How Everyone On Navigates Change to Deliver Digital Equity

Benton Institute for Broadband & Society

Thursday, January 23, 2025

Digital Beat

How Everyone On Navigates Change to Deliver Digital Equity

 

The Human Infrastructure of Broadband: Looking Back, Looking Around, and Looking Ahead Following up on the release of The Human Infrastructure of Broadband: Looking Back, Looking Around, and Looking Ahead, we are providing examples of core, complementary, and coalition models for digital equity work. This series of organizational profiles delves deeply into how these programs work, the problems they are best suited to solve, the populations they are best suited to reach, and the support they need to succeed. Learn more about the Human Infrastructure of Broadband Project.


“It’s been nice just to see how families are a little bit more open to it, and it’s because a lot of them have been taking the class and now feel more comfortable, and I think it also makes them accountable for their own stuff. In the first class, everyone is on the phone calling whoever, ‘So what’s the password to my email? And what is it called?’ And after that, we say, ‘No, you create your own password; make sure that you know [it].’ So, it’s more, ‘Okay, now I’m responsible for whatever comes into my email. Not so much my kids or my grandkids.’”

—Alma Nava, Community School Coordinator at Vaughn Next Century Learning Center
(an Everyone On Partner organization)

Everyone On is a national nonprofit organization that has operated digital equity and inclusion programs since 2012. Everyone On’s core work takes a “holistic approach to digital inclusion, connect[ing] under-resourced communities to affordable internet and computers, train[ing] individuals and organizations on digital skills and resources, and advanc[ing] fair and just policies.” Everyone On’s staff and core partners are in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and California’s Central Valley, but it also works with organizations in many cities across the United States. Instructors and other staff support adult and youth participants with Everyone On’s Digital Skills Academy curriculum. The organization distributes computing devices to learners and hosts in-person events to enroll people in low-cost internet programs. Everyone On also provides tools to support people across the country, such as:

  • a national locator tool for finding low-cost internet service, digital skills training, and computers; and
  • an enrollment assistance hotline that provides bilingual assistance for enrolling in internet discount and subsidy programs, such as Lifeline.

At the national level, Everyone On is a leader in the field, promoting policies and research focused on closing the digital divide, and forging both regional and national collaborations and partnerships.

History and Context

Everyone On started in 2012 as a public awareness campaign and digital inclusion pilot called Connect2Compete (C2C). The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had issued a challenge to corporate executives and nonprofit leaders in the broadband ecosystem to connect everyone in the United States to broadband. C2C was formed as part of this initiative to start a program to connect qualifying families (those with children in K-12 schools eligible for free or reduced lunch) with affordable internet service through partnerships with cable internet companies Cox Communications and Mediacom. The exposure and awareness the FCC initiative brought to C2C enabled the organization to secure additional funding to start Everyone On and expand its work to connect under-resourced communities with digital skills training and resources, as well as access to affordable computers and internet service. Everyone On CEO Norma Fernandez reflects, “It was a unique time because there was a lot of attention on Everyone On because of the FCC, and because of the public awareness campaign.” C2C started off as a public awareness campaign in partnership with the Ad Council as a part of the FCC’s challenge focused on broadband adoption. The nonprofit initiative was created as a part of this public-private initiative to, in the FCC’s words, “help execute the [private sector’s] commitments, host the jobs and educational content, develop a database with digital literacy classes, and help train digital literacy instructors across the country.

Funding for Everyone On’s early digital inclusion efforts came largely from internet service providers (ISPs) such as AT&T, Sprint (before its acquisition by T-Mobile), Google Fiber, Cox Communications, and T-Mobile (post-merger). Some ISP funding at this time was tied to required mandates from the FCC as conditions of company mergers. For example, as part of the AT&T-DirecTV merger, AT&T was required to set aside funds to develop an affordable internet option (Access from AT&T) and fund organizations to conduct community outreach and support enrollment in AT&T’s affordable plan. Everyone On was selected as one of a few national nonprofits as a key outreach partner. Though the funding helped Everyone On launch digital inclusion work in California and elsewhere in the United States, the support also put the organization in a difficult position. “It meant that our revenue stream was dependent on internet service providers. And so we did find ourselves in a very precarious position back in 2018 [when] a lot of that funding dried up, because either [the ISP’s] acquisition mandates were over, or because they took services in-house and no longer were dedicating the same level of funding to sustain our organization,” says Fernandez. Everyone On also supported Sprint with its ConnectED commitment to the Obama White House. But once Sprint’s goal of connecting 50,000 K-12 students was reached, the partnership and the funding were not continued.

Everyone On had to lay off a large part of its workforce at that time and nearly had to close its doors because of the decrease in funding.

“What saved us?” Fernandez reflects. “We weren’t ashamed to ask our partners and funders for help and to find out what else we could do to get back on our feet. We listened, didn’t give up, and got creative. Along with instituting strong leadership, the generous insights partners shared helped inform the next iteration of Everyone On. Had we let pride get in our way, we wouldn’t be here today.”

Services

Everyone On supports digital inclusion through several programs and services, primarily its Digital Skills Academy. The Digital Skills Academy training for organizations is a capacity-building curriculum, designed to support organizations that are new to digital inclusion topics, as well as a train-the-trainer course to equip staff to address digital inequities and support the communities they serve. This part of the program was a critical support that Everyone On provided to other organizations after the pandemic lockdowns.

Fear to Confidence cover

Senior Program Manager Oscar Magaña explains, “After the pandemic, so many organizations were sort of forced to get involved in digital equity and digital inclusion initiatives, [and] as an organization, [Everyone On could] ensure that other organizations, if they’re interested, [had] the training and the resources for their staff so that if their participants come along and they have questions that are related to digital inclusion, those organizations are going to have the resources so that they can support their participants without [Everyone On] necessarily having to be there for them.” This train-the-trainer approach has been effective for Everyone On to scale its digital inclusion support to many organizations.

Everyone On also partners with other organizations to deliver the Digital Skills Academy curriculum to partner organizations’ adult participants directly. The foundational curriculum focuses on improving participants’ digital skills so they feel confident accessing critical services like health care, employment opportunities, and educational resources online. The popularity of the curriculum has spurred Everyone On to begin planning additional courses because participants are eager to keep going. The second layer of classes includes financial literacy, banking essentials, cybersecurity, and “workplace essentials,” which include the core skills that are typically expected in an office setting like creating a résumé, working with spreadsheets and presentations, and signing a PDF. Instructors are also building a generative-AI curriculum to ensure that participants can stay abreast of new technologies.

Classes are virtual, hybrid, and in-person, designed in collaboration with partner organizations’ staff. Everyone On’s core in-person work takes place in the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, California’s Central Valley, and Milwaukee. Classes are typically eight weeks in length, and participants who complete Everyone On’s courses receive a device to connect to the internet. Everyone On’s instructors sometimes deliver classes at partner organizations’ locations in person, but this is flexible based on a partner’s preferences and needs. A partner organization may desire a remote or hybrid course, while others may want courses to be delivered in person. Everyone On also delivers courses to partner organizations and their clients in cities across the country, using a combination of remote, hybrid, and in-person models. Instructors are hired on contract across the country to deliver digital literacy courses. Hybrid courses might take place at a partner organization—for example, in a library setting with a group of in-person participants and some remote participants. Completely remote courses are also held, with participants connecting from their homes through the internet. In-person courses are delivered where Everyone On has contract instructors and when partners request in-person instruction. Everyone On instructors tailor the length of their classes to the partner organization’s needs—anything from a half-day workshop to four, six, or eight weeks, with one session per week.

Everyone On also works to close the digital divide through several other tools and services. The national Offer Locator Tool is a database of low-cost internet service plans, computers, and digital skills training, searchable by zip code. A toll-free Enrollment Assistance Hotline provides one-on-one bilingual internet enrollment assistance for those who want help enrolling in a low-cost internet service program like the FCC’s Lifeline. In the San Francisco Bay Area, Los Angeles, Milwaukee, and California’s Central Valley, Everyone On holds in-person events to enroll people in low-cost internet services. At the national and regional levels, the organization engages in collaborative initiatives and partnerships to advance the field. For example, Everyone On CEO Norma Fernandez conducted a research study “to learn how underserved women experience the digital divide.” The study, From Fear to Confidence: The Digital Skills Journey of Underserved Women, looked at “the everyday experiences of underserved Latinas and African American/Black women in the U.S. who have been left out of digital inclusion services due to systemic discrimination.” The results of the study were disseminated in a national webinar. The organization also conducts policy advocacy work to promote inclusive policies, research, and training to facilitate funding and advance legislation to close the digital divide.

Key Partners

The pandemic presented new opportunities for Everyone On to bring attention to and gather resources for digital equity programs and services. Everyone On was able to bring in significant new corporate, private, and individual donations to support its growth and expansion.

Norma Fernandez explains how Everyone On has found opportunities where other stakeholders can reap the benefits of digital equity: “Financial institutions, like Capital One and Union Bank, have become some of our biggest donors. They see a direct alignment between digital access and financial sustainability.”

Everyone On’s current funding primarily comes through grants from the states where it provides programs and services. The organization is also now applying for some federal grants, such as the Digital Equity Competitive Grant Program. The federal government has vastly expanded funding to support digital equity programs and broadband infrastructure, and though federal funding is new to Everyone On, Fernandez shares, “We’ve been intentional about setting up our internal infrastructure on the finance side to be able to manage those kinds of funds.”

Everyone On sometimes gets funding from philanthropy as well, but it is often restricted to either capacity-building work or to training participants directly. These restrictions on funding are common among nonprofits; however, organizations can be creative about how they fulfill their missions and support some of their work through unrestricted funds. Fernandez notes that private foundations don’t seem to make the digital divide a funding priority, which makes it more difficult to make the case for them to fund work like Everyone On’s.

What We Can Learn

Be Adaptable as Your Organization Grows and Flexible If Funding Changes

Everyone On nearly closed its doors when its initial funding sources were depleted. The organization’s response was to seek counsel, be open to change, and adapt where needed to chart a course forward. This lesson is applicable to many organizations doing digital equity and digital inclusion work. Everyone On leaders asked for help, listened, and changed. They had to make hard choices about staffing and how to deliver programs and services. Everyone On’s staff are now more confident than ever in the impact of their work, the scalability of their approach, and the future of the organization. The organization also diversified its funding streams to keep from being overly dependent on any one source. Everyone On uses a combination of federal and state grants, public-private partnerships, and philanthropic support to sustain its work. It also does organizational budgeting and planning every two years to be nimbler and more flexible in the face of any unexpected funding or other issues. Planning for funding sources to be eventually depleted and seeking new revenue sources well in advance is essential for digital equity and inclusion organizations to have continuity of services and adequate staffing.

Pursue Partnerships in All Aspects of the Work

Everyone On places a strong focus on partnerships in every facet of its work. “We cannot do this work without our partners,” Fernandez shares, “and it’s been like this since the very beginning. It’s a pillar of our work—collaboration, multi-sector partnerships, and really learning from our partners to understand how do we design our programs, our curriculum, [the] delivery of programs through their perspective, as the organizations that are directly in touch with the communities that we want to serve.” Everyone On’s partners are a diverse set of organizations, and Everyone On’s services complement those organizations’ mission and services.

Think Broadly About What Digital Inclusion Encompasses

Digital inclusion work is broader than devices, infrastructure, and getting people connected to an affordable internet service. The work has a much deeper purpose: self-love, self-confidence, and self-security. Everyone On staff emphasize that this deeper purpose drives their digital inclusion work, particularly when serving historically marginalized communities. As Fernandez observes, “We’ve always centered the communities we serve. We know that the only way to make change is to respond to their needs. We are on the ground, hyper-local, and designing programs tailored to the needs and aspirations of those we serve.” Getting a device, an internet connection, and training is great, but these things by themselves are not necessarily people’s core needs—they just facilitate the needs being met. The power of technology goes beyond connectivity—it’s supporting people’s self-empowerment.

Looking Ahead

Everyone On staff are confident in the organization’s trajectory, vision, and purpose.

Fernandez shares, “Everyone On is really attracting [staff] who have an equity mindset, and that’s not just about getting devices out there or getting people connected. But truly, how do we make sure that communities have what they need, including the skill set to accomplish some of these big life outcomes that we’re seeking to accomplish? More people are civically engaged. More people have jobs. More people are upskilling to improve their economic employment prospects. Everybody on our team, I feel very much operates in that way.”

Everyone On leaders have been thoughtful about how quickly the organization grows, with an eye on sustainability. They are planning for the future, while also being realistic about what’s possible within a shorter time frame.

As Fernandez explains, “I think what's helped us is that we have looked at, instead of a five-year strategic plan, looking [at] a two-year framework. What do we want to do in two years? What resources can support our growth for two years? ... I have this love-hate relationship with sustainability, because it implies that the funding is there to support sustainability. When in reality, it’s a lot more challenging.” These tensions are very real and apply to all nonprofit organizations; demonstrating results in a challenging funding environment can be difficult. Everyone On’s approach plans for more short-term opportunities to continue providing and expanding services and looking for longer-term strategies and general support to sustain its work.


Written by: Chris Ritzo

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