BRIDGING THE DIGITAL DIVIDE

Sustainable Business Magazine speaks with Helen Milner OBE, Group CEO of Good Things Foundation. The charity provides digital devices that are donated by businesses to people in the UK who need it most, as well as internet access and digital skills learning to use digital services affordably and confidently.

Good Things Foundation is a UK-wide charity looking to bridge the country’s digital divide. There are ten million people in the UK currently lacking basic digital skills to navigate the contemporary world, and 2.5m households that lack internet connectivity due to cost. Good Things Foundation is attempting to resolve that issue through enduring partnerships and community action.

Helen Milner OBE, the Group CEO of Good Things Foundation, gives a rundown of what she and her organisation are doing to bridge the digital divide - and what they need from businesses to help fix it.

“The charity was set up in 2010 and sprung out of a recognition that the divide is a growing problem across the country. We help people that are on the ‘wrong side’ of the divide by working with local community centres, charities, food banks and other groups connected with people that might need our help. That way we reach right into the community and bring our resources to the people that really need it. In total, we work with more than 4000 local community organisations called Digital Inclusion Hubs.

“We focus on more disadvantaged communities because we know digital exclusion overlaps greatly with social exclusion. People who are on low incomes, for example, or in insecure housing or employment. Strategically, we look at places in the country where there are higher levels of deprivation and see if there are local partners that we can work with and bring into the network. Although 5000 existing local partners sounds like a big number, it doesn’t actually reach everywhere – and we’re determined to reach as widely as possible with the three pillars of digital inclusion: devices, data and digital skills.”

Although Good Things Foundations is now more than a decade old, a certain world event saw the charity’s biggest change yet.

“The Covid-19 pandemic had a major impact on our work,” Ms. Milner says. “Not only did it raise awareness of digital exclusion across certain social strata, but it also led to businesses digitising much more quickly than they had before. The change of pace for everybody, and especially those without digital skills or access, was huge –and so was the change of pace for us.

“One of the biggest challenges we faced was our work with local physical locations that had to close during the first lockdown. People in the community relied on those places for internet access, then all of a sudden it disappeared. It wasn’t just about a lack of skills, confidence or motivation, people simply didn’t have access to devices and connectivity they needed. That’s what we’re trying to provide as broadly as possible.

“We power the National Digital Inclusion Network, the National Databank and the National Device Bank to try and resolve these issues. Our aim is to support one million people in three years.” One of the greatest needs to fix the digital divide, is access to devices such as mobile phones, laptops and tablets. For this, Good Things Foundation is reliant on it’s partners to donate to the National Device Bank.

The charity can’t do this work without its partners. Not just the partners delivering help and devices, but the partners that provide those resources in the first place. Good Things Foundation relies on businesses donating their end of life digital devices to the National Device Bank. This helps the charity to continue building its bridges. As Ms. Milner explains, the charity already has strong partnerships –but it still needs more:

“We have five times the need of our current supply, so we are absolutely in need of more device donations – particularly from organisations who are those interested in forming permanent relationships. Right now there are some major organisations donating to us such as Deloitte and the London Metropolitan Police Service, both of which have pledged all of their end of life devices towards digital inclusion as part of their lifecycle policies and procedures. Other companies, including Ocado, Which? and Microsoft have donated on an ad hoc basis because they’ve restructured, refreshed their tech or moved offices. We would love to have permanent partnerships where we can take the equipment at every tech refresh and make sure it goes into the hands of people that need it.”

Meaningful Change

While many services such as banking and job listings have moved online, making them difficult to access for some people, it’s not just bills and information that people miss out on due to lack of connectivity. Ms. Milner highlights two examples where Good Things Foundation’s work was essential for people’s wellbeing:

“We talk a lot about transactions –people that can’t get a job, can’t get a GP appointment, can’t do banking – but when you speak to people, it’s the need to have a human connection and support from the people they love that is so powerful. One young mum, in her 20s and two young kids, was clearly struggling financially. We provided her with a free device and mobile connectivity. She was living in Birmingham but her mum was in Ireland. She wept with joy because she said, ‘I can now talk to my mum and I won’t be so lonely, I can ask mum for help when I don’t know what to do with the kids’. It was that genuine human side that really mattered to her.

“Good Things Foundation is helping people who have very real, complex situ- ations and the transformation stories are just amazing.”

…AND A BETTER, GREENER, FUTURE FOR ALL

Ms Milner explains how the charity’s partners benefit from their relationship with Good Things Foundation - by addressing the digital divide many of their customers face, alongside supporting their sustainability ambitions:

“Businesses are very focused on regulation and legislation. They are concerned about how they can legally get rid of IT equipment. However, if they put an additional social impact step into their circular ESG plans then you have a social impact as well as an environmental impact. That creates a truly circular economy. The amazing thing is that we’ve built a sustainable business model – financially and environmentally – where everything is free to those donating their equipment to us.

“We take the equipment and work with a professional refurbishment partner to ensure everything is wiped and cleaned properly. Anything that is waste or can’t be used is recycled appropriately, while a percentage of the usable equipment is sold for funds that finance the recycling and refurbishing. The remaining devices go straight into the hands of people that need them. We have this amazing distribution network of Digital Inclusion Hubs that already know who needs what in their local areas.

“Our model helps businesses be good to the planet and good to the community as well.”

In order to reach new partners at both ends of the supply chain, the charity has been running their Digital For All Campaign.

“Digital for All is raising awareness around digital exclusion and what Good Things Foundation can do to help,” Ms. Milner says. “Today, 92% of all new jobs are advertised online. If people don’t have the skills or a device to get online then they simply can’t get a job. Recently, I heard on the radio about how people are struggling to get GP appointments due to the move online. Research shows that

21% of the general public feels like technology is leaving them behind. All of these factors are a ticking time bomb that could cause serious problems further down the line.

“Digital for All raises awareness of what we do and the free digital inclusion services that we provide in partnership with local organisations. We’ve got some of the amazing and real stories from people from across the Network and highlighted how digital access has brought incredible benefits into their lives. It really demonstrates the human value of the services, such as the impact of donated devices.

“We want to make sure if people do get left behind that they get the message that there’s help. We also want to raise the profile of Good Things Foundation because we’re funded through businesses and we need businesses to support us by donating their devices.”

Fixing The Divide

Looking forwards, Ms. Milner puts a call out for new partners in Good Things Foundation’s ambitious plans to end the digital divide forever:

“I hope people don’t just think about a small action they can take tomorrow, that they actually think about digital exclusion. Of the millions of individuals and households lacking connectivity and skills, it’s not just elderly people – it’s people from across society who lack it but need it for many different reasons.

“We want to make sure that everyone hears about Good Things Foundation, of course, but we also want to get the message out that digital exclusion is a big problem for the country. It’s not just a social equity issue, there is an economic issue as well. If we can fix that digital divide, the benefit to the nation would be £13.7bn. Building the bridge makes economic as well as social sense.

“We love to work in partnerships. Not just with community organisations but with businesses on a national level, and with governments of the nations throughout the UK as well. Anyone who is inspired to donate devices but also anyone who wants to work with us in any other way in the future should contact us. We want to reach the people that are excluded and don’t even know how to resolve that issue. By doing that, I believe together we can bridge the UK’s digital divide.” c www.goodthingsfoundation.org

If you're an organisation and you want to donate your used tech to the National Device Bank, simply visit Good Things website to get started. You’ll be helping digitally excluded people, all whilst having a positive impact on the planet.