Director’s Log | June 2024

Summer is officially here and Team IEI kicked it off with our first ever regional digital opportunities gathering in Flat Rock. More than 130 community leaders and digital inclusion experts joined us on June 4 at Blue Ridge Community College for Digital Opportunities: Growing Connections Across North Carolina. The event was held by our BAND-NC and Community Initiatives teams with support from the Dogwood Health Trust. If you were unable to attend, don’t fret! You can learn more about the event in this recap and watch the sessions on our YouTube channel.

Interestingly, many of our speakers hadn’t planned or expected to become digital inclusion experts when they started their careers. The same could be said for IEI. Little did we know back in 2019 that the focus area of the February 2020 Emerging Issues Forum would become a long-standing program for our organization. While our scope of work has changed – from awarding “rapid response” grants in the early days of the pandemic to supporting communities in developing digital inclusion plans – we have never wavered from our goal of ensuring communities have the connections, tools and resources necessary to bridge the digital divide in a way that supports their unique needs. That work is paying off in tangible ways. Many of the communities we assisted in the planning process were recently awarded Digital Champion Grants from the NC Department of Information Technology. 

I want to thank the Dogwood Health Trust, the State Employees Credit Union Foundation, the John M Belk Endowment, NC Department of Information Technology and the other amazing partners we’ve worked with over the years for their continued support in this critical space. The event in Flat Rock was the first of many digital inclusion gatherings we anticipate holding or supporting, and we look forward to continuing this important work.

Speaking of forum work, by the time this newsletter hits your inbox we will have hosted our first Financial Resilience Community Cohort meeting. This is our tenth cohort promoting community-level capacity building. Members of this cohort include representatives from five organizations that are working to increase household financial resilience locally, especially for communities with historically increased barriers to saving and debt management. More information about the cohort and the work they will do over the next two years can be found on our website. 

Lastly, we are continuing to move forward with research and programming surrounding our 2025 Emerging Issues Forum, “Future Forward Energy.” We will hold regional meetings later this summer with community leaders throughout North Carolina to discuss their local needs and how our forum and related program of work can best support the state’s energy landscape. I look forward to the important conversations we will have about our energy future.