London Regional ICT champion

Lasa has launched a new policy paper as part of its campaign for ICT to be recognised as a legitmate cost of providing a service by funders and policy-makers.   Lasa also called for funders to support circuit riders (or mobile ICT support workers) (URL) to provide on the ground strategic support to help Voluntary and Community Organisations (VCOs) better use ICT in their work with communities.

The policy paper outlines the case for funders to invest in supporting the cost of ICT as a legitimate cost of providing a grant funded service, as  benefit to funders will be that properly resourced ICT could enable organisations they fund  to increase the impact of their programmes.

London ICT Champion, Miles Maier said,

Whilst funders do not have to be technical experts, many feel they lack the expertise to identify ICT projects in which to invest their limited grant resources. This policy can help funders understand how ICT can be embedded in their grantees’ organisation to improve service delivery and programme outputs.”

VCOs also need support on the ground, and Circuit Riders – or mobile ICT support workers – offer funders a proven, low cost, model of ICT capacity building a caseload of organisations.

Funders are also called on to keep online resources – like Lasa’s ICT Knowledgebase – freely available as an impartial and trusted ICT resource for the sector.

Download Lasa’s ICT Funding Policy paper. (PDF 0.7MB)