Getting a BEAD on Community Asset Mapping

Digital equity is a key promise of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. If successful, the new law will lead to everyone and every community around the country having the connections and skills they need to fully participate in our increasingly digital economy and society. It seems like a tall order. To reach such a lofty goal, the infrastructure law and the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) require thoughtful broadband deployment and digital equity planning from the states, territories and tribes that will receive federal funding through the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) and digital equity programs (referred to as eligible entities). Fortunately for those implementing these requirements, the field of community development has a well-documented, adaptable and sustainable approach to identifying, engaging and activating community assets. The approach, often called Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD), combines practices that marginalized and oppressed communities have used for generations across the globe to gather and implement resources for achieving community goals in spite of contexts of caste, segregation, apartheid, economic inequity, colonization, and other marginalizing systems.