North Carolina Moves Ahead With Broadband Equity Project Grants

North Carolina is moving forward with a digital equity grant program to bring broadband access into more underserved homes, as part of a larger mission to have all of these homes connected to the Internet by 2029. The North Carolina Department of Information Technology’s (NCDIT) Office of Digital Equity and Literacy will award $14 million in grants to community organizations such as local nonprofits, libraries, educational institutions and others. The funding is known as Digital Champion grants, and uses federal American Rescue Plan Act funds. Each applicant was able to apply for up to $400,000 per county served with a maximum application request of $1.5 million. The project follows the state’s larger aim to close the digital divide by both building out infrastructure, and designing initiatives to get residents connected. To do this, NCDIT developed its Digital Equity Plan, which identifies “priority populations” like the elderly, veterans, low-income residents and others who tend to have lower Internet connectivity rates than the rest of the population. Part of the process of developing the plan included a digital access survey that asked people what was preventing them from getting online. “They either said the Internet was not available or the Internet was too expensive were the two most common responses,” said Margaret Woods, deputy director of digital equity and literacy at NCDIT. Projects selected for the Digital Champion grants must address at least one of five areas of focus: digital literacy and skills training; technical support; providing digital devices like laptops or tablets; the development of online content to advance inclusivity and accessibility; and perhaps most important of all, addressing the cost of high-speed Internet.