2. Sustainability

The DCN was originally funded for three years starting in 1993, to serve as a research testbed for the University of California and the California State Department of Transportation. As research contract funding has decreased annually funding has been replaced by subscription fees, in-kind commitments from community partners and volunteers. In fact, during FY95-96, DCN achieved break-even status on its revenues from subscribers, and began funding its own system administration and technical support. However, like other community networks who serve as Internet Service Providers (ISPs) as one of their functions, sustainability remains a major concern for DCN. Especially since many ISP's are beginning to feel the financial impact of entry into the ISP market from large players such as AT&T.

DCN's five-year sustainability plan includes the following four strategic directions, all of which are based on contributing to the region's evolution into a "smart region":

• Continue in role as research testbed for both academic research and private sector technology and service development and testing.
• Play regional role and telecommunications innovation "incubator"- Recruit and help individuals and organizations become comfortable consumers of information technology and electronic communication tools by decreasing the risk of experimentation and showing what can be done. This process has been demonstrated successfully with three large community institutions who have made major investments in wide area and local area networking and who now share major costs with DCN for network connectivity and system administration. DCN will build on this process to develop the telecommunications infrastructure for the region jointly with other partners.
• Know the community intimately - Target technology and communications needs which community institutions (government, education, non-profits and businesses) hold in common and which require partnership effort.
• Serve as "weavers" - Bring together organizations which don't usually work together to solve common community problems. The most generative and productive activities occur at the boundaries of disciplines and sectors (e.g., business and education).

The following descriptions of specific sustainability strategies become progressively less detailed from Year One to Year Five. The critical success factor for the DCN is to have a process and a group of people who continually revise the DCN strategic plan to adjust for the reality of a volatile marketplace and rapid rate of change of technology. DCN has such a group (the Strategic Planning and Budgeting Committee, which is formed annually out of a core of experienced Board members, with at least 30% "new blood." The DCN committees then develop individual tactical plans to implement their elements of the strategic plan.) To date, this process has resulted in the development of successful strategies for four years in a row.

The assumption is that the following strategies are cumulative - each subsequent year continues successful strategies from the previous year; strategies which have diminishing returns will be transitioned out.

Year One: (items with asterisk have been completed)

1. * Reduce Internet service provisioning role by expanding public- private partnership while maintaining some revenue from these accounts.
2. With private partner, target ISDN connections of large and medium-sized community organizations and apartment complexes (DCN already provides ISDN connectivity for the City of Davis and the local school district.)
3. * As part of Yolo Regional Network effort, conduct needs assessment of current and potential community institutional partners, and identify common technology needs which require partnership effort (such as geographic information systems, and integrated document database/web service), concentrating particularly on environmental problems.
4. * In the context of the Yolo Regional Network, and based on the "community network partnership" concept, negotiate additional support from existing partners, and attract additional partners.
5. Begin soliciting donations from individuals/businesses in the community for special projects, such as extending the public kiosk program.
6. Focus volunteer efforts on content development.
7. Develop DCN's role as a research testbed for the University, for academic research - research funding may follow this role.
8. Continue DCN's role as a private sector research testbed. Recruit at least one private company which wishes to test new technologies or services. Continue to explore other high-speed networking technologies with private partners (wireless, CATV). (DCN has already been approached by a large telecommunications provider for this purpose.)

Year Two:

1. Focus on the educational institutions in the community, and expand partnership with the local school district as a bond issue for facilities development (including technology) progresses this year.
2. Focus volunteer efforts on training.
3. Further develop private sector partnerships with local technical consulting and support businesses, and target economic development through technological development of small businesses.
4. Begin aggressive pursuit of funding for item 3, working with institutional partners.
5. Develop Community Organizations Directory, with business sponsorship.

Year Three

1. Conduct needs assessment of community-based organizations, and identify common community-wide technology needs which require partnership effort (for example, community-wide personal scheduling).
2. Develop community communications service center concept . Provide general communication and information support for community-based organizations, and recruit additional community network partners whose needs are met or problems solved through the partnership in an effective and cost-efficient way,and are willing to support the community network with contributions (direct funding and in-kind donations).
3. Provide consulting on communication and information needs of local community-based organizations.
4. Develop a new volunteer pool from recruitment in the active local seniors community.

Year Four

1. Conduct a major community needs assessment, identify those sectors and individuals which are being left behind. Identify the barriers, which may include language, socio-economic status, age or fear.
2. Become a membership-based organization, conduct major campaign to acquire members to create a new pool for volunteer recruitment
3. Conduct funding development campaigns.
4. Work with new members, representatives from all partner institutions, and key individuals from non-adopting sectors to develop strategies for overcoming the barriers identified in the first activity.
5. Investigate becoming a co-operative (one of the strongest food co-ops in the country is based in Davis is a major co-operative consulting firm), and the income stream of membership shares for institutional members from the co-operative.

Year Five

If DCN has been successful in its efforts to bring along all community sectors into membership into the "smart region," the region will have a well-developed and sustainable community information and telecommunications "utility." DCN's focus in Year Five will be to address the needs of what should be a minority category - those who are still non-participants, and begin implementing some of the strategies identified in Year Four.