Connect Humanity is a fund advancing digital equity. They support, catalyze, and scale holistic solutions providing people with the internet access and means needed to participate fully in a digital society.
Communities of non-traditional operators, philanthropists, impact investors, policy wonks, civil society organizations, and regulators have built a deep body of knowledge about how to deliver digital equity. Their knowledge has too often been siloed and disconnected. Cultivating communities of practice and sharing community-based insights is essential to meeting the needs of underserved communities because the path to digital equity begins with infrastructure expansion, but it doesn’t end there. Access, in and of itself, is insufficient. Far too many people today encounter connectivity services they can’t afford, devices they don’t have the skills to use, and content they are unable to access due regulatory barriers or are unwilling to pay for because it is not available in their language. That’s why Connect Humanity addresses the financial realities of the digital divide in a holistic manner by offering support to communities when, where, and how it is needed.
The Connect Humanity Approach
- Connect Humanity builds with and not for the communities we seek to serve, humble and mindful of great work already being done by partner organizations around the world, empowering communities as stakeholders in their own digital futures.
- Expanding the financial toolbox and funding available, Connect Humanity deploys grants, loans, and impact investments depending on what their partners need to achieve digital equity holistically. They strive to provide support where, when, and how it is needed, not how it is most convenient for them.
- Committed to continuous learning, they consult early and often on their programs and investments, while fostering a sense of safety and constructive candor where partners can share honest feedback so they can learn and iterate as a community.
- Working in the open, Connect Humanity is invested in cultivating a body of shared knowledge for all actors working to advance digital equity — not only with civil society organizations and non-traditional operators doing the hard work of meeting the digital needs of their communities, but with the regulators, investors, and funders who’s partnership is necessary to achieve digital equity for all.
- They are mindful of power — both the power they must build with all our partners to ensure the political will necessary to achieve digital equity, and their power as a funder committed to fostering justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion with those we support and within the ecosystem.
