Affordable Connectivity Program Bridge

This white paper ultimately represents the story of how our newly formed office found an efficient and effective way to address the digital divide in our community through the development of a novel local benefit program, as told by our associate Augusta Groeschel-Johnson. We accomplished all this by first and foremost listening to the advice of others, whether it was Department of Social Services case workers, our Procurement officers, or the Maryland team that developed its statewide benefit and whose input helped us click the final pieces into place. Building our program as a supplement to the Affordable Connectivity Program (ACP) allowed us to minimize administrative overhead and fraud risk, while providing these funds to community members with a demonstrated need. Developing our program with the input of so many partners will allow us to chart new paths, ones we had already mapped out before ACP fell in our lap.