The ACORN Project
The ACORN Project
Thanks to a significant grant from the National Lottery Community Fund we are able to ramp up our digital equity work across Gloucestershire.
Our new ACORN Project (Advancing Communities through Outreach, Resources, and Nurturing) will enable us to help an additional 7500 disadvantaged people in Gloucestershire. We will give them better access to digital devices and connectivity, help them gain the confidence and skills needed to take full advantage of today’s increasingly digital society, and we will be upskilling some of the vital VCS organisations supporting them.
The three-year ACORN Project will be all about working with peer-to-peer groups and the Voluntary & Community Sector across Gloucestershire to improve digital knowledge and capacity, and enable those most in need to access the help and support they require.
This support will be given to individuals and groups unable to access existing one-to-one support in the Districts, through the training of organisations supporting those in digital poverty. The project will use people’s experiences and local data to help shape and influence the future planning and delivery of digital and other support services in the county.
ACORN News
- We ran a very successful free Photography for Wellbeing Walk at Batsford Arboretum in October 2025 for a group of people living with mobility problems, poor mental health, social isolation, and their carers. One participant commented "It's a beautifully peaceful way of collecting your mind and thoughts, a gorgeous way of healing, I'd recommend this to anyone and everyone." You can see more details here.
- We hosted a successful online Canva Basics workshop for 43 people from community organisations in September, watch on youtube here . We'll be running an in-person session on Wednesday 15th October 2025 10-11.30am at Community House. Email us at digital@grcc.org.uk or call us on 07454 066116 to book a place. You can download our flyer here .
Contact the project manager
Testimonials
Nicky Herbert
Ruspidge Community Hub
The monthly DAISI visit is always looked forward to & welcomed as it provides IT, mobile phone and technical support and information. Most importantly it is delivered in a way that is accessible and helpful to the Hub users themselves - whatever their level of technical ability is. Louise and Sophie are patient, understanding and always appreciated and warmly received at at the Hub. As many of our Hub users are living alone and independently this is an invaluable service in a fast moving technological world !!! We are very grateful for all the help.
Art Project
Gloucestershire
Gaining new skills with yourselves will directly feed into the work we do as we can embed learning into the courses when appropriate. Knowing you personally too is a great way to signpost to your services for those who are digitally excluded. We are keen to develop our online/remote delivery and if we are more confident to design these through advice with ACORN, we can continue working with those who are not able to attend face to face provision. Not to mention that if we are saving time once our digital spaces are designed to save time, then we will have more time to work with our participants and fundraise for ongoing and new provision to benefit many.
Project manager
Daniel Gale
Daniel Gale is our Digital Equity Manager, responsible for our projects to improve access to digital tools, devices, and know-how for VCS organisations and disadvantaged individuals in Gloucestershire.