Improving Collaboration among Digital Equity and Economic Inclusion Resource Providers
What’s the problem?
Since 1977, banks have spent over $3 trillion on Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) compliance, through investments in affordable housing, financial literacy education, financial inclusion, and economic inclusion. Banks meet their CRA obligation through a blend of employee volunteerism, loans, equity investments and grants. Recently, it’s been determined that banks can also receive CRA credit for supporting such digital equity-related efforts as developing broadband infrastructure.
One challenge often faced by those living in unrelieved poverty is trauma. As educators at the PreK-12, postsecondary and adult education levels now widely recognize, those who teach learners of all ages in low- and moderate-income (LMI) areas are much more likely to encounter learners who exhibit many of the conditions associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As one study notes, “PTSD, particularly when it’s untreated, can take a huge toll on relationships, parenting, and finding a job.” Yet, counter-intuitively, a recent study has found that even moving out of poverty can induce trauma for learners, especially for boys.
This makes the typical provision of services in siloed, fragmented ways deeply problematic. There is a plethora of alphabet-soup efforts in nearly every high poverty community to provide job training, psychological counseling, treatment for addiction, family violence prevention, homelessness shelters, soup kitchens…At every turn, impoverished families are handed “one-legged stools”, virtually all of which are helpful and well-intentioned. Yet, their ultimate success in enabling an LMI individual or family to move out of poverty (economic inclusion) depends in large part on the ability to piece together an armload of one-legged stools into something upon which they can stand., while under significant duress. This is hard for any learner, but especially daunting for traumatized learners.
It bears emphasizing, though, that many living in poverty are highly proficient at managing on scarce resources and on persisting with grace and courage in the face of systemic challenges. But, we can make their efforts at self-determination vastly easier.
Providers of digital equity resources know that offering access to only a device or only to broadband will not suffice. American schools have enjoyed an investment of billions of dollars over the past 25 years in learning technology resources. After much trial and error, we’ve learned that only a systemic approach will reliably yield statistically significant gains in student learning opportunities, engagement and results. In other words, LMI families on the wrong side of the digital divide typically face barriers with regard not just to one but several dimensions of digital equity (broadband, devices, tech and librarian support, quality content, and apps) and so need integrated supports.
Equally, so long as we address only the digital divide but leave LMI households to navigate among fragmented economic inclusion resources, they may enjoy new access to Netflix, for example, but not necessarily to the income needed to pay for it: without economic inclusion, digital equity for its own sake, the National Collaborative for Digital Equity (NCDE) believes, is nearly meaningless.
It’s for these reasons that NCDE emphasizes in everything it does that digital equity and economic inclusion should be approached in an integrated way. NCDE’s state summits bring together leaders from education, banking, philanthropy, workforce development, and affordable housing to both (a) identify and remove local digital divide barriers to economic inclusion and (b) foster more coordinated local approaches to economic inclusion once the digital divide has been largely eliminated. This, NCDE believe, makes compelling sense both for its alignment with federal Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) policy’s focus on economic inclusion as well as for the relevance of digital equity for economic opportunity in a digital age economy and society.
That said, several questions warrant attention: how might we best encourage digital equity resource providers to collaborate with one another in promoting their respective services to funders and LMI learners and families? For example, might it be feasible and desirable for a GenYes chapter to know to share with a client individual or family that they can get discounted broadband through Kajeet, Comcast Internet Essentials, and/or some other provider of discounted broadband? And could a bank offering online financial literacy training explore how to refer learners to providers of refurbished computers, discounted broadband and free tech support. And might they all learn to let their respective clients know the often-unsung contributions that librarians make to cybersafety and media literacy (let alone to effectively searching online for jobs, health promotion information, and non-usurious microlending programs)?
How might each of the summit’s providers of digital and economic inclusion resources more systematically learn about and co-brand/cross-promote one another’s services alongside their own – so that LMI families are handed more than one-legged stools? How can we best educate foundation and bank CRA investment leaders about the feasibility and value of promoting integrated approaches?
How might the National Collaborative for Digital Equity and other summit participants best assist efforts to launch such initiatives?
By the end of Day One workgroup discussion, please be prepared to report out about your thoughts regarding the following question:
What are aspects of this challenge that most need addressing?
By the end of Day Two workgroup discussion, please be prepared to report out about your thoughts regarding the following questions:
What’s the problem?
Since 1977, banks have spent over $3 trillion on Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) compliance, through investments in affordable housing, financial literacy education, financial inclusion, and economic inclusion. Banks meet their CRA obligation through a blend of employee volunteerism, loans, equity investments and grants. Recently, it’s been determined that banks can also receive CRA credit for supporting such digital equity-related efforts as developing broadband infrastructure.
One challenge often faced by those living in unrelieved poverty is trauma. As educators at the PreK-12, postsecondary and adult education levels now widely recognize, those who teach learners of all ages in low- and moderate-income (LMI) areas are much more likely to encounter learners who exhibit many of the conditions associated with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). As one study notes, “PTSD, particularly when it’s untreated, can take a huge toll on relationships, parenting, and finding a job.” Yet, counter-intuitively, a recent study has found that even moving out of poverty can induce trauma for learners, especially for boys.
This makes the typical provision of services in siloed, fragmented ways deeply problematic. There is a plethora of alphabet-soup efforts in nearly every high poverty community to provide job training, psychological counseling, treatment for addiction, family violence prevention, homelessness shelters, soup kitchens…At every turn, impoverished families are handed “one-legged stools”, virtually all of which are helpful and well-intentioned. Yet, their ultimate success in enabling an LMI individual or family to move out of poverty (economic inclusion) depends in large part on the ability to piece together an armload of one-legged stools into something upon which they can stand., while under significant duress. This is hard for any learner, but especially daunting for traumatized learners.
It bears emphasizing, though, that many living in poverty are highly proficient at managing on scarce resources and on persisting with grace and courage in the face of systemic challenges. But, we can make their efforts at self-determination vastly easier.
Providers of digital equity resources know that offering access to only a device or only to broadband will not suffice. American schools have enjoyed an investment of billions of dollars over the past 25 years in learning technology resources. After much trial and error, we’ve learned that only a systemic approach will reliably yield statistically significant gains in student learning opportunities, engagement and results. In other words, LMI families on the wrong side of the digital divide typically face barriers with regard not just to one but several dimensions of digital equity (broadband, devices, tech and librarian support, quality content, and apps) and so need integrated supports.
Equally, so long as we address only the digital divide but leave LMI households to navigate among fragmented economic inclusion resources, they may enjoy new access to Netflix, for example, but not necessarily to the income needed to pay for it: without economic inclusion, digital equity for its own sake, the National Collaborative for Digital Equity (NCDE) believes, is nearly meaningless.
It’s for these reasons that NCDE emphasizes in everything it does that digital equity and economic inclusion should be approached in an integrated way. NCDE’s state summits bring together leaders from education, banking, philanthropy, workforce development, and affordable housing to both (a) identify and remove local digital divide barriers to economic inclusion and (b) foster more coordinated local approaches to economic inclusion once the digital divide has been largely eliminated. This, NCDE believe, makes compelling sense both for its alignment with federal Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) policy’s focus on economic inclusion as well as for the relevance of digital equity for economic opportunity in a digital age economy and society.
That said, several questions warrant attention: how might we best encourage digital equity resource providers to collaborate with one another in promoting their respective services to funders and LMI learners and families? For example, might it be feasible and desirable for a GenYes chapter to know to share with a client individual or family that they can get discounted broadband through Kajeet, Comcast Internet Essentials, and/or some other provider of discounted broadband? And could a bank offering online financial literacy training explore how to refer learners to providers of refurbished computers, discounted broadband and free tech support. And might they all learn to let their respective clients know the often-unsung contributions that librarians make to cybersafety and media literacy (let alone to effectively searching online for jobs, health promotion information, and non-usurious microlending programs)?
How might each of the summit’s providers of digital and economic inclusion resources more systematically learn about and co-brand/cross-promote one another’s services alongside their own – so that LMI families are handed more than one-legged stools? How can we best educate foundation and bank CRA investment leaders about the feasibility and value of promoting integrated approaches?
How might the National Collaborative for Digital Equity and other summit participants best assist efforts to launch such initiatives?
By the end of Day One workgroup discussion, please be prepared to report out about your thoughts regarding the following question:
What are aspects of this challenge that most need addressing?
By the end of Day Two workgroup discussion, please be prepared to report out about your thoughts regarding the following questions:
- What strategies does your workgroup recommend be undertaken?
- What commitments might workgroup members have made to help implement proposed next steps?
- What supports and commitments might you need from NCDE and other stakeholders at the summit to carry out these strategies?