Good Things Foundation strategy: 2022-2025
Our ambitious strategy sets out how we will Fix the Digital Divide - for Good.
The Covid 19 pandemic significantly changed the way we all live and work. It led to an acceleration in the adoption and application of digital technology which has been transformative for both people and businesses.
There are 2 million households that struggle to afford internet access in the UK today, and 10 million adults lack the most basic digital skills. We need to act now. Our 2022-2025 strategy outlines the necessary steps we need to take to remove digital exclusion for good and build a movement for digital inclusion that leaves no-one behind.
By the end of 2025, we want to:
Engage 1 million people helping them to benefit from the digital world
Support 5,000 Digital Inclusion Hubs across the nation to respond to local needs
To achieve these goals, we are launching our new holistic offer for digital exclusion that brings together these three key elements.
Our National Digital Inclusion Network brings together everything we know about what makes digital inclusion work in communities. We will expand our Network so that excluded people in every community have the local help they need. Building and scaling what is already working, we will partner with national, regional and local charities, and all community organisations working with digitally excluded people. We will provide a simple package of support, training and resources that helps them respond to their communities’ needs for digital skills and inclusion. This includes Learn My Way,
Good Things Foundation’s community-focused learning platform for basic digital skills, designed to make building digital confidence easy.
Building on the work of our Data Poverty Lab, we have, with Virgin Media O2, developed the pioneering National Databank, a world-leading ‘national food bank for connectivity data’, to help hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people in communities across the UK to get connected. The National Databank provides at least 500,000 free SIMs and mobile data, distributed through the National Digital Inclusion Network, and includes data donated by Virgin Media O2, Vodafone and Three.
Alongside the National Databank, we are establishing a National Device Bank supporting people who can’t get online because they can’t afford a device of their own, and also contributing to the circular economy. Innovating at scale, we are building a national hub that can take large donations of used digital devices from organisations in any sector, recycle or refurbish these, and distribute refurbished devices to people without home internet access through our National Digital Inclusion Network. We will also partner with local community refurbishing schemes so we add value to what is already happening.
We would love to work with you
Our new strategy has one mission: to Fix The Digital Divide for Good. This mission is our moonshot and it will take many people and many organisations to succeed. Partnership is essential - at scale, strategic and sustained. Here's how you can get involved.