The Knight Center of Digital Excellence is dedicated to helping Knight communities across the nation develop broadband strategies that meet local challenges and help each other compete and thrive in the new economy. The communities range from large cities such as Miami and Detroit to mid-sized cities such as Akron, Ohio, and small, more rural areas such as Milledgeville, Ga.

Our key learning: Each city is unique in terms of their individual needs, but a sustainable network can be established in each one if our proven and innovative approach to digital transformation – our critical success factors – are met:

Inspiring digital visions: During the first stages of engagement awareness is key. We raise awareness of what COULD be, and what the power of information technologies can mean for the broader community and each key stakeholder group. This happens only by making the benefits of broadband tangible, real and achievable to benefit and transform areas including health care, education, government, digital inclusion, workforce development, economic opportunity and democracy.

Enabling local leadership: Once communities are inspired with a digital vision, local leadership needs to be uncovered, developed and supported. The Knight Center builds champions for each initiative, including stakeholders from multiple contingencies.

Developing sustainable community plans: Leaders of community broadband initiatives need to focus on the communities’ top priorities and interests help to help ensure short and long-term support. The Knight Center assists local leaders SEE the desired results and develop a plan, or “roadmap,” to ACHIEVE success.

Resourcing for launch: Every successful community broadband network needs sustainability strategies based on strong and continued value propositions that capitalize on both the needs and desires in a community and a community’s resources. In addition to plans that appropriately line up resources such as business skills, technical talents, financial and other project related assets, successful community broadband projects will have plans in place for continued investment, technology evolution, application expansion, community adoption and community leadership.

A sustainable network can be established in each community if our proven and innovative approach to digital transformation – our critical success factors – are properly met.

But how do you plan to pay for the network once it’s fully functional?

There’s no such thing as a free ticket – that’s the bottom line. Each connected community needs to have a plan, often developed in concert with Knight Center, that can include funding generated from initiative (self-funding), local private and public institutions, and/or national grant funding.

Cost is just one of the many challenges that need to be addressed at the program’s onset. But remember, all players – from the citizen to the highest government official – have the same basic goal in mind – success.