A Nashville nonprofit now has at least $400,000 to help solve the digital divide — a term the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee uses to refer to the lack of internet access in some parts of Davidson County, especially low-income areas.
Earlier this year, Metro Nashville had set aside $100,000 in its budget for the Community Foundation’s new Digital Inclusion Fund. The mayor announced Tuesday that the city’s funding was matched by three other investors: philanthropist Steve Turner and internet rivals Comcast and Google Fiber. Vanderbilt Medical Center also donated thousands of old computers.
Community Foundation president Ellen Lehman says the biggest challenge will be using these donations to help nearly 55,000 people in Nashville — an estimate from the nonprofit Connected Nation, she says — who don’t have an internet connection.
“Those represent people who are seniors, who are new Americans, who are unemployed and underemployed,” she says.
This fund will also go toward training people to use the internet and helping them with technical support. It will administer grants to libraries, churches and other civic groups over the next several years.
Its first initiative is donating used computers to 100 students at Nashville’s Hunters Lane High School, which could happen as soon as next month. Comcast will offer some low-income families there a cheaper Internet plan, Hunters Lane’s principal says.
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