We are honored to be named one of Broadband Communities Magazine’s Fiber to the Home Top 100. We are so pleased to be listed with many esteemed colleagues who also strive for “Building a Fiber-Connected World.”

Here is what they said about the Blandin Foundation…

Blandin Foundation www.blandinfoundation.org 877-882-2257

Key Products: Grant making, community leadership development and public policy programs

Summary: A private foundation based in Grand Rapids, Minn., the Blandin Foundation has been dedicated since 1941 to strengthening rural Minnesota communities. Its Broadband Initiative, launched in 2003, helps communities educate citizens about the need for ultra-high-speed broadband and plan and execute broadband projects. The foundation has published informational guides, sponsored conferences and educational events and supported many feasibility studies for the development of robust, high-speed broadband networks. It has supported implementation of broadband applications in schools, health care facilities and other institutions and for home-based users and has promoted broadband adoption in rural communities. In 2012, the foundation selected nine rural Minnesota communities for intensive, two-year partnerships to advance local broadband initiatives. It also led the Minnesota Intelligent Rural Communities (MIRC) coalition – a group of educational, job training and economic development organizations – in a BTOP-funded program to enhance broadband adoption and use by small businesses, unemployed residents and local governments. Completed in 2012, the MIRC program introduced more than 250,000 rural Minnesotans to online resources to find jobs, continue their educations and strengthen their businesses.

I’ll take this opportunity to add some of the most significant outcomes of the work that we’ve been able to track so far:

• Data examining broadband subscription levels during the three years of MIRC’s implementation suggest that broadband adoption growth in participating communities grew close to 15% faster than in the rest of rural Minnesota.
• Those communities that reported the highest rates of participation [in MIRC activities] also experienced the highest rates of broadband subscription growth.
• Such evidence allows us to conclude that community-based broadband literacy and market development efforts can and do make a difference.
• According to the University of Minnesota/Crookston’s MIRC project evaluator, “it is not hard to connect the MIRC project as a major contributor to Minnesota’s leading position [nationally] in rural broadband adoption.”
• And, in the words of a MIRC partner in Thief River Falls, “MIRC is a life changing project for many individuals in the nine communities.”