IGF 2021 DC3 Sustainable Funding Models for Community Networks

The IGF 2021 session of the Dynamic Coalition on Community Connectivity (DC3) focused on exploring ways to make alternative connectivity models (including community networks) financially sustainable and at the same time scalable and/or replicable. Session participants provided their viewpoints and shared experiences and good practices discussing the contributions to the 2021 DC3 Outcome, a collective volume dedicated to “Community Networks: Towards Sustainable Funding Models” that was launched during the session.

The session provided several presentations of case studies and best practices that were discussed in the book published as well as a discussion of funding models and financial sustainability of community networks.

The book on Community networks is a compilation of different viewpoints and over 80% of the contributors are female - but also showcased the diversity IGF opinions along with the diversity of Community Networks set up by practitioners for themselves.

Nico spoke about the success they have had with the Argentine Regulator. In the past Community Networks had struggled for many years to have a program that can route Universal Access funds to Community Networks and he discussed the success he had with the Argentine regulator in getting approval for UAS funding to be used exclusively for Community Networks. For small communities, they need a specific type of funds and these have been hard to get and so very important now that this avenue was set up for them. It is also the first time that cooperatives can get this seed funding .

Some of the risks are lack of experience with rural communities, and their experience in managing a community network could be a higher risk. Community Networks  are small operators compared to larger players and so less attractive to traditional courses of finance which have made them harder to finance.

Build awareness of the role of CNs in the area to make them more effective. One way of doing this is to run schools to teach people how to set up and operate a community network. That is one of the successes of groups such as Altermundi in training people and organizations.

Jane Coffin spoke about some of the innovative financing models for sustainability of community network and the importance of bringing connectivity to rural areas.

She also spoke about new innovations such as voucher-based systems and the ability to aggregate donors to create funding opportunities and is part of impact investment. The key here is that the people are not leaving the community and so need to find innovative ways of reaching them. She spoke about how many people have donated their time and capital to get community networks off the ground. The important thing is to change UAS to support these new models since the old funding models supported broken models so need to change things up,

The next set of speakers spoke about the different ways that Community networks were creating innovative ways to finance the networks either through vouchers, through tokens, or other types of community currencies. A type of voucher-based system was presented, where people could redeem tokens for data, for food, or receive tokens for recycling and composting.

This method was not only for funding the building of community networks but also for more sustainable networks. Environmental sustainability was also addressed. Community Networks are built in the mountains but then often damage the terrain so now there is a focus on how to build the networks without damaging the terrain and doing it in a more sustainable way.