About Us
Our vision.
To live in a world which enables everyone to access the life changing benefits that digital brings.
Our mission.
To end digital poverty once and for all by 2030
What we do…
We convene, compel and inspire collaboration for the UK & global community to lead sustainable action against digital poverty
More about what we do
Our main focus is policy and advocacy, gaining the evidence that we need, and bringing the community together to create the social change needed to end digital poverty by 2030.
Our aim is to convene, compel and inspire collaboration for the UK community to lead sustainable action against digital poverty. We will do this through four key pillars of work:
- Unifying the community of organisations working in this space to build solutions
- Being evidence-based and using behavioural science and research to create impact
- Advocating for action to tackle digital poverty at all levels – government to public
- Running proof of concept projects to innovate where there are gaps.
Who we are
The Digital Poverty Alliance is an independent charity. The DPA was previously an initiative of the Learning Foundation, launched by the Foundation, Currys plc and the Institute of Engineering and Technology in 2021. In 2024, the DPA became the public facing brand and working name of the Learning Foundation, which was founded in 2001.
We pull together existing activity, avoiding duplication and working across industry, government, and the third sector to align approaches to tackling digital poverty based on its five determinants. We work through advocacy and campaigning with the aim of creating sustainable social change, and through delivery projects to help households around the UK access devices, connectivity, skills and support.
How we work
1. Joining the dots
Because we know there’s already great work taking place to tackle digital exclusion, we work with a range of partners with the goal of seeing organisations share best practice in tackling digital poverty. The DPA Hub allows easy and practical sharing of information and ideas. It will also host our Research Directory (collecting all Research related to digital poverty); our Supply and Demand map and our Support Directory.
To make sure we get the most out of our partners, in 2022 we’ll be launching a pledge tool so that individuals and organisation can easily identify the actions they can take to end digital poverty.
2. Building the evidence base
To end digital poverty by 2030, we need to know how big the issue is and how to fix it. As part of this, we have published a full review of the evidence on digital exclusion, building our Research Directory and continuing to work with research partners like the University of Liverpool. As well as building the evidence on this, we’ll use behavioural science to identify how we can best create sustainable change.
3. Advocating for action to tackle digital poverty at all levels – government to public
We will work to raise the profile of the issue of digital poverty, and then for those who can be responsible for change to take the steps that they need to.
Following the UK Evidence Review, to be published in summer 2022, we’ll create a national plan for change that sets out who needs to do what. This will set out a clear programme of actions and recommendations, with prioritisation, responsibility and timelines against each.
4. Running proof of concept projects to innovate where there are gaps
Where there’s a gap in the evidence, we take forward innovative projects to show how change can be created. In 2022, we’re supporting teachers, young prison leavers and school pupils.
We work with university partners to evaluate all this work, with the aim of demonstrating the case for why provision of a package of support – usually devices, connectivity, skills and information on relevance – can make change for people in different circumstances.
What we’ve achieved so far
We might be new, but with a goal to end digital poverty by 2030 we need to work fast. Some of our achievements so far are:
1: We created a Community Hub to bring our diverse partners together. Alongside this, we’ve formed a Research Library to be the source of reliable and impartial evidence on digital poverty. To build this even further, we’re now creating a heat map and a supply directory so anyone can quickly and easily see the issues and find support.
2: We’ve joined up 27 sectors through our Community Board and will be using their crucial expertise to create a clear plan for change following our full review of the evidence on digital poverty in the UK.
3: We’ve co-designed policy principles for change, which will form the actions we recommend government, third, public and private sectors must take.
4: We have kicked off two of our four Proof of Concepts projects to demonstrate how widespread change can be made with simple interventions. All will have formal university led evaluation and then white papers setting out evidence for interventions in tackling digital poverty.