The Scottish Council for Voluntary Organisations is the membership organisation for Scotland's charities, voluntary organisations and social enterprises. Charity registered in Scotland SC003558. Registered office Mansfield Traquair Centre, 15 Mansfield Place, Edinburgh EH3 6BB.
The role of the Digital Champion
We help our family, friends and colleagues and those we care about and support make the most of the online world.
Think of a time when you've supported someone to do something online or when you've shown someone how to use a device. That's what a Digital Champion does. We're more likely to learn from someone we know and trust as it gives people more confidence. This is why Digital Champions are so important.
Digital Champions help others to build confidence and skills to make the most of the internet. You don’t need to be a digital expert to be a Digital Champion. However, you do need to have the patience, enthusiasm and passion to help others, as well as being confident in your own digital skills.
Example: Fiona is visiting her mum for Sunday dinner. Her mum is feeling low because she hasn’t seen her sister for 6 months because she lives down south. Fiona gets her mum’s smart phone out and shows her that she can use WhatsApp to make a video call to her sister. Fiona’s mum had no idea she could make video calls, not just sending messages. Fiona might not know it, but she’s a Digital Champion.
What is a Digital Champion?
By helping those around us participate in the online world and to do things that many of us take for granted can be extremely rewarding. It can also feel like a big responsibility and this guide is here to help support you.
"It’s nothing really to do with IT skills, it’s about knowing how to help somebody. That was a big eye-opener for me. It used to freak me out if somebody asked me a question. You don’t need to know everything, it’s about how you’re speaking, building up a relationship with somebody and then doing it with them. It doesn’t matter if I don’t know, we can figure it out together."
Could I be a Digital Champion?
It’s likely you already have the soft skills to be a Digital Champion. Being a Digital Champion is more about people skills than it is about digital skills. A good Digital Champion is:
- Friendly, approachable, and eager to help others learn new skills
- A good listener
- Able to explain things in simple terms
- Understanding of people’s interests and motivations for learning
- Passionate about the positive impact digital can have on people’s lives
- Patient
You don’t need to be a tech expert, but you should be confident in being online. You don’t need to know how to do everything. In fact, it actually makes you a better Digital Champion if you don’t know how to do everything. One of the best skills a Digital Champion can demonstrate is problem-solving, and being honest when you don’t know how to do something.
Example: Sanjay is supporting Ellen to set up a social media account. An error message pops up on the screen. Ellen asks Sanjay what this means and he answers truthfully, that he has no idea. That’s ok though. Sanjay explains that if he doesn’t know what something means he won’t be the first person to have encountered this problem. He opens Google and shows Ellen how he does a search for this error message and how to overcome it. Not only does it resolve the error, but Sanjay also demonstrates online problem-solving skills. He is also building Ellen’s confidence and resilience to deal with unexpected issues in the online world by showing that it’s ok to not know everything.
You may have most of the digital skills to offer support to others, but if you’re not sure, it’s important to check you’re confident in your own digital skills, for life and for work. This is key for confidently helping someone navigate the online world.
Top Tip
You can use SCVO’s Essential Digital Skills Check-up to help measure these skills. This will help you to identify any gaps in your own knowledge around the key digital skills for life and work. You can then access free and flexible online learning tools to improve your own skills.
As well as your own skills, it’s important to be honest about your own fears or dislikes about being online. We all have them, but it’s important that you’re aware of these and don’t allow this to negatively impact or scare your learner. For example, just because you don't use online banking it doesn't mean it isn't a useful or safe service for your learner to access.
Different kinds of Digital Champions
The term ‘Digital Champions’ can be used in a variety of different ways, ranging from informal interactions between friends or family members, to specific roles in community organisations. It can be someone helping a parent use video calling on their phone, a support worker helping someone use Google Maps to find their way to an appointment or a council worker showing someone how to pay council tax online.
Some places may use different language, for example Digital Buddies, Digital Helpers or Digital Heroes. In this guide we will use the term ‘Digital Champions’ to cover all these terms.
Many of us will have experience helping friends or family members do something new online. It may be showing a relative how to make video calls, or showing a friend a feature on a social media platform. This makes us Digital Champions, even though it’s very informal. We’re sharing our knowledge and enthusiasm for the tools we use every day, to help someone else.
Example: Jim’s daughter, Kirsty, gives him a tablet for Christmas. Jim’s excited at the idea of getting online but he doesn’t know where to start. His daughter helps him get it setup and creates an email address. She shows him how to use the touchscreen and how to navigate between different apps so he can send messages and check the news. Kirsty might not know it, but she’s a Digital Champion.
Many community organisations provide volunteering opportunities for local people. This is where you volunteer your time to help others in your community. This could be helping out at local computer classes, drop-ins, or maybe even a helpline. Volunteer Digital Champions will provide support through an organisation and will likely have a role description and expectations of what kinds of activities they’ll do. They volunteer their time and skills to give back to their local community.
Example: Brenda wants to spend some of her free time supporting people to get online. She sees an advertisement in her local community centre looking for volunteers in their drop-in café. Brenda applies and gets a role as a volunteer to help people learn new skills on their devices. She is supported by the community centre staff and provides digital skills support every Wednesday between 1pm and 3pm.
Embedded Digital Champions tend to be in front-line positions, for example support workers, advice officers or befriending volunteers. They have their primary job to do, but they incorporate digital ‘nudges’ in this support. All roles that come into regular contact with people using services can be Digital Champions.
A key advantage of embedded Digital Champions is that they have pre-existing, trusted relationships with their learners. This means that they’ll find it easier to understand the benefits of digital for them, as well as their fears and any potential risks. Embedded Digital Champions understand the wider context of their learner’s life, and with regular engagement they can slowly build their digital skills and confidence over time. Embedded Digital Champions don’t take on a new role, they simply use digital ‘nudges’ in the core work that they do. Digital is an additional tool in the toolbox, not an additional job.
Example: Githa is a community support officer. She has been working with Mary for a few weeks and Mary has indicated that she feels lonely and isolated. Mary has a tablet which she uses for video calls to her children, but not much else. Githa shows her some websites to look up local classes and social groups, and Mary starts going to a local sewing group. Mary is now more connected to her local community, and Githa has used a digital ‘nudge’ to help her reduce her social isolation. Githa is an embedded Digital Champion.
A ‘professional’ Digital Champion is a term we might use when an organisation has created a specific paid post to promote digital inclusion. In addition to helping individuals develop their digital skills and confidence, a professional Digital Champion might also be responsible for creating learning resources, recruiting volunteers, coordinating drop-in surgeries, and running digital classes.
Example: Alison works as a Digital Inclusion Officer for a local community organisation, it’s a new post that the organisation has received funding for. It’s her responsibility to find new opportunities to work with learners and so she starts a digital learning club in the local village hall. She finds that there is more interest than she expected so she starts to recruit and train volunteers to help out and ensure everyone gets the support they need. The extra volunteering help means that Alison can also spend time supporting learners one-to-one and creating resources to help them. Alison is a professional digital champion.
Work-based Digital Champions are people who tend to be more confident in navigating the different platforms being used in the workplace. They help colleagues with digital queries, the same way any of us would help a colleague if they had a question. They aren’t the IT team, they’re just more confident using the tools we all use to do our work and they are there to help us make the best use of them. People who are work-based Digital Champions may have their efforts recognised by their employer through additional learning and development opportunities to help them further their own career progression. They may also have their Digital Champion efforts recognised in their annual performance reviews.
Example: A council is rolling out a new digital platform for managing inbound queries and they’re asking for staff to volunteer as Digital Champions. Richard volunteers because he’s keen to get advanced training on the new platform. His manager approves this as part of his professional development plan. HR receives the advanced training and when the new platform rolls out he’s able to assist his colleagues when they run into difficulties. Quite often this means sharing his screen on a short Teams call to show another colleague how to do something on the new platform.