With the midterm elections behind us and long-stalled federal digital equity funds waiting on the horizon, it would be easy to assume the funding problem is solved. It isn’t.
The spending rules and the timeline for those dollars are still unsettled for a program that’s already been cancelled once.
The next — and last — Building for Digital Equity (B4DE) livestream of 2026 will take on the question digital inclusion practitioners are still wrestling with: who pays for digital inclusion now?
Join us Tuesday, December 8, at 3 pm ET as the Institute for Local Self-Reliance’s Community Broadband Networks initiative and the National Digital Inclusion Alliance (NDIA) co-host: “Last Call for 2026: Who Pays for Digital Inclusion Now?”
Registration for the free webinar is now open here.
The hour will begin with a fast look back at the year, with NDIA’s Angela Siefer helping us take stock. That segment will cover the Digital Equity Act’s cancellation, NDIA’s lawsuit, and the revived grant program now headed toward a December opening.
The look-back will also cover the restructuring of BEAD, new state affordability laws, and efforts to reform the Universal Service Fund.
That will be followed with a reflection on what the election changes in Washington and what it doesn’t — highlighting where a new balance of power might help, what a presidential veto and a slow-moving Congress likely means, and what communities might zero-in on first, before focusing on the more practical takeaways about funding that doesn’t depend on who runs Congress.
It will set up two guests who have spent years tackling this very issue. Samantha Schartman of Connect Humanity, who wrote the opening chapter of the Alt-Funding Field Guide, will lay out the case for how healthcare, workforce, housing, schools, local government, and Internet providers all benefit from digital inclusion and how those sectors might help pay for it. She will be joined by Mireya Reith of Arkansas United, who has helped build a digital navigator program that grew into a Department of Labor-registered apprenticeship (sponsored by Apprenticely) and will share what that model looks like in practice.
The popular on-going webinar series — sponsored by UTOPIA Fiber — is geared for those doing digital equity work on the ground, funders, community leaders, and anyone trying to figure out what comes next as the policy landscape continues to shift.
Viewers will be able to weigh in on the discussion throughout, most prominently via the YouTube live chat. The livestream will be broadcast (and later archived) on ILSR’s and NDIA's YouTube channel, Facebook, and LinkedIn.
Register for the upcoming B4DE here.
Watch the previous B4DE below:
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