This report summarises the main findings of a research project on how e-learning can help to improve adults’ literacy, language and numeracy skills.

Elearning can have a transformational impact on small business, not-for-profit and other fragmented groups sharing common interests, challenges or opportunities.Being able to provide training to a disjointed group spread over thousands of kilometres on a flexible schedule enables you to capture more people, more quickly, and more effectively.

Recommendation 11 from the 2025 Taskforce chaired by Don Brash deals specifically with education including market interest rates for student loans and rationalisation of the non-university sector, whatever that might mean.

The relationship between organisation culture and learning is a critical one. The same considerations extend to elearning specifically. In the New Zealand context elearning is still a relatively new phenomenon. Many organisations, and their people, will not have had widespread exposure to elearning provision. This places even greater importance on understanding how organisation culture and elearning depend upon, strengthen and influence each other.

This commentary sets out the clear benefits of elearning for the not-for-profit sector. The link between stated advantages and real case studies illustrates what can be achieved. Creative approaches to building capacity in not-for-profit organisations are well served by the flexibility and customisation that elearning provides.

Elearning provides a cost effective solution to some key issues affecting many not-for-profit organisations. One example is how to successfully manage volunteers. Many community based organisations rely heavily on volunteers at some level. This might be people on the ground delivering service, or at governance level providing oversight as committee members or trustees.

Challenges can arise from the fact that volunteers typically come from diverse backgrounds and present with a range of skills and experience. In these circumstance elearning can assist.

This press release describes how elearning can be used in practise to achieve dramatic results in the not-for-profit sector. The Virtual College’s Safeguarding Children e-Academy has helped Bradford Safeguarding Children Board deliver child protection training to more than 3,000 people.