on Jul 17, 2025

Reflections from Net Inclusion 2025: Grounded in Community, Geared for Action

By: Danny Fuchs, Maile Martinez, Shawn Daugherty, Alex Banh, Preston Rhea, and Ana Z. Licona

 

Leaders of HR&A’s Digital Opportunity team recently attended the Net Inclusion conference at the Gila River Indian Community with a clear purpose: to connect with practitioners and organizations who are grounded in community, geared for action, and committed to closing the digital divide.

 

There’s a growing need to work alongside those planning, funding, and delivering for communities of all sizes around the country. Our experience in infrastructure planning, evaluation, partnerships, and policy offers a foundation for thoughtful collaboration.

 

We left with 6 key takeaways:

 

Collaborate Locally and Regionally

The next phase of this work must be rooted in local and regional collaboration. Local ecosystems and governments should identify ways to leverage their regional strengths by increasing their integration and partnering with other critical service providers. In the face of funding shifts, organizations should take shared action and identify new and innovative solutions on a state-by-state basis.

 

 

Philanthropy’s Role is Evolving

Funders are seeking new ways to drive impact. We’ve identified three key strategies for engaging them effectively:

 

Understand funder priorities: Approach funders with a genuine interest in understanding their current perspective and priorities to build trust and open doors to future support.

Demonstrate collective impact: Funders increasingly favor coalitions that show coordinated efforts across sectors. A single program working in isolation is far less compelling than coordinated efforts with healthcare, education, and workforce development sectors.

Provide concrete evidence: Bringing local and regional impact data plus personal success stories helps demonstrate the value of scaling solutions.

 

Continue Highlighting the Impact

Practitioners need to clearly demonstrate how digital inclusion drives outcomes in education, workforce development, and healthcare, especially in rural and remote communities, where small populations can obscure significant impact. Tens of thousands of organizations have contributed to state asset inventories and planning processes. Sustaining these tools and building on their foundation should be seen as a cost-effective way to sustain the momentum.

 

 

 

Digital Access is Essential to Healthcare

Digital tools are indispensable to improving health outcomes. From telehealth appointments to remote monitoring and data sharing, internet access is now a public health issue.

 

Panelists repeatedly underscored how gaps in digital access directly translate into gaps in care. Patients in rural or underserved areas may go without regular check-ins, delay treatment, or fail to access preventive services, not due to lack of interest or urgency, but because they can’t reliably connect. Healthcare providers are similarly constrained in delivering telehealth or following up with patients lacking devices or connectivity.

 

Find What’s Working to Address Infrastructure Challenges

The cost and effort of pre-engineering networks and understanding likely take rates at different price points remains a major barrier to realizing more public network buildout.

 

Communities of any size and at any scale begin to take concrete steps towards public network construction, operation, and uptake. A session by the Boston Metropolitan Area Planning Council highlighted their strategy for affordable multi-dwelling units, drawing strong interest around targeted outreach and implementation. This work parallels efforts to develop affordable broadband options in affordable housing across California, New York, and Texas.

 

 

Policy Innovations Require Coordination and Creativity

From California’s CERF device fee proposal to the State of Washington’s reintroduced device fee bill and ideas inspired by Maryland’s digital ads tax, local advocates are thinking creatively about sustainable funding. However, coordination is lacking to nurture these ideas into actual programs and policy. There is a clear need for a coordinated effort to track, evaluate, and amplify these innovations.

 

What’s Next

We believe that localized, cross-sector collaboration, along with bold, evidence-based advocacy will define the future of broadband.

 

HR&A will be there to help deliver it through infrastructure planning, evaluation strategies, partnership building, and policy development. With strategic collaboration and sustained commitment, we can build more equitable digital access for all communities.