Assistance program
Connecting Minority Communities Pilot Program
$261.7 Million committed in FY2022–FY2026
- Agency
- National Telecommunications and Information Administration, Commerce, Department of
- Assistance
- Not Applicable
- CFDA number
- 11.028
- What it does
- The Connecting Minority Communities Pilot Program provides grants to eligible recipients in anchor communities for the purchase of broadband internet access service or any eligible equipment, or to hire and train information technology personnel to 1) facilitate educational instruction and learning of Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Tribal Colleges or Universities, Minority Serving Institutions and related consortiums; 2) operate minority business enterprise managed by a related consortium; or 3) operate an eligible organization managed by a related consortium.
- Who benefits
- Anchor Communities defined as any area that (1) is not more than 15 miles from a historically Black college or university, a Tribal College or University, or a Minority serving institution; and (2) has an estimated Median annual household income of not more than 250 percent of the poverty line, as that term is defined in section 673(2) of the Community Services Block Grant Act (42 U.S.C. 6 9902(2)). NTIA may establish a different maximum distance for Tribal Colleges or Universities located on land held in trust by the United States in consultation with the Secretary of the Interior.
- Who applies
- (1) a historically Black college or university; (2) a Tribal College or University; (3) a Minority-serving institution; or (4) a consortium that is led by a historically Black college or university, a Tribal College or University, or a Minority-serving institution and that also includes a minority business enterprise or an organization described in section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 and exempt from tax under 10 section 501(a) of such Code. Additionally, an eligible recipient must be in an anchor community that has an estimated median annual household income of not more than two hundred and fifty percent (250%) of the poverty line and has demonstrated the greatest unmet financial need. A consortium partnership is eligible for a grant under the Connecting Minority Communities Pilot Program if it is led by an eligible recipient educational institution as defined above.
- Authorized by
- Statute 134, p. 1182
- Program site
- http://www.ntia.gov ↗
Committed by fiscal year
* FY2026 is year-to-date — the fiscal year is still in progress, so its total is still filling in. The striped band and dashed line mark that provisional stretch.
Top recipients
By dollars committed.
How to read these numbers
- Committed through this program
Money committed under this assistance listing (its CFDA program), counted in the year each action happened.
- How it's paid
Most programs pay out one way — a grant, or a direct payment to individuals; the flow bar only appears when a program genuinely mixes types.
- Some recipients aren't itemized
For entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, the government reports one aggregate instead of naming tens of millions of people, so the recipient roster isn't part of the public record.
- Awards, counted once
An award count is the number of distinct awards with at least one action that year — each counted once, however many times it was amended.
- The colored bars
Every bar on this page splits by how the money moves:
Direct payments