online Centres and we were honoured to have Helen Jones in our offices working with us and the centres.

The workshop was going great… then it got even better when Sheffield Lord Mayor Magid Magid and comedian and actor Rufus Hound turned up with some ‘World Cup commiseration’ sweets to cheer everyone up on their Sheffield #SweetTweetTour. Magid even managed to come in and speak to the people in the workshop and meet Helen Jones.

Workshop

Magid meets Helen Jones MP

 

It was good fun and great to see members of the Green Party and the Labour Party getting along so well!

An interesting week in politics – which has moved onto the Donald Trump visit (which I won’t comment on here).

A slightly surreal rollercoaster of a week but one that ended with the Good Things Foundation team posing for a great photo with Magid and Rufus Hound, and eating Skittles and Haribo. What more could we ask for?

SweetTweet

An unexpected surprise

Becoming a Group: One Team, Two Offices

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Pinch me. It’s all of a sudden become real for the whole team and our two Boards at Good Things that we’re a lively, committed Group of real people working hard to make a better world for excluded people in the UK and in Australia.

How did we get here?

Today Jess, our National Director in Australia, boarded a plane to head back to rejoin the team in Sydney. She followed Allison, Dur-E-Shahwar, and Robert, who had left at the weekend, and Greg, our Chair of Good Things Australia who left on Friday. They had all been in the UK to take part in a week of Good Things Foundation Group working, team building, and celebrations.

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A photo of Dur-E-Shahwar, Jess, Allison, Greg, and Robert, with me in our Sheffield office, shortly after they arrived last week

Last Thursday it was, coincidentally, exactly a year since we got the news from the Australian Government that we had won a big contract to establish, recruit, and support a pan-Australia digital inclusion network as part of their Be Connected programme. And wow what a year we’ve had! As well as helping 320,000 excluded people improve their lives in that year in England, and much, much more (see the Annual Review here) – we’ve set up a new office on the other side of the world, recruited a new team, and started our work with such energy and expertise that we’ve established a network of almost 1,400 hyperlocal partners in just 10 months.

The day after our first Group Board with both Jess and Greg in physical attendance, we had our first Group workshop – a morning of collaboration, joint planning, developing ideas, and importantly getting to know each other. The words I’ve heard from my colleagues since are words like pride, vision, enthusiasm, impact, and about not just knowing we’re a Group but feeling like a Group.

How did we do this?

We’ve reflected on this and something that comes through strongly is that we had a vision, we have clear values and we stay true to our core purpose, and then we just believed in one another (in the UK and in Australia) and used our energy, experience, and can-do attitude to make it happen.

This isn’t all about the UK experts exporting our knowledge and passions to another country, it’s about recruiting a great team in Australia and it’s about reflecting and listening and adapting and evolving for a new context. And doing this at pace.

It’s about having an amazing team of people who believe in the vision but who are also committed to collaboration and to working hard (very hard) for what they believe in, and in parallel to growing and doing amazing things in the UK at the same time. A colleague coined a great phrase for this last week “One Team, Two Offices”. Two offices on opposite sides of the world and in very difficult time zones (especially hard in the British winters!).

What else did I learn last week?

Being in the same room instead of being on Google Hangouts is different, is better sometimes, and now we’re a Group something we know we’ll be doing again.

I can’t wait to see what we get done between now and when we meet as a Group same time next year.

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Team selfie taken by Jess, our National Director of Good Things Australia and includes some of our great UK and Australian Team Members as well as our Group Chair, Liz Williams

It just keeps getting better

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I recently visited our colleagues at Good Things Foundation Australia in Sydney, where you might know that we’ve also established a new network called Be Connected. Everyone over there is so enthusiastic about digital and social inclusion and part of the reason for that is seeing and hearing about our impact in the UK – and our latest annual report provides a great overview of the past 12 months.

It’s been a good year for Good Things Foundation

The title says it all – another year and another truckful of incredible achievements. From supporting 320,000 excluded people to improve their lives through digital, helping 7,700 people to learn English language skills through the English My Way programme, to training 5,888 Digital Champion volunteers, the list goes on and we really couldn’t have achieved it without our extensive list of partners big and small and, of course, the Online Centres Network.

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The 5,000-strong ‘big club’ continues to go from strength-to-strength and I just want to thank you for all your amazing work over the past year. You are a true inspiration to me, to the team, and to our Be Connected network in Australia, and you are important pillars of support to the people in your communities.

I’m so proud of this organisation and all of our amazing staff. I’m looking forward to continuing our work together over the next year and achieving even more great things.

Our annual report has much more in it, do have a read. It’s at https://annualreview.goodthingsfoundation.org/#its-been-a-good-year

Creating a supportive and more inclusive society

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Civil society is defined as a community of citizens linked by common interests and collective activity. In February, the government launched a consultation to inform a new strategy setting out how it can work with and for civil society to tackle challenges and unlock opportunities to build a stronger society now and in the future.

We’re big advocates of civil society at Good Things Foundation, and together with the Online Centres Network, we have a keen interest in supporting people who are socially excluded to live fulfilling lives and to help strengthen the communities they live in. This means we’re keen to ensure that the new Civil Society strategy represents, and takes into account, the views of those who are ensuring its success.  

The inequality gap in the UK is huge, with 14 million people living in poverty, 9 million people lonely or isolated and 11.3 million lacking basic digital skills. Everyday staff and volunteers from Online Centres work to make sure those most in need can play a full role in society. With funding becoming more and more scarce, consistent support – from government and others – is vital.

Critically, any Civil Society Strategy needs to marry the huge benefits digital can provide, with the importance of community, and of face-to-face support, in building a strong civil society that benefits us all.

Our recommendations

We worked with Online Centres to develop a response to the Government’s consultation, which you can see in full here, along with a number of recommendations, which I’ve shared below.

DCMS, Good Things Foundation, charities and the tech sector should work in partnership to grow the understanding of the role of digital in driving impact across all social outcomes. This is not just about digital skills but also leadership. We should aim to deliver culture change, where digital is no longer a bolt-on but is understood and used as a core element of any public benefit delivery.

DCMS, central Government, local Government and businesses need to connect the power and the money with the voices that need to be heard, involving excluded people and hyperlocal organisations to co-design public services and public benefit solutions.

DCMS needs to understand that policy often undermines the efforts of civil society. Central Government rarely prioritises civil society when considering the key players who will help policy succeed. The Civil Society Strategy should commit DCMS to not just convening other Government Departments to ensure that core public benefit programmes succeed but also intervening where it is clear policies from other Departments are ignoring or negating the needs of civil society’s efforts to deliver public benefit.

DCMS and all partners should develop a Partnership Charter that all organisations working in partnership can commit to. The government could further develop the face-to-face and digital systems and structures which enable hyperlocal civil society organisations to connect and tackle problems together, through network organisations like Good Things Foundation and others.

The government, large funders, businesses and local authorities should work together to ensure we have a funding environment that can support a strong civil society. Funding isn’t always reaching the organisations, and the people, who really need it. Through a cross-sector working group, the government should work with large funders to ensure that funding actually reaches those who can use it for greatest benefit.

Civil society is a term that probably few people have heard of – after all it is a term popular with government ministers, academics, aid workers and the likes – but it’s so vital in ensuring we thrive as a nation. I really hope Government will consider our response in helping to shape a stronger civil society, working with partners like those in the Online Centres Network, to create a better world for everyone.

Love Good Things, Love Sheffield, Love Digital

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This blog is written for anyone who loves digital (especially developers), for anyone who wants to do a job they love, for anyone who loves Sheffield (or loves the idea of Sheffield), and for anyone who is struggling to recruit developers.

I love living in Sheffield. It’s a proper city but it’s known as a village city – it has great theatres, great galleries, great pubs, and it’s only 10 minutes from the city centre to the Peak District. There’s so much going on, especially in the creative and digital space, and those working in this space are all so generous in passing on ideas and tips and linking you to the next person who might share your ideas and passions. House prices are cheaper than the South. (And I don’t work for the Sheffield Tourist Board!)

I love Good Things Foundation – we do such amazing work. Our vision is a world where everyone benefits from digital – and one of the best bits of working at Good Things is visiting the Online Centres and meeting the people who have been supported by our programmes – they may have now got a job, or said hello to a neighbour for the first time, or they are in contact with grandchildren far away, they always feel more in control of their lives, and as one man told me he “no longer feels like he’s at the bottom of pit of despair”. The hard lives people sometimes have get a bit easier – as they can now use the internet or speak English or manage their health – due to the work of Good Things and the Online Centres Network. And we’re now doing this in Australia and Kenya too. We’re mission led but we’re a staff led mutual and a great group of people – we support each other, we like each other, the team are incredibly talented, and we have great benefits, are family friendly, and have good holidays. All this and we’re also doing what we think is really exciting and interesting stuff with our technology stack! And we’re based in Sheffield.

So here’s the rub! We can’t always recruit developers. We have a Digital Team of nine people (plus one in Australia), and we’re growing. I know similar organisations to ours have a similar problem. It’s the pointy end of being a digital first charity based in the North I guess, but I’m sure it doesn’t have to be like this.

If you’re a developer and live in Sheffield or would like to live in Sheffield – at any level, with any set of skills – then we’d love to hear from you. We’d love to have a chat and a coffee and just see how you could fit into our growing team. Do get in touch, don’t be shy – if you’ve got 30 years experience or if you’re just about to graduate, really, we want to find great people with great digital skills who want to join us.

Check out our work and then email me helen@goodthingsfoundation.org and we’ll fix up a chat, and a chance to meet the team. Really you’ll love working for us and you’ll really love making great things happen.

Taking Be Connected on the road

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One of the things I’ve been personally most proud of in the past year is establishing Good Things Foundation in Australia. In the UK, the Online Centres Network is essential to the way we operate. Together we’re a big club with a shared vision – a shared vision of improving lives using digital as an enabler, and a vision of a better society and a better world as a result. I know this is what we do in the UK because of our research and our evaluation as well as by talking to our Network members and to the people they’re helping. In Australia we’re starting to do this too with a new ‘big club’ – the Be Connected Network.

At the end of April I hosted six Be Connected Network Partner events in Australia – in Perth, Melbourne, and Geelong. It was great to take Be Connected on the road and lovely for me to meet organisations who are, or would like to be, part of the Be Connected Network.

It’s so nice to meet people face-to-face. In this digital world it’s great that I can co-work with people on opposite sides of the world virtually (in Sydney and Sheffield) but it’s also nice to meet people face-to-face sometimes too.

In Perth I loved it when one woman, who was thinking of joining the Be Connected Network said to me “I came along today to find out what the catch is; but there’s no catch!” Indeed there isn’t!

In Melbourne it was great to hear new collaborations starting there in the room with Network Partners talking about sharing resources as well as forming new ideas for how they could achieve more together.

And in Geelong a new cooperation was born between three Network Partners talking about how they could share volunteers and signpost between each other as they all helped people learn basic digital skills in Ballarat.

I was amazed and thankful by people travelling long distances to get to the events.

We talked a lot about all of the grant programmes that Network Partners can apply for – including the $50,000 Network Capacity Building Grants. I’m a bit jealous as we don’t have these grants in the UK, and they’re really going to help us to both innovate and scale across Australia with digital inclusion.

Not everything is perfect – a couple of Network Partners said they had older people they were supporting who didn’t want to set up an email address and therefore they couldn’t register on Be Connected. So we responded and we’ve written this guidance note which is now on our Resources page. All the Network Partners love the free online learning courses on the Be Connected website but wanted to know what new content is coming – so we responded with this overview leaflet. I’m glad the Good Things team in Sydney have been able to respond to these issues and are keeping the conversations going.

The thing that I loved the most is how similar so much of our work is in the UK and Australia. One Australian Network Partner said she had been working for 10 years and didn’t know other organisations helped older people to learn how to use the internet – I’ve heard the exact same thing in England. In Australia and the UK I love hearing the stories about people living in our countries having come from all over the world and now being in touch with relatives back home via the internet. Partners in both countries have told me about the 80 something year old or the 90 something year old who is now buying their pet’s food online or video calling a distant grandchild for the first time.

But most of all I loved hearing the passion from the staff and volunteers about spreading the message that the internet can help people to make their lives a little bit better. And then they just get on with it – be it in Geelong (AU) or Gravesend (UK), or in Perth (AU) or Plymouth (UK).

I’m really glad that Good Things is doing our bit to support community organisations and libraries in Australia, the UK, and in Kenya, to help people thrive in today’s digital world.

Thank you to our Good Things team in Sydney for making me feel so welcome.

Good Things Aus

Good Things Aus – hello world!

NOTE: If you’re in or near Townsville, Gold Coast, Brisbane, Darwin, Adelaide, Sydney or Tamworth, you’re very welcome to come along to one of our upcoming Be Connected events. (Sadly I won’t be there but others from the Good Things Sydney team will be.)

Digital and social exclusion are intertwined – let’s tackle them head on

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Yesterday, I attended the launch of Lloyds Bank’s UK Consumer Digital Index 2018, where I sat on a panel Q&A session, as did the Chair of Good Things Foundation’s Board, Liz Williams. This Index is an eagerly anticipated piece of research which has been released annually for the past three years – the largest measure of financial and digital capability of people in the UK.

Helen

The headline stats

One of the key findings from this year’s Index is that there are now 4.3 million people (8%) in the UK with zero Basic Digital Skills – this is 470,000 fewer people than in 2017. Though the proportion of UK citizens with the full five basic digital skills has barely changed with 11.3 million people (21%) having limited abilities online.

There are three key tasks that the UK population are unable to do:

  • Create something new from existing online images, music or video – 23.2 million people (43%) can’t do this;
  • Verify the sources of information found online – 13 million can’t do this (24%);
  • And fill out an online application form – 8.6 million people can’t do this (16%).

A stand-out stat is that there are 3.2 million people on the cusp of the full five skills. If they were to gain the missing digital skill, there would be 8.1 million people without basic digital skills.

Making it happen

The big question surrounding this final headline stat is how can we make this a reality? How can we help these 3.2 million people to gain that one missing skill?

It’s Good Things Foundation’s aim to make social change happen through digital. Our UK-wide network of Online Centres support the hardest to reach in society, not just through teaching them about computers and the internet, they are real pillars of support and trust that people can rely on.

A lot of the people who visit Online Centres face some form of social exclusion which can contribute to them being digitally excluded. This year the Index contained key stats on inclusivity as well as digital skills. 3.5 million people with a registered disability are offline – that’s 25% – and 28% of those over 60 are not online, with an amazing 84% of this group saying that nothing at all could motivate them to get online.

The benefits are clear:

  • 10% of the workforce do not have basic digital skills, but if they did, they could be £13,000 a year better off.
  • 4 in 10 people say that being online helps them feel less alone; 21.2m people are less lonely due to digital.
  • 5 in 10 people say that the internet has helped them find a job.

As more and more people get online, the ones who are still left behind become harder and harder to reach. That’s why we need Online Centres. It’s the level of trust and honesty that they offer that these people need and in their own local communities – on their street. They won’t open up to just anyone.

As the digital and social exclusion crevice narrows, it deepens, but thankfully, more and more people are coming together across the sectors, abseiling gear in hand, to make sure we can reach and support those in need to live life to their fullest potential with digital.