Social sector charities and non-profits have a major role in supporting the lives of the least privileged parts of the population in the UK, and their role as the last resort of support has increased in the post-austerity Britain although their resources are decreasing. As more and more of social life is happening in an online media environment and digital technologies introduce new sources of inequalities, charities face a dilemma: should they concentrate their dwindling resources on supporting their beneficiaries, or should they direct more resources into developing their capacity to navigate the online world, understand its implications, and invest into digital technologies? The dilemma puts charities on different sides of the digital divides.
This paper presents findings on how this dilemma is navigated by UK non-profit intermediary organisations that support other non-profits in their digital skills. Based on ethnographic observation and expert interviews, the paper elaborates on the role of intermediary organisations such as grant-giving bodies, non-profit sector consultants, and facilitator organisations in making choices about this dilemma. As proponents of digital technology in the charity sector, these actors need to have a position on how they support charities, but they occupy different positions in relation to the digital dilemma and divides of small charities.
The paper argues that charities lack sustained investment into their digital skills because of the structure and priorities of these intermediary and funding bodies. Because these organisations have different rationales to why they exist and who they try to serve, their ways of helping charities are also different. A particular difference can be found between those organisations that try to help the smallest of charities to get started with digital skills and tools, and those who target charities that already have capabilities and can propose their own development projects. As a result, the divides are not disappearing, but the gap between charities might be widening. Moreover, those charities that have less resources and digital capacities stand in an evermore difficult position with their digital investment dilemma.