# First recipients of National Lottery’s Digital Fund announced

- Link: https://fundraising.co.uk/2019/07/15/first-recipients-of-national-lotterys-digital-fund-announced/
- Published: 2019-07-15T08:00:52+01:00
- Author: Melanie May

**Wag and Company, Addaction and The Law Centres Network are among the eight organisations
to have been awarded funding in the first round of the National Lottery Community
Fund’s new Digital Fund.**

The eight organisations will receive funding of £3.4 million to help them grow their
digital capabilities, particularly around their operations and service delivery.

[Wag and Company](https://www.wagandcompany.co.uk/) has received a grant of over
£350,000 to develop a digital infrastructure, which will underpin an expansion of
its activities and services, while [Addaction](https://www.addaction.org.uk/) has
been awarded nearly £500,000 to work with service users to co-design new digital
services and products, and [The Law Centres Network](https://www.lawcentres.org.uk/)’
s grant of nearly £500,000 will be used to refresh its organisational activities
and services in the digital age.

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The other beneficiaries are Abelour, National Ugly Mugs, Family Lives, Lancashire
Women’s Centre, and Children 1^(st).

In addition to the grants, the projects will all now benefit from a support system
set up for Digital Fund grantees, made up of [Doteveryone](https://doteveryone.org.uk/),
CAST, Shift, Snook, The Dot Project, and a network of coaches and mentors. This 
support will range from help with recruitment and Board level engagement through
to responsible tech practices, service design and data audits.

They will also collectively document and share learning between themselves and the
wider sector, which was a key aim for The National lottery Community Fund when setting
up the Digital Fund.

Joe Ferns, UK Knowledge and Portfolio Director at [The National Lottery Community Fund](http://www.TNLCommunityFund.org.uk)
said:

>  “In a digital society it’s important that charities and community organisations
> are not only able to adapt to be fit for the future, but can harness the power
> of digital to identify new opportunities to improve services to support more people.
> Now, thanks to National Lottery players, these organisations can increase their
> digital capacity to have a greater impact in communities and support our sector
> to thrive in the digital age.”

Diane Morton, Founding Director of Wag and Company, said:

>  “As a smaller charity experiencing an increasing demand for our services, we’re
> over the moon. This Digital Fund grant is going to be transformational for us –
> we can more than double our activities by 2022 and grow our volunteer base significantly,
> meaning we can play a bigger part in tackling social isolation among older people
> in our region.”

There are two strands of funding available under the Digital Fund. Digital Fund 
Strand 1 offers grants of up to £500,000 and a tailored support package to help 
established organisations use digital to take a major leap forward with grants expected
to last from one to four years. Digital Fund Strand 2 offers grants of up to £500,000
for newer organisations that have already launched services that use digital to 
achieve scale or impact; again grants are expected to last from one to four years.
Information on how to apply to both is available online.

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