Community Broadband Grant Application

Build Connected Communities with Municipal Broadband Funding

Access to reliable, affordable high-speed internet is no longer a luxury—it's essential infrastructure. Whether you're a municipality exploring municipal fiber networks, a cooperative looking to establish community-owned ISP services, or a nonprofit focused on digital equity, securing grant funding is often the critical first step toward bridging the digital divide in your community.

This Community Broadband Grant Application template is designed specifically for organizations seeking funding to develop community-controlled internet infrastructure that prioritizes local ownership, digital privacy, and job creation over corporate profit margins.

Why Community Broadband Matters

Traditional ISP models often leave rural and underserved communities behind, while urban residents face limited choices and high prices. Community-controlled broadband initiatives—whether municipal fiber networks, cooperative ISPs, or hybrid public-private partnerships—offer a proven alternative that keeps decision-making power and revenue local.

Grant funding from federal programs like the NTIA's Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program, USDA ReConnect, and various state-level infrastructure funds has created unprecedented opportunities for communities to take control of their digital future. This template helps you present a compelling case for why your project deserves support.

What This Application Captures

This comprehensive grant application collects everything funders need to evaluate community broadband proposals:

• Organization and community background including service area demographics, current connectivity challenges, and digital equity needs
• Project scope and technical specifications covering network design (fiber-to-the-home, wireless, hybrid), infrastructure plans, and technology choices
• Governance and ownership models whether municipal, cooperative, public-private partnership, or nonprofit-operated
• Digital privacy and security commitments ensuring community control includes strong privacy protections and data sovereignty
• Economic impact projections including local job creation, workforce development plans, and community economic benefits
• Financial sustainability plans with revenue models, pricing structures, and long-term operational planning
• Timeline and implementation strategy showing realistic phases from planning through deployment and service launch
• Community engagement evidence demonstrating local support and demand for the proposed network

Designed for Multiple Funding Scenarios

This template adapts to various community broadband models and funding sources:

Municipal fiber networks seeking infrastructure grants can detail fiber-to-the-premises buildouts, partnerships with existing utilities, and public governance structures.

Cooperative ISPs can emphasize member-ownership, democratic governance, and community accountability while presenting sustainable business models.

Digital equity initiatives can highlight programs to connect low-income households, seniors, students, and other underserved populations with affordable, high-speed access.

Rural connectivity projects can make the case for serving areas abandoned by commercial providers, including agricultural and remote business needs.

Regional partnerships between multiple municipalities or counties can showcase economies of scale and coordinated approaches to broadband access.

Streamline Multi-Stakeholder Review with Paperform

Community broadband projects typically involve diverse stakeholders—municipal officials, community organizations, technical advisors, and residents. Paperform makes it easy to collect detailed applications and route them through whatever review and approval process your funding program requires.

Use conditional logic to show different questions based on project type, service area characteristics, or funding amount requested. Applications for fiber buildouts can include detailed infrastructure questions, while wireless or hybrid projects see technology-appropriate fields.

File upload fields let applicants submit required attachments like letters of support, feasibility studies, network design documents, community surveys, and financial projections—all organized in one submission.

Calculation fields can automatically score applications based on your funding criteria, tallying points for job creation targets, underserved population reach, local ownership structure, and other priorities.

Automate Grant Review Workflows with Stepper

Once applications arrive, Stepper can orchestrate your entire review and decision process. Route applications to technical reviewers, community impact assessors, and financial analysts based on project characteristics. Send status updates to applicants at each stage, request additional information when needed, and coordinate final approval workflows—all triggered automatically from each submission.

For funded projects, Stepper can create project management workflows, schedule milestone check-ins, process disbursement requests, and track outcomes against promised deliverables.

Who This Template Serves

This application template is ideal for:

Grant-making foundations focused on digital equity, rural development, economic opportunity, or community infrastructure can deploy this form to standardize applications and capture the information needed for fair, thorough evaluation.

Government broadband offices at state, county, or regional levels can use this template for competitive grant programs, ensuring all applicants provide comparable information for scoring and selection.

Community development organizations offering technical assistance or re-granting programs can provide this form to communities they support, helping less experienced applicants submit complete, competitive proposals.

Economic development agencies can adapt this template to prioritize job creation, workforce development, and business attraction elements of broadband expansion.

Build Internet Infrastructure That Serves Communities

Community-controlled broadband isn't just about faster internet—it's about who makes decisions, where revenue flows, how data is protected, and whether connectivity drives local prosperity or extracts wealth from communities.

With Paperform's flexible platform, you can create an application process as thoughtful and community-centered as the networks you're funding. Customize questions to reflect your specific funding priorities, add your organization's branding, and create an experience that respects applicants' time while gathering the detailed information serious infrastructure investments require.

Over 500,000 teams trust Paperform to power their most important processes, with SOC 2 Type II compliance ensuring your application data stays secure. Whether you're distributing millions in federal broadband funds or running a local grant program, this template provides the professional foundation your program deserves.

Start building a more connected, equitable digital future—one community-controlled network at a time.