In this episode of Unbuffered, Chris is joined by Samantha Schartman, Director of Philanthropic Programs at Connect Humanity, to discuss the Alt Funding Field Guide: Building Sustainable Funding for Digital Adoption. 

The guide is a new resource that maps how digital skills and connectivity programs create value across six sectors: education, healthcare, telecom, workforce development, housing, and local government.

Samantha shares the personal history behind the guide. She helped lead the BTOP-funded Connect Your Community program, which trained 33,000 first-time computer users across five states, only to see its staff laid off when federal funding ended. 

She describes watching the field rebuild during the pandemic with ARPA and Capital Projects Fund dollars, then shrink again after the Digital Equity Act was canceled. That experience led her to form the Alt Funding Working Group, which has grown from six people to more than 150 leaders nationwide.

Together, they dig into the core idea of co-investment. Rather than relying on the next grant, programs can show local stakeholders the value they receive and ask them to invest in proportion to it. 

That could be a hospital system cutting emergency costs, an ISP gaining subscribers, or a housing provider seeing more regular rent payments. Samantha explains why this requires programs to move from testimonials to measurable outcomes, and to redesign their work around community goals.

Concluding with a case for government efficiency, Samantha shares findings from her Connecting Cuyahoga report. It found that serving social service clients offline costs roughly four times as much as serving them online, meaning digital inclusion programs can pay for themselves. 

Chris and Samantha also take aim at wasteful policies, like Medicaid-funded tablets locked to a single use, and preview future episodes that will dive deeper into each sector.

For more information about Connect Humanity's Alt Funding Field Guide, click here!

This show is 48 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed. 

You can also check out the video version via YouTube.

Transcript below.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Thanks to Whitedrift for the song Operator, licensed Creative Commons Attribution (3.0).

Catch the latest episode of the Connect This! Show, with co-hosts Christopher Mitchell (ILSR) and Travis Carter (USI Fiber) joined by regular guests Kim McKinley (TAK Broadband) and Doug Dawson (CCG Consulting) and special guest Angela Siefer (National Digital Inclusion Alliance) to talk about all the recent broadband news that's fit to print. Topics include:

• Charter and Cox announce agreement to merge, unseating Comcast as the largest cable provider in the United States
• What the public-funds match for Starlink should be, when BEAD moves forward.
• Funding for hot spots - a core digital equity tool that grew to new importance under the pandemic - is under threat.
• Trump's announcement that he was ending the Digital Equity Act, and the significant impact it will have if the order holds.

Join us live on May 16th at 2pm ET, or listen afterwards wherever you get your podcasts.

Email us at [email protected] with feedback and ideas for the show.

Subscribe to the show using this feed or find it on the Connect This! page, and watch on LinkedIn, on YouTube Live, on Facebook live, or below.

In this special episode of the podcast, Chris shares a segment from our Connect This! show, featuring insights from industry leaders Robert Boyle, Travis Carter, Kim McKinley, and Blair Levin.

The discussion delves into the impacts of the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) and the Emergency Broadband Benefit (EBB). These programs have been instrumental in providing internet access to millions of low-income families, and our guests share their experiences and perspectives on their successes and challenges.

The episode explores the complexities of funding and future efforts to connect underserved areas, with a particular emphasis on rural communities. The conversation highlights the financial strategies and incremental approaches needed to efficiently expand broadband infrastructure. Travis discusses USI Fiber's decision to self-fund the ACP to ensure continued service for their customers, emphasizing the importance of sustainability and low churn rates.

Blair provides a detailed account of his testimony before Congress, addressing questions from policymakers like Ted Cruz. This segment offers a critical look at the political and legislative aspects of broadband funding and the potential for future investments to bridge connectivity gaps.

For more information on Connect This! and to find previous episodes, please visit our website at connectthisshow.org

This show is 54 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed.

Transcript below.

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance.

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license

This week on the podcast, Christopher is joined by Jon Chambers, industry veteran and partner at Conexon. The two begin by talking about the work electric cooperatives are doing in rural areas to convert subscribers from DSL connections reluctantly maintained by monopoly providers to member-owned fiber connections.

Then, they address what Jon calls the next frontier in broadband policy and funding with BEAD, initiated by the inherent shortcomings of the new Broadband Data Collection Fabric and which underscore the FCC's continued inability to act decisively to figure out where and which types of connections are available at the address level. This includes the fraught and complicated consequences when the federal government sets too low a definition of broadband, the challenge process, the delay in funding until a complete list of Broadband Serviceable Locations is complete, the lack of transparency in the new data sets, and more.

This show is 47 minutes long and can be played on this page or via Apple Podcasts or the tool of your choice using this feed. 

Transcript below. 

We want your feedback and suggestions for the show-please e-mail us or leave a comment below.

Listen to other episodes here or view all episodes in our index. See other podcasts from the Institute for Local Self-Reliance here.

Thanks to Arne Huseby for the music. The song is Warm Duck Shuffle and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (3.0) license.