London Regional ICT Champion

Martha Lane Fox, the Government’s newly appointed digital inclusion champion, has urged charitable foundations to award more grants to charities for their core functions and IT.

In an interview to mark the announcement of Government’s Race Online 2012 initiative, intended to bring four million more people online by the time the London Olympic Games begin, Lane Fox said it was “eye-opening” that charities often struggled to fund technology.

“They should be able to get money for core funding, not only for starting new projects………. Technology is not usually at the front of people’s minds, but investing in it can allow charities to work more quickly and effectively.”

That’s no surprise to us and Lasa has long been campaigning that funders should recognise that ICT underpins service delivery to beneficiaries and should be resourced accordingly. Recent research unearthed no more than 90 funders of ICT from amongst thousands of chaitable and statutory grant schemes.  Educating funders about the value of ICT is no easy task and needs all the help it can get from Government.

Lane Fox went on to say that the Government’s Race Online campaign would not fund IT systems for charities or give them funds to help their beneficiaries get online. But she said the Race Online 2012 website would include information to help charity beneficiaries to use the internet.  The Get Online page page points to a number of schemes – such as those run by Age Concern and Pass IT On – to help individuals get online and use the Internet safely.

Charities can head over to Lasa’s ICT Knowledgebase – an online resource providing the sector with quality jargon free ICT advice and guidance.

The Race Online 2012 campaign is expected to be launched within the next six weeks.

Source: Third Sector