Digital Inclusion Community Partnership
The Digital Inclusion Community Partnership Program builds on the demonstrated success of some demo communities – PCs for People collaborations where targeted segments of the community – those without computers, skills and broadband access – overcome their barriers to broadband adoption. Any community, county or region can submit an application.
The RFP for this program can be found online at RFP_DigitalInclusionCommunityPartnership.pdf . Grants will be reviewed on a quarterly basis. The next grant deadline will be September 1. A 1 : 1 cash match (non-federal funds) is required. Ideally, applications should include local broadband providers providing discounts and other incentives as match as well as collaboration with local CAP agencies, Head Start Programs or agencies that work with older adults.
This Request for Proposal (RFP) is an invitation by the Blandin Foundation to qualified community institutions and/organizations to implement digital inclusion community partnerships focused on increasing broadband subscriptions and use by those Minnesotans currently not subscribing due to income, disability, computer and technology skills, language and/or other similar barriers.
Significant numbers of Minnesotans do not use computers and do not subscribe to broadband services due to financial circumstances. This group is diverse – it includes older adults, new Americans, non-English speaking people, working poor and children.
The inability of this group to afford equipment and connectivity has negative consequences both to the affected individuals and to the community. The unconnected cannot find vital online information or take advantage of online opportunities and services, such as:
- Online job banks and application procedures
- Health care information portals and online tele-health services
- Education information, scholarship, financial aid information and online learning
- Community events and other community engagement and volunteer opportunities
- Unlimited other online opportunities
$600,000 in funds are currently available through the Foundation’s federally funded grant project, Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities (MIRC). Rural Minnesota communities across the entire state of Minnesota are encouraged to apply, excluding only those communities within the seven county metro area (Anoka, Carver, Dakota, Hennepin, Ramsey, Scott and Washington) and the Cities of Duluth, Rochester and St. Cloud.
This entry was posted on Friday, June 10th, 2011 at 11:05 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.