The Affordable Connectivity Program Promotion/Registration Program Final Report

The Digital Demonstration Project Program, implemented by the State of Missouri’s Office of Broadband Development and funded through the federal Digital Equity Act (2021), is intended to develop regional partnerships better able to connect Missouri’s most vulnerable citizens to the internet through the provision of devices, broadband connectivity, and high-quality training over the period of April 1 - Aug 31, 2023.  The Digital Demonstration Project serving Jackson County, and more specifically the boundaries of the Kansas City School District, is a partnership between the City of Kansas City’s Digital Equity Office, Essential Families, a 501(c)(3) charity, the Kansas City School District, and the University of Missouri- Kansas City.  Here you will find briefly described the structure of this Demonstration Project, the activities deployed over this pilot period, and a summary of key learnings from the process. 

Description of the Digital Demonstration Project

The Digital Demonstration Project (delineated as “the Project”) presented a unique opportunity for the City of Kansas City, through the Digital Equity Office, to partner with strong institutions each bringing unique skills and relationships in the field of digital equity.  The City has been a core convenor of regional efforts to expand high-quality broadband, devices, and training to all Kansas City residents.  As a convenor, the Digital Equity Office developed the Digital Equity Strategic Plan, a multi-pronged effort to address digital inequities in schooling, economic development, and family life.  City spending and regulatory priorities are now viewed through the Strategic Plan.

Dozens of key stakeholders in government, business, and the nonprofit sector have engaged in structured discussions of how to address digital equity.  Viewed as both an economic development and social justice challenge, the digital divide is starkly concentrated amongst racial ethnic minority communities (Figure 1):

Figure 1: The Kansas City Digital Divide

As produced by mySidewalk, Figure 1 starkly indicates that access to high-quality internet in Kansas City is substantially prominent in wealthier households.  The demographic geography of Kansas City also patterns along an east-west zoning, with racial and ethnic minority households predominating east of Troost Avenue.

The Project empowered the City to partner with Essential Families, a human-service nonprofit organization focused on building strong communities through technological and social development, in order to provide holistic supports to residents throughout the region.  Essential Families has particularly deep relationships with racial and minority communities.  Through the leadership of Founder and Chief Executive Officer Terri English-Yancy, Essential Families has developed a robust system whereby residents not only receive high-quality internet connected devices and training, but also access counseling and mental-health services in order to mitigate challenges to digital equity that might otherwise go untreated in more traditional digital-access programming.  Essential Families delivers their services through a unique system of face-to-face virtual parental education and instruction as well as synchronous primary/mental telehealth sessions for families after they have developed basic digital literacy skills.  These holistic services are delivered through trained Digital Case Managers who come from the communities of interest, oftentimes trained professionals who have previously benefited from Essential Families’ services.

The Project also partnered with Kansas City Public School District to conduct outreach activities and identify households that would benefit from the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP).  The Midwest Center for Nonprofit Leadership, a unit of the Henry W. Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri- Kansas City, provided analytical and report-writing support.

Project Activities

The five-month demonstration grant afforded the City and Essential Families to both scale up and broaden services that were already being piloted to Kansas City residents.  Essential Families had developed the Essential Digital Equity Program pilot with the support of the Kauffman Foundation in late 2022, creating and implementing a training curriculum for Digital Case Managers.  The intention was not to develop a cohort of navigators, but to create a system of upward mobility whereby residents could initially receive the ACP services, then develop a deeper knowledge of digital skills, which then would allow them to become paid Digital Case Managers, ending in their ability to credibly enter the digital workforce in a short period of time.  This system not only addressed the challenges of the digital divide, but developed a cohort of individuals who understood the effects of the digital divide and are able to communicate authentically with their communities in order to extend the power of the ACP beyond what might have been possible with a more singularly-focused digital literacy program.

During the Demonstration Project period (April 1 - August 31, 2023), Essential Families was able to conduct fifteen ACP training sessions where participants were paired with a trained Digital Case Manager, provided with a high-quality internet-connected device, and received initial instruction in digital literacy.  More importantly, participants were then given a roadmap with their navigators whereby they could receive one-to-one support over the subsequent weeks.  This model allowed participants to deepen their comfort in not only using a device, but in being successful in leveraging that device for their families’ social and economic development.

As Table 1 indicates, students represented a wide range of priority groups.  Of the 215 participants, 134 indicated that they were in a racial or ethnic minority population.

Table 1: Priority Group Participants

Leveraging community spaces located in priority neighborhoods - public libraries and community centers - Essential Families was able to deliver initial trainings close to populations facing the digital equity burden (Figure 2).  It is important to note that the initial ACP trainings were only the entrance point into substantial online synchronous support not only in digital literacy, but also in mental health and family counseling.  The online component allowed participants to deepen their use of their connected devices while also receiving holistic services aimed at mitigating root causes behind digital barriers.

Figure 2: Distribution of Project Participants

It is important to also note that there remains a great demand for the ACP programming through Essential Families, with 589 families currently on the waitlist, a number that continues to grow daily even as current marketing efforts have ceased.  Essential Families has been able to develop several cohorts of Digital Case Managers in order to meet this need.

While the summary statistics are able to indicate that in a short time period the Project has been able to reach scale, qualitative testimonials also provide context as to the quality of the program.  Testimonials were captured from post-session feedback forms; perhaps uniquely, the Project has received media attention with interviews also providing feedback.  Here are some of the qualitative responses:

Challenges Faced and Future Opportunities

The orientation behind this Project has been the need to transform the discussion beyond considering the challenges of the digital divide being simply about connectivity or devices, but rather a more fundamental shift to considering how access is just the starting point in discussing digital equity.  The economic and social vitality of our communities and the state of Missouri rests on the ability to bring a substantial proportion of Missouri families to an equitable digital solution.  Please find here key learnings from the demonstration project:

• Successful projects consider engagement with families that go well beyond initial trainings and device distribution.  The initial connection through trainings is an entrance point into providing more fundamental services aimed at addressing root causes of the digital divide.
• Seemingly simple is the idea that participants simply want to be heard.  Both the in-person and synchronous online coaching allowed families to articulate their challenges without judgment and an orientation towards developing holistic solutions.
• Relationships matter.  Many of the participants have had difficult relationships with government entities in the past.  The City of Kansas City, through a deliberative process, is attempting to develop authentic relationships with citizens, with the goal of being a trusted provider of information and expertise.
• Strong partnerships lead to access to families who may not have been identified otherwise.  The work of Essential Families, the Kansas City School District, and the City of Kansas City has created a trusted system that has gone beyond simple information transfer to collaboration.
• Essential Families, in partnership with the city the City of Kansas City Digital Equity Office, is launching a Digital Equity Community Partner Program.  Community Partners must provide “direct service” and have 5 successful programs that helped children and families over a 2-year period, and a facility that can hold 40-60 people for Digital Equity Workshops.  Community Partners will have “full access” to Essential Digital Equity Program proven back office systems, and Essential Families will bring the covered population to Community Partner Digital Equity Workshops.

The Digital Equity Community Partner Program will start by bringing our current 588 covered population waitlist to our Community Partners.

Works Cited

mySidewalk (n.d.). KC Connectivity Report: An in-depth analysis of where the digital divide is in Kansas City, MO, where the current COVID-19 pandemic impacts existing connectivity, and how to begin to close the gap. Kansas City, MO: mySidewalk.