Digital Facilitation Scheme

Background

The Digital Boost programme was designed in partnership with industry experts and small businesses to facilitate the Government's vision for New Zealand to have the most digitally engaged small business sector in the world. Through Digital Boost Educate, small business owners have access to a variety of resources to help them build knowledge, skills, confidence, and trust in digital business tools, and help them adopt those tools within their own business models.

The Digital Boost Checkable tool is an extension of the Digital Boost Educate platform. It offers businesses insights into their online presence and creates personalised Digital Action Plans, which support small business owners to identify and understand areas where their business can improve through the use of digital tools.

Why is the scheme being established?

The Digital Boost programme employs a one-to-many digital approach. To date this approach has proven effective in helping build core digital skills with over 55,000 users on the platform.

This scheme has been created to provide small businesses additional support and encouragement to adopt and practically use the Digital Boost Platform. The scheme is targeted towards small businesses who are in the initial stages of their digital learning journey, are unfamiliar with the Digital Boost platform and have a desire to improve their digital skills so that they can apply them to their business.

Business intermediaries will deliver this support

Business intermediaries (e.g., industry associations, business networks, community groups, charities etc.) will have the opportunity to obtain funding to provide support for groups of businesses (i.e., facilitated support and peer-to-peer learning groups).

This is an opportunity for these business intermediaries to support the digitalisation of small businesses in their community. Funding will be provided to eligible intermediaries to establish and run complementary cohort facilitation and support using the Digital Boost platforms.

There will be 2 options for business intermediaries to obtain funding:

• $10,000 (excluding GST) of funding will be provided to groups consisting of 8 small businesses.
• $20,000 (excluding GST) of funding will be provided to groups consisting of 15 small businesses.

Business intermediaries will:

• Identify their group (or groups) of small businesses
• Encourage prioritisation of digital training and adoption
• Support their group to effectively use the Digital Boost Educate and Checkable tool
• Facilitate and encourage peer-to-peer learning within their group of businesses
• Support group to utilise learned digital skills learnt in their own business
• Businesses in these groups will need to:
  • Be sole traders/self-employed or have between 1 to 20 employees,
  • Not be an existing Digital Boost Educate user, or not a registered user prior to 1 April 2022,
  • Be operating in a commercial environment,
  • Must be a privately‐owned business, Māori Trust or incorporation under the Te Ture Whenua Māori Act 1993 or similar organisation managing Māori assets under multiple ownership, and
  • Want to improve their digital skill and utilise more digital tools for their business.

Eligible intermediaries:

• Must have a New Zealand Business Number. If you do not have a New Zealand Business Number, you can register to get one through the link below:
  NZBN website(external link)
• Must recruit 8 or 15 eligible businesses to form a group.
• Must agree to appropriate use of funds and relevant reporting requirements.
• Must be able to demonstrate facilitation expertise or agree to resource an external facilitator.
• Must have appropriate capacity to deliver scope of work over agreed period.
• Must have a New Zealand bank account.

Applications

Applications closed on the 29 August 2022.

If you have any questions about the Digital Facilitation Scheme, please contact: DigitalFacilitationFund@mbie.govt.nz