Okayansas Citians can’t improve abilities or gadgets they don’t have already got, mentioned organizers of a newly relaunched Digital Inclusion Fund — emphasizing a must assault the metro’s digital divide on the infrastructure stage.
The fund is about to award as much as $250,000 to 501(c)(3) public charities (together with colleges and church buildings) or governmental entities throughout three grant cycles in 2024, beginning with gadgets grants. Purposes open June 3.
“There may be an ongoing want for gadgets, each at a person stage and a shared-use stage,” organizers of the fund mentioned in a press launch. “Units are a prerequisite for taking part in digital life and are a set, exhausting value that suppliers typically don’t have the funds to cowl.”
Click on here for extra info on the fund, which is led by KC Digital Drive and administered by the Better Kansas Metropolis Group Basis, with preliminary assist from the Well being Ahead Basis, Kauffman Basis, Kansas Well being Basis and Google Fiber.
The second cycle of the Digital Inclusion Fund is predicted to supply IT assist grants (opening Aug. 1), adopted by New Programs Grants (Oct. 1).
Every cycle has its personal request for purposes, utility necessities and analysis standards. KC Digital Drive will present applicant assist by means of informational occasions, workplace hours and 1:1 help main as much as every grant cycle; and can present tech assist, and analysis and reporting help to all grantees.
Aaron Deacon, KC Digital Drive, sits on stage throughout a 2022 occasion celebrating KC Digital Drive’s tenth anniversary; Picture by Channa Steinmetz, Startland Information
“The digital divide continues to be a persistent barrier to participation in society in all its varieties — from workforce and the economic system to social and cultural life, from democracy and political decision-making, to schooling and healthcare,” mentioned Aaron Deacon, managing director of KC Digital Drive.
“Digital inclusion is a compounding problem certain up with many different limitations to participation in society — and expertise and entry alone won’t resolve these points,” he continued. “The fund goals to advance a extra systemic technique towards addressing the digital divide by filling particular programmatic gaps and signaling robust ongoing neighborhood dedication to the problem; and to draw new native cash to this trigger past present funders, additional strengthening the area’s competitiveness for state and federal {dollars}.”
Initially established in 2013 to deal with digital literacy and expertise entry, the Digital Inclusion Fund beforehand offered just below $1 million to 33 grantees over 5 cycles with funding from Google Fiber (or GFiber), the Dash Basis, The Illig Household Basis, Polsinelli, World Prairie and JE Dunn.
ICYMI: 10 years later: Google Fiber boosted metropolis’s ‘capability for collaboration,’ former mayor says
Now, primarily based on findings from a recent funding landscape analysis white paper, KC Digital Drive is selecting up the place the previous fund left off.
The relaunched fund goals to assist 501(c)(3) public charities, academic or governmental entities that concentrate on digital inclusion entry, affordability and adoption to extend participation in digital society for Kansas Metropolis’s most underserved and/or disconnected residents.
Along with management from KC Digital Drive and the Better Kansas Metropolis Group Basis, the fund boasts an advisory council that features Dred Scott, president of the Civic Council of Better Kansas Metropolis; CiCi Rojas, president of Tico Productions; Adriana Pecina, impression strategist at Well being Ahead Basis; and Rachel Merlo, head of presidency and neighborhood affairs (Central + OC, CA), GFiber.
“That is all about digital infrastructure in communities, and I’m most excited to see how it will impression grass-roots neighborhood organizations and assist them to show the social impression of digital inclusion, and show and enhance yr over yr,” mentioned Pecina.
