Unlocking Broadband in the Heartland: A Harvest of American Opportunity

Across America’s heartland, reliable, high-speed internet remains out of reach for many. In fact, more than 25 percent of the population across just Arkansas, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Wyoming doesn’t have access to sufficient broadband. “Lack of broadband in the heartland isn’t just a ‘heartland issue,’” says Darren Walker, president of the Ford Foundation, a philanthropic organization with an arm focused exclusively on funding community-driven solutions to bridge the digital divide. “The effects reverberate across the country—across the globe.” Philanthropic organizations working on digital access, such as Ford Foundation, are rising to meet this challenge through community-driven, cross-sector partnerships and grants that touch everything from agriculture to infrastructure to community outreach and beyond. The Broadband Breakthrough initiative is a 17-county community engagement and broadband planning program across rural Illinois created in partnership between the University of Illinois’ “Illinois Extension” program and the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society, a 43-year-old nonprofit organization working to bring national access to affordable, high-performance broadband for all. Delivered electronically and by paper, the data tool analyzed the nature of rural residents’ existing broadband service and guided them through internet speed tests. “The survey lets people in the county know there’s an effort to get better broadband, and specifically asks questions of farmers and farmer-supported businesses that are big parts of our economy,” says Adrianne Furniss, executive director of the Benton Institute for Broadband & Society. “In their farmhouses and farm offices, fields and their communities, farmers need to overcome inadequate broadband which limits productivity and growth, and hinders their ability to connect to markets, information and each other,” she explains.