Groups switch on to new digital grants programme

SYCF is the largest local grant giving charity in South Yorkshire. It awarded grants totalling more than £1.7m in 2023 to help transform the lives of people and communities across the region.

Jess O’Neill, grants and partnerships manager for SYCF, said: 

These grants are designed for developing groups and organisations from across South Yorkshire, where small amounts of funding can make a real difference.

We know that getting online can be expensive. Working with Citizens Advice Doncaster, we’re committed to supporting the voluntary and community sector by reducing digital costs to allow even more people to access technology and improve their IT skills and confidence.

 

Research has shown people living in deprived communities; with long term health conditions; disabilities or protected characteristics are more likely to be isolated and digitally excluded. Across South Yorkshire 62 per cent of the local population live in the most deprived 20 per cent of communities nationally (842,000 people).

Heather Stanley, from Citizens Advice Doncaster, said: 

Research has shown that a lack of digital skills and access can have a huge negative impact on a person’s life, leading to poorer health outcomes and a lower life expectancy, increased loneliness and social isolation, less access to jobs and education.

With the sharp rise in online services, particularly since the Covid Pandemic, we believe tackling digital exclusion is essential to improving access to care, removing barriers, and ensuring people in South Yorkshire can access our vital information and services.

Together with SYCF and the NHS South Yorkshire Integrated Care Board, we’re steering digital inclusion activity across the region and advocating the importance of digital inclusion support. We’re committed to ensuring our programme meets the needs of inclusion health groups and is aligned with the framework for NHS action on digital inclusion.

 

The fund will support organisations running projects in 2024 and 2025. Groups must have beneficiaries who live in South Yorkshire and be locally led and run. This includes locally constituted and managed branches of national or large charities.

Applicants don’t have to be a registered charity.