Lincs Digital are a small charity based in Horncastle in Lincolnshire. They’re in their second year of membership of the Digital Champions Network and originally joined as part of a project sponsored by NHS England, supporting organisations helping people to manage their health.
They face some challenges unique to their rural location - others that are shared by many champions projects.
Background
Run by husband and wife team, Rich and Anne, Lincs Digital help a wide range of people across a broad area of rural Lincolnshire. All their work is based around digital skills training. They work with around ten Digital Champions, depending on the projects they’ve got on.
They constantly perform the tricky balancing act for all small community organisations of finding the funding and delivering the services at the same time. They get funding from organisations ranging from the Princes Trust to their local councils.
What do they do
Lincs Digital go out to where people are – travel is a big part of the job – and deliver sessions in community halls, medical centres, community house and even barns.
They used to work predominantly with older people, but since lock-down, the range has changed and they also work with a lot of younger people, particularly those made redundant or looking for a change. Everyone needs digital skills these days, even farm workers.
The way they provide training has also changed, and it’s structured almost entirely through drop-ins, rather than longer courses. People are less keen to make commitments since the pandemic – but around 80% of the clients do drop back in again.
A rural specific problem
Connectivity
Long term poor connectivity has increased digital exclusion across the county.
Rich says “especially in our area, where it’s a struggle to be online because of connectivity, people have not gone online and now they’re being forced to. If they’re applying for benefits, or most things they need to do now, they’ve got to go online.”
Many community spaces don’t have proper Wi-fi and many areas don’t have a mobile signal. For Lincs Digital this means planning sessions round places they know they can connect via mobile. Connectivity matters so much to some big farms that they have installed Starlink connections, but this is unaffordable for ordinary people.
A common challenge
Finding good Digital Champions
This is always tricky, especially when you’re relying on a funding stream that can stop and start. And as Rich points out, the best people often don’t know their right for the job: “You’re often looking for people that don’t know you’re looking for them. They haven’t gone out saying, ooh I’m going to be a Digital Champion. You’ve got to put it in their mind and get them to think, that would be beneficial.”
Lincs Digital best solution is train their own! Most of their long term Digital Champions have started as learners, and they’ve come out the other end with the skills and confidence to help others, as well as “lived experience” of being baffled by technology.
What makes a good Digital Champion?
None of us know everything about technology and Rich says “the best Champions have the confidence to say “I’m sorry I don’t know but I’ll find out for you”. We find that builds trust [with learners] and they think “they don’t know so it doesn’t matter that I don’t know either”.
Training beneficiaries to help others is also helpful if a project’s funding does stop completely: “After our funding finished, and we’ve got to move on, you think you’re letting people down. But if there’s someone there that they can turn to, you think well actually, we’ve done a good job. We’ve left them with something they didn’t have before.”
Digital Champions and Charities