PowerOn is excited to announce its partnership with nine new LGBTQ+ organizations across the country. As jobs, schools, and other spaces slowly begin the process of reopening in-person, we recognize that the digital divide will continue to be an issue that disproportionately affects minority communities, especially the LGBTQ+ community. We are proud to be working with these additional partner centers to broaden our reach of distributing life-saving technology.
Access to PowerOn technology has already helped over 100 individual partner center participants find complete homework, 300 individuals find stable housing, and over 335 individuals apply for a job. Even in pre-pandemic times many important aspects of life were making the transition to operating fully online, and now the pandemic has only solidified this. Not only is internet access necessary for locating for housing, but now job listings exist primarily online as well. Online classes and Telehealth will likely remain common even after the pandemic, which will be especially important for LGBTQ+ folks living in rural areas. These are all necessary aspects of our lives, and having reliable access to technology in LGBTQ+ centers allows community members to access these resources in safe and empowering environments.
During the pandemic many LGBTQ+ centers began providing services remotely. In addition to providing center staff with software and hardware to be able to connect with their clients, PowerOn also helped ease this transition by helping to provide HIPAA-compliant Zoom services at affordable rates for partner centers. PowerOn saw some of the largest technology requests during the pandemic since the beginning of the program in 2015. This affirmed what LGBT Tech has known, that the LGBTQ+ community is immensely affected by the digital divide, and that especially now, during the COVID-19 pandemic, our community is in dire need of access to technology.
With the addition of these new PowerOn partner centers, the program will now be serving LGBTQ+ individuals in 54 locations in 31 states and territories across the United States. PowerOn plans to distribute an estimated $80,000 of technology to these centers in 2021.
We are pleased to accept the following organizations into the PowerOn program for 2021:
JASMYN, Jacksonville, FL
NAGLY, Salem, MA
Nashville Launch Pad, Nashville, TN
Our Spot KC, Kansas City, KS
Out Boulder, Boulder, CO
Pride Link, Greenville, SC
Spectrum Youth & Family Services, Burlington, VT
Stonewall Alliance of Chico, Chico, CA
Wanda Alston Foundation, Washington, DC
2021 PowerOn Partner Center Additions