The Digital Citizenship Foundation (DCF) was created to respond to a gap in digital citizenship education. Digital citizenship is the ethical and responsible use of technology. It’s a broad topic covering many subjects like media literacy, internet safety, digital wellness, privacy and security and more. 

Carrie Rogers-Whitehead, a veteran former librarian and founder Digital Respons-Ability (DRA) – a successful mission-based for profit company – first realized the need for the Digital Citizenship Foundation when she saw how many children and parents were in dire need of digital education, but were not able to access it. As digital life has increasingly more impact on all other spheres of life, this education is even more important. Since 2016, DRA has taught tens of thousands of students and parents digital citizenship principles and practices through in-person classes.  

Carrie and her team at DRA knew there needed to be a better way to expand and deliver more in-person education to those who most needed it. There was much more demand for this hands-on, community-intensive programming than the DRA had the capacity to meet. Much of that interest was from community groups and schools without the ability to pay for digital education. In addition, throughout the years DRA compiled an incredible library of free digital citizenship and digital parenting resources – but didn’t have a good way of sharing this information with the people who most need it. 

DCF steps into that gap with a mission to expand digital citizenship. We distribute free resources and teach in-person classes to under-resourced communities to ensure that every child and parent in Utah has access to high-quality education about this vital topic. As a sister nonprofit, the Digital Citizenship Foundation has different funding mechanisms so we can provide these much-needed and sought after live trainings for children and parents around the state. As a nonprofit, we are also able to accept support from others who care about this critical topic!    

 Digital Citizenship Foundation was created to help address three specific goals:  

1. Providing in-person digital citizenship education to parents and students,  

1. Providing more trainings at a reduced or free rates to other nonprofits, schools and community organizations, and  

1. Sharing out free digital citizenship resources.  

Digital citizenship is a big and broad topic. From computer science to English/Language Arts, elements of digital citizenship are found in many subjects and there’s a clear need for high quality education among children and their parents, but few other organizations are equipped to help meet that need. Digital Citizenship Foundation is working to ensure that Utahns have access to this crucial education in an ever more digital world.