Today’s blog is about a new book, Digital Equity Ecosystems, written by Colin Rhinesmith. Colin is an Associate Professor of Information Sciences and the Director of the Digital Equity Action Research Lab at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
He uses the term ecosystem as a way to encompass the wide variety of organizations and people that are necessary to bring a digital equity solution for a community. This is an interesting read for anybody who is interested in creating a sustainable community coalition to address digital equity issues in a local community or region. The common definition for bringing digital equity to a community means tackling three key issues – getting people connected to broadband, making sure people have the computers and devices needed to use broadband, and training people how to use the technology and safely navigate the Internet.
A lot of communities have created a local coalition of people and organizations interested in tackling digital equity issues. Some of this work was prompted by the pandemic, but the process went into high gear when the federal government said it would be funding digital equity efforts. A lot of local coalitions were formed to attract federal funding but quickly realized that a big benefit of a coalition is introducing local practitioners to each other so they aren’t working at odds with each other.
The book looks in depth at five large digital equity coalitions formed in Baltimore, Chicago, Essex County, Massachusetts, LA County, and San Antonio. Colin looks at the history of the formation and operation of each coalition to see what they had in common, and to see what worked and didn’t work. Rhinehart condenses his findings into the factors needed to create and sustain a permanent and effective coalition. The book recognizes that digital equity work requires a permanent long-term effort since there will always be community members that need help with digital equity issues.
One of the most useful sections of the book discusses the many stresses that make it challenging to sustain a coalition. Rhinesmith’s research shows that successful coalitions need to have complete transparency and be willing to openly discuss and tackle the many concerns of members that can lead to what he calls advocacy fatigue, where members drop out of the coalition when the effort needed to support the coalition competes with external time constraints.
The book draws many specific conclusions. As somebody who has participated in several local coalitions, the book’s conclusions ring true. Here are just a few of the many conclusions reached by Rhinesmith:
- Coalitions have a better chance at sustainability if they are created organically by community members or non-profits than if the effort is led by a local government.
- A successful coalition needs some permanent funding to support a few core people who keep the coalition operating. A coalition needs a full-time core effort to be effective since it’s difficult to keep a coalition of all volunteers going for the long haul.
- To keep coalition members engaged, a coalition needs to regularly meet goals and accomplish specific tasks so that members can see the value of sticking with the effort.
This is a scholarly work, meaning that it comes with added features you might not get from other books on the topic. For example, the fourteen pages of references to organizations and articles on digital equity topics are alone worth the price of the book.
I heartily recommend the book for anybody who is engaged in digital equity work. Even small communities where a coalition might consist of a handful of local organizations and people will find some useful ideas in the book about how to keep the effort going.