A Spring in Our Step: The 35 Mile Foundation Year in Review

There's a particular feeling that comes with spring. Not a sudden burst of energy, but a steady, purposeful reengagement with the work — a sense that conditions are favorable, that momentum is real, and that the road ahead is more open than it was a few months ago. That's where we are as we close out fiscal year 2025–2026.

We’re entering this new fiscal year with a spring in our step. And we’re not starting from scratch.

The work we've been doing is producing real results, and the partnerships we've built are already making a difference in people's lives. What this past year gave us was something different — the clarity, the capacity, and the organizational depth to do more of what's working, and to do it better. The partnerships we built this year didn't appear out of nowhere. They're the result of carefully cultivated relationships refined through real experience, and a model that's proving itself even in today's difficult economic conditions.

Building the Board

When we entered this fiscal year, we had a goal to bring in new board members. By April, we had added three new members who were able to join in time for the start of the new fiscal year.

That might sound like an administrative milestone. But in practice, it changed everything.

The new board members added some new skills to our table before and bolstered others: digital equity management at the city and county level, tech startup funding, and community organizing. The composition of the board shifted in meaningful ways — new perspectives and lived experiences joining the two longtime board members who have put in the work to build our foundation.

New perspectives bring new questions. "Why do you do it that way?" is a question that can feel uncomfortable, but it's also one of the most productive questions an organization can ask itself. The answers rippled beyond the board giving us a renewed sense of energy around the table that everyone shares.

Refining Our Perspective

For most of our existence, we've operated under a clear principle: give people access, connect them to accurate information, and they can take action — voting, advocating, participating in the civic and economic life that connectivity makes possible.

It's a sound framework. It's also broad. And this year, with a fuller board and a sharper set of questions, we asked ourselves where we actually have leverage.

The honest answer is access. That's our superpower — one anchored in relationships with organizations doing this work on the ground every day. Working with our full board, we have refined our focus," says Cassie Bair, Vice President of Broadband Services, "helping us measure and more deeply understand impact.."

Defining Access

Getting someone connected is a starting point, not an endpoint.

Effective access means making sure they can use that connection safely. It’s also digital navigation support so new users aren't dropped into the internet without a map. It’s helping partner organizations understand and comply with broadband requirements. It’s finding legal resources that smaller nonprofits don't have the bandwidth — or the staff — to track down themselves.

The suite of support we wrap around the lines of service we provide can make the difference between a partner that grows and one that stalls. That's not incidental to our mission. Over the past year, it’s become increasingly important to advancing our mission. This year we focused on determining the best ways to help our partners succeed and expand their reach, positioning ourselves to create impact beyond hotspots and lines of service.

Growing the Affordable Internet Program

Our affordable internet program grew significantly this year — adding enterprise-level partnerships.

That kind of growth is easy to understate. Each partner has the potential to serve hundreds, if not thousands, of people. From March 31 2025 to March 31 2026, the number of lines of service being utilized by our partners increased 109%.

The growth hasn't been uniformly smooth. Some partners have expanded faster than expected. Others have moved more slowly. Miller describes how many organizations are working to overcome "shelter-in-place syndrome" — a kind of collective hesitancy that has settled across the sector as organizations navigate uncertain funding, staff reductions, and a policy environment that keeps shifting underfoot. "As we expand our partnerships, we're going to have to build in patience at a level we weren't previously expecting."

That's how we plan to step into the next year — staying steady when conditions shift, doubling down on what's working, and helping to keep our partners moving forward in the process.

Sharpening the Grant Strategy

Our grantmaking matured this year. With a full board came a more formalized grant evaluation process — one that gives everyone in the organization, staff and board alike, a structured way to assess and recommend grants.

The shift was less about adding bureaucracy and more about adding rigor. As Bair puts it: "It wasn't just one person putting something forward. Both board and staff had the opportunity to put proposals forward. We either figured out real fast if something was a fit — or we figured out real fast if it wasn’t." The result has been more honest conversation, more productive debate, and grants that reflect our priorities more clearly.

This year's portfolio reflected the full arc of our mission. The largest share of dollars went to digital equity and digital inclusion organizations, with a split between media support and civic engagement rounding out the rest. There were also two grants that functioned more like emergency responses — support for radio stations navigating cuts to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and equipment for an organization in Minnesota doing critical connectivity work under difficult circumstances.

Our most innovative move this year was a strategy we've been calling an internet program  development grant — a capacity investment in a partner organization designed to help them build a sustainable program rather than simply sign up for lines of service. Getting an organization to the point where it can grow on its own terms and manage its program is worth more than any single grant.

Seeing the Field Expand

One of the most encouraging things about this past year had nothing to do with our own programs. It had to do with what we've been seeing across the organizations we fund.

Nonprofits in a variety of spaces have added in digital equity work for the first time. Job training nonprofits. Housing groups. Community support networks. Places that have always known their constituents need connectivity to achieve any other goal are finally taking that insight and acting on it. While many organizations in these spaces have long included digital equity work, we’re encouraged by hearing that more organizations are adding it to their approach. "We know about groups that classify themselves as digital equity organizations," Bair says. "Now we're hearing a lot more about organizations saying things we've said for years — that digital equity is actually a core part of every social justice mission to be achieved."

The field is expanding. The way digital equity is being perceived is changing. That matters.

"It is rewarding to be working directly with organizations trying to solve the problems.," Miller says.." These are groups plugging away with remarkable dedication in the face of uncertainty. They keep going because the work demands it. And being alongside them, not just funding them, is why we shifted our mindset this year — from that of a funder to that of a partner.

Springing Forward

As our new fiscal year begins, there's more daylight now — literally and figuratively. Our fiscal year opens as the days get longer. This year we have more to work with than we've had before.

What's ahead includes showing up in force at the next Net Inclusion Conference, pursuing ambitious public-facing projects designed to shift how the digital equity conversation gets framed nationally, and providing our partners with tools to meaningfully extend their reach, among other activities.

We acknowledge and celebrate what this past year produced. And we step into the next one with clear eyes, a fuller table. "We've got a doubled grants budget and a lot of important work ahead," Miller says. "We are excited about the impact we aim to have this year."

That excitement is putting a spring in our step.