The Digital Inclusion Program Manual (2024) provides guidance for digital inclusion program development. It showcases innovations and excellence within the digital inclusion community and marks the progress achieved since the last manual was updated. This resource is a collaborative effort, shaped by the NDIA team, documented best practices, and guidance from a core working group of digital inclusion practitioners. These practitioners represent diverse communities and program types from across the country to ensure that any digital inclusion practitioner working to address digital inclusion barriers in their community has the resources and information they need to be effective.
Building upon the community-centric approach pioneered in NDIA’s 2017 Start-Up Manual, the Digital Inclusion Program Manual expands and updates its guidance with new and comprehensive chapters on:
- Research
- Community Engagement
- Program Models
- Staffing Models and Methods
- Best Practices in Space and Place Usage
- Sustaining Your Digital Inclusion Program
- Evaluation
This manual would not have been possible without the support of the many community affiliates who shared their strategies, best practices, and lessons learned. NDIA would like to thank Dell Technologies for their partnership and support on this project.
Note: In 2017, NDIA released the Community Digital Inclusion Program Start-Up Manual (The Start-Up Manual). Written by NDIA founders Angela Siefer and Bill Callahan, this manual was a blueprint and a call to action. In 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic caused significant shifts in how digital inclusion programming could be provided, NDIA updated key sections of the manual in the 2024 version.