The 311 Podcast

S2 E10 Empowering Digital Communities with Pearl Amanfu

• Paul Bellows, Pearl Amanfu • Season 2 • Episode 10

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The Heart of Public Service with Pearl Amanfu

Today my guest is Pearl Amanfu. Pearl is the Digital Inclusion Officer for Metro Nashville. Although Pearl and I just met, she's the model for the type of person I started this podcast to amplify: the humans who believe deeply in community, human thriving and progress, and are willing to do the hard organizational work to create real change through digital enablement. 

Borrowing her words, Pearl has a helper heart, and she genuinely wants a better world for the residents of Metro Nashville. Pearl is a community builder, and in this episode she shines a light onto what it's like to make sure that Metro Nashville is accountable and of service to the greatest number of Tennesseans possible, and she also shares a bit about where she thinks their work could go next. Here's my conversation with Pearl.

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Guest Information
Pearl Amanfu LinkedIn

To learn more on the Nashville Metro Digital Inclusion work please visit Metro Digital Skillslink | Nashville.gov

For more information on organizations Pearl highlights please see:

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On this episode of the 311 Podcast Paul and Pearl cover the following topics:

Introduction to Pearl Amanfu and Digital Inclusion​​
Pearl's Career Journey
Challenges and Barriers in Digital Inclusion
Nashville's Unique Approach to Digital Inclusion
Proud Achievements and Key Projects
The Digital Navigator Program
Future Vision and Advice for Aspiring Helpers
Conclusion and Final Thoughts

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Thank you to our season two sponsor Northern. For more information on their services, visit northern.co

Recorded in May 2025.

This is a show about the people that make digital public service work. If you'd like to find out more, visit northern.co/311-podcast/

We're going to keep having conversations like this. If you've got ideas of guests we should speak to, send us an email to the311@northern.co.

Northern LinkedIn

Paul:

​This is the 3 1 1 podcast. I'm your host, Paul Bellows. This is a show about the people that make digital work for the public service. If you'd like to find out more, visit northern.co. Today my guest is Pearl Amanfu. Pearl is the Digital Inclusion Officer for Metro Nashville. Although Pearl and I just met, she's the model for the type of person I started this podcast to amplify: the humans who believe deeply in community, human thriving and progress, and are willing to do the hard organizational work to create real change through digital enablement. Borrowing her words, Pearl has a helper heart, and she genuinely wants a better world for the residents of Metro Nashville. Pearl followed a non-standard path to this role, as do most people who end up doing the work of inclusion--through the music industry, the automotive industry, and finally into local government. Pearl is a community builder, and in this episode she shines a light onto what it's like to make sure that Metro Nashville is accountable and of service to the greatest number of Tennesseans possible, and she also shares a bit about where she thinks their work could go next. Here's my conversation with Pearl.

Pearl Amanfu:

I Am Pearl Afu. I'm the Digital Inclusion Officer for Metro Nashville and Davidson County. The digital inclusion office in its current form, has been in existence only since 2022. The work itself within Metro Government has been going since about 2014, and it started with a collaborative of organizations that came together to contribute to build the Nashville Digital Inclusion Fund. That fund was a platform for a lot of the work that happened between 2014 and 2020. When 2020 came around, as we know, a lot changed. And that gave us opportunity to come back in with bigger questions, to come back in with earlier suggestions that could take more useful form for the current time. And even though 2020 served as very good opportunity for everyone to start paying attention to the needs that people have to be able to afford and apply and use technology. It has been a thing for much longer, we just didn't call it that.

Paul:

I loved your framing of, there was a crisis which created opportunity. With 2020 being our great pandemic moment where all the ways we did everything changed, some in small, some in large ways. And I think often there are crises or destabilizing moments that give us the space to create change and ask new questions. Pearl, for you as someone with the title of an Inclusion Officer, that's a new job description. And I'm curious what your career path was to arrive at this moment for you.'cause it's an exciting place to be in Nashville. How did you wander and find your way into this role?

Pearl Amanfu:

It was not direct, at all, and my arrival in this role I feel was a process of just sticking my nose in different places and following questions that I had. I actually studied human and organizational development and elementary education. First, I wanted to be a teacher, and when I did my first practicum I decided, I still enjoy working with children, being around children, but maybe this isn't the avenue for me. And living in Nashville, of course, I was surrounded by music. My sister is a performing artist and songwriter. And so I thought it would be really interesting to work in the music business. And so that's what I did. Actually between the ages of, 23 and 27. And that was a lot of fun. And what I realized was that I enjoy being a helper. I enjoy helping other people to realize a vision or to take a step forward. And my helping heart then found its way to nonprofit work. I did that for a few years, and what I ended up doing was actually project management within a nonprofit organization, within a nonprofit framework. I enjoyed project management, so then I went and got my project management professional certification and I wanted to lean into that. And so I worked in automotive for seven years for an organization that provided professional services to automotive manufacturers. So I planned and managed events and programs for automotive manufacturers. It was a blast, had a lot of fun. After years of that, I started feeling again, like I wanted to do something that directly supported residents. I got to be a helper in automotive. It was great, but I was still pulled back to public service, but I just kept it in the back of my mind. would occasionally go online to see if there were roles in in city government actually that would suit me. And I didn't really see anything that stuck out. And so I shelved it, but I just, kind of,kept it there. One day I got a phone call from a recruiter. I thought it was a prank, and I'm not sure why. I think it was because it was so specific to what I had been looking for and it caught me off guard. So I said, well, I'm happy with my job, that I'll reach out if there's any interest. And she said, no, hear me out so she and I actually developed a really good rapport and the role was for project management in the Information Technology Services Department of Metro Government. After a few conversations with Hillary, the recruiter's name, I got to meet two of the members of the executive leadership team at ITS. And within five minutes of that phone call, I just knew that it would be a great fit, and they ended up telling me afterward, they knew it too. They looked at each other and we hadn't even really begun talking about the work yet, but there's something about perspective and shared ideas around helping that can create a good fit. When I started with Metro, the Information Technology Services department was collaborating with a committee of 70 local leaders and residents to build a strategy for how to use technology and data for public benefit. So I had the pleasure of coming in at that time, at the end of 2016 and I took a full-time role in 2017. The year before the National Digital Inclusion Fund had been started, and at the end of the development of Connected Nashville, our smart city strategy. And so I got to help synthesize and publish that and I think that kind of turned my focus a little bit to our use of technology and data to benefit residents. As we moved forward with 40 some projects, a lot of which I was grateful to get to participate in, to get some help with. We were still keeping an eye on how are we using this for public benefit and how are we making sure that the public can access, afford, and use all of these great technologies, which took us back to digital inclusion. There were organizations doing some of the work, including within Metro Government, Metro Development Housing Agency had been selected, I think two years prior to participate in President Obama's Connect Home program. And that was a program dedicated to making sure that people could afford the internet at home. And so I participated with a group of representatives from different Metro departments and agencies, including library and a couple of nonprofits. That work was largely focused on supporting residents in metro managed housing, and that sort of grew, but it was still very small and it wasn't a formalized Metro Government program and our Chief Information Officer at the time, he and I worked closely together to develop a couple of proposals for Metro Nashville Government to use to begin the work. One of them was for a Digital Inclusion Office, this was 2018, and the other one was for a Digital Navigator Program where we train staff at local nonprofits, Metro staff, to help support residents directly, whether it's one-on-one support or referring them to the right resources. Neither of those was selected. Neither of those was funded by Metro Government at the time, but the work that we did to develop those two strategic opportunities was a really good starting point for what became the Digital Inclusion Office. But it wasn't until 2020, when everything began to go online there was a bigger opportunity to have this conversation. The challenge that we had was that while Metro was doing what it could for example, to distribute laptops and internet hotspots to Metro National Public School families, part of the challenge was that we were not able to reach residents who might've needed our support the most because they were the most disconnected or they didn't have a good relationship with Metro government, or they didn't understand how to access our services. And without that information we weren't going to be able to do anything beyond fix a big problem. So we decided to seek out an opportunity to capture data that would help us understand the community's needs and meet those needs. While there was support for the concept within Metro government, there weren't really funding opportunities. And so we went and we sought it out. We went to our community partners that we'd had some relationships with over the years. And so Google Fiber through the National Public Education Foundation and the First Foundation were our first funders. They funded what became a countywide digital equity needs assessment. And that's where we got the information that we needed to develop the right kind of program for Metro residents. We spent 2021 analyzing the data and working with our partners at Vanderbilt Peabody College and, with two of our local partners who founded a task force to ultimately deliver this needs assessment, Dr. Fallon Wilson and Dr. Samantha Perez. We worked together with them and with Vanderbilt to develop a list of recommendations. And one of them was, we really need a dedicated resource to do this work. We needed a dedicated Digital Inclusion Office. And that's how we got here.

Paul:

What an amazing winding road. But I love some of the themes that you brought up. Just helping heart is a great phrase, just a recognition that there are needs in our community. There's work to be done. And I think that drives so many folks to get into local government work. There's this promise of, digital, as a net boost for the quality of service in local government, as well as reduction in the cost.'cause everyone would like more service at a lower tax bill. Everyone wants both. Digital, at least theoretically, when done well, offers that promise. But, your goal here is to say who's excluded Where are we not gonna see that benefit? Who's not gonna be able to be part of that?'Cause that's gonna impact the benefits of moving to more digital government and the equity of that. You talked a little bit about, some of the economic barriers and just internet access. What are some of the other barriers to digital inclusion that might prevent other residents, potentially businesses in Nashville being able to participate in digital government effectively? Is it purely economic or are there other barriers that you see that you have a mandate to address?

Pearl Amanfu:

The barriers are not purely economic, they are socioeconomic and sometimes purely social. But access is certainly a barrier. It's making sure that everyone, no matter where they live, can access robust broadband internet. But the question that we started to ask is, what happens once we have removed access as a barrier? Oh, It's available to you but we talk about affordability. That's a big deal. But there's also, relevance as humans, if we have done without something for a very long time, if I've been dehydrated for a very long time, I've been drinking four cups of water a day. My body's incredibly resilient, it learns to function at that level. I may not know how much better it would be with eight cups or more a day. And so relevance is a big deal. And also meeting people where they are and understanding what their desires are and then meeting them from that viewpoint, not necessarily these are all the things that you could access or that you could do if you only were to use data and technology better. It's really understanding well, this is the thing that is important to you and here's how data and technology can be of benefit. And then technical support is a big issue. We find that sometimes someone has access. They can afford it. It's relevant to them. But if there is a technical challenge for a local small businesses, for example, if there is something that it's not easy for them to do, then they don't have support they will dial it back and go back to paper or use manual functions that they've been doing for a very long time that have worked. So that's another responsibility that we have is being available to meet those needs. And then finally, there is practical support. There is a benefit to having someone available to to support me if I have a tech issue. But there are certain roadblocks that individuals and families can experience that without someone to help identify those roadblocks and help set goals to overcome getting there can be a big challenge. Sometimes there is a language barrier, sometimes there is an accessibility barrier. Sometimes it's because I have all the things, but I'm sharing devices with family members, and so I'm not necessarily able to do the things that I wanna do. The ability to apply the resources is a very big deal. So if I have the resources, but I'm lacking gainful employment, having someone help me understand how to apply the resources, to looking for a job, to building a resume is very important. I think about our returning citizens, for example, so someone who has been just as involved and maybe has been incarcerated for a few years. They come out and everything is very different. Everything has changed and so it's our responsibility to bridge that that gap and support people in applying the resource as well.

Paul:

I think there are biases that exist to say, things like accessibility, that that's coastal, that's major, like Nashville is a big city, but folks imagine this kind of work might happen in the largest cities, in the coastal cities, but Nashville as a place, Art's at the heart of it, it's music city, it's a university town. What else do you think about Nashville as a city, creating the environment where this could be possible? What is it about the organization or the community?

Pearl Amanfu:

There are so many organizations, public serving organizations that are doing good work to meet the needs of residents, those organizations meet a wide variety of needs from language access, housing, food security, employment accessibility. We have, I think, one of the largest relative proportions of nonprofits to residents, but we also have a lot of overlap. So that has necessitated a process of developing better communication channels so that we can collaboratively meet resident needs more effectively. So it's utilizing those opportunities to communicate more effectively that enables us to identify the gaps. So within a network of organizations that are meeting various other critical needs, we can work together to then meet digital needs. But also, it really is not about technology. It's about people having what they need to thrive. You can have all the technological resources, but if you're food insecure, it doesn't matter. It doesn't make a difference. It's really about that holistic meeting of the need. I think that is where Nashville really has an edge. It is in the breadth of resources, but it's really in our desire to communicate with one another and with residents to understand what the needs are and how we can meet them better and where the gaps are so that we can fill those gaps.

Paul:

Having spent time in Nashville, the helper heart, the community focus, is really apparent in this city. It is a community, and I love that. You've talked a little bit about the sheer volume of projects. I'm sure your project management background comes in handy all the time in your current role of community credit across groups, building communication networks. Of the many different projects and initiatives, looking at barrier removal, inclusion, what are some of the things you're most proud of or that you think best exemplify the value that this lens of inclusion can bring to a city government?

Pearl Amanfu:

I am really most proud of the countywide digital equity needs assessment that we did in 2021, because there had not been anything like it, not just in the city, but there had not been anything like it in Tennessee. But there was some support for it because there was a mayor city survey that went out annually and over time we were able to add a few questions about technology access and use and that gave us some pretty good clues about how to get better engagement, but it was so difficult to get that needs assessment over the hill or over the hump, so to speak. And we could not have done it without the amazing collaboration that I mentioned. That was the opportunity to really see what we could do with collaboration. That was the opportunity for Dr. Wilson and Dr. Perez to say, Hey, we can put together a task force of individuals from different organizations that want to help, but behind us, we have members of these organizations, we have the residents that we serve, and it built that community involvement that has really propelled the work. And sure, we've done a lot of good things since then, but that was really foundational for us. Those partnerships have also been what has sustained the work. I'm really proud of what those partnerships have built. For example, we have great partnerships with corporate partners, with Comcast, and that partnership helped us launch our digital navigator program. Without them, it would not have been possible. And so now we can offer free training to nonprofit organizations that want to weave digital inclusion into services that they already provide, but maybe have not had the time, have not had the resources, have not had the funding. We can go and do that because they're the ones that have the relationships in the community, they're the ones who really understand community needs. And so what I think gives us the most pride is giving that power back to the community, however we do it.

Paul:

I love that the thing you're most proud of is the research work to truly understand the problems, and I think bringing a design lens to the world is so essential to say, until we understand what the root cause or the true problem is, how can we possibly create solutions? I think tech is often guilty of coming at problems with a solution, looking for a problem, without asking important questions first. What were some things that surprised you about barriers that existed? Things that you might not have expected, where if you hadn't done that early research work to get that true understanding of the problem space, you might not have taken the right actions.

Pearl Amanfu:

There was a lot that surprised us in the data that we got from the study, but I think what surprised us the most wasn't those big ticket items, you know, it wasn't as much, even though we knew it existed, access and affordability issues, we were able to identify where those existed a little bit more and target our support. But it was how much we were missing where the small issues were concerned for older adults. For example, I don't use the internet because I don't have anyone to help me. How simple is that? Right? To understand that need and then develop a strategy to support that need. But we just didn't know it was the small things and I think where the smaller, quote unquote,smaller things are concerned, we sometimes miss the opportunities to help because we are also focused on doing the big things that matter. The other thing that was a big surprise was how many local needs were overlapping or interconnected and so understanding that is part of the reason that we have built our digital navigator model the way that we have, with the intention of building a network of organizations that are meeting various types of needs. Because we also captured where we could location information from residents that filled out the survey. So zip code was really important. It gave us a lot of information. We did ask for cross streets, but something as simple as zip code. And so what we would see was that in a specific zip code, there were so many interconnected needs. There was no way that we were going to do as much as we wanted to do with these one-offs, going to meet this one need food security. Here's a laptop for you. Help you work on employment. And so understanding where those pockets were, gave us some huge opportunities to work together to target the support that we were providing.

Paul:

You've mentioned twice your digital navigator program, and can you just unpack what's inside of that program? What's actually happening there?

Pearl Amanfu:

So the Digital Navigator model was developed by the National Digital Inclusion Association, and that organization leads policy and practice recommendations around digital inclusion work. And they came up with a model that would bring together local nonprofits, collect information about all of the services that they provide, focusing largely on digital inclusion services. Then giving the power back to the community by delivering training, also by providing essentially a playbook and administrative support so that those nonprofits could go and do that work. The model is highly customizable and so for us, what it became was an opportunity to really deeply survey local nonprofits on not just the types of support that they provided, practical support, yes. And we asked a lot of questions about that instead of focusing just on digital inclusion. But also it was interesting to find out how many organizations were providing digital inclusion support. They just didn't know it. They just didn't know it. The other thing is, a lot of times if an organization is able to connect people with the right resources and make referrals, that too is digital inclusion support because people have a relationship with an organization that they trust and they may not know where to get a free laptop, but that organization has the relationship. So we were able to pull from conversations that we had been having for nearly a decade with nonprofit partners, and we had some 68 or so organizations that participated that filled out the survey. And the other piece that we added was asking organizations what needs they had. So, maybe it's, I need a meeting space, or maybe it is, I need certain types of equipment that I don't have. And then asking organizations what resources they had that they could share. And organization A needs a meeting space, organization B has a space that they're not always using. And so that has enabled us not just to collaborate, to meet needs, but to be more effective and more impactful in meeting needs by having our needs met by one another.

Paul:

Isn't this just how a healthy community should function?

Pearl Amanfu:

That's right.

Paul:

So Pearl, for you as an innovator in this space, as a leader in your region what are your hopes for the future? When you lie in bed at night and think in 10 years I'll have arrived, what are some of your visions for where this inclusion initiative could go over the next years.

Pearl Amanfu:

I appreciate that you mentioned the region. I am not only the first Digital Inclusion Officer for the city of Nashville. I am the first in the state, and while there are a lot of people doing good digital inclusion work, in our region, the process of developing dedicated programs and dedicated offices and resources has been slower than I think that we would like to see. We are incredibly fortunate to have Mayor Freddy O'Connell at the helm. He has been so supportive of this work and as our program matures, part of what we are doing is focusing on the application. So it is important to offer support for basic digital skills training, but we've been able to look at the needs of the community and how they have evolved as the community has grown. And so we are returning to those original strategies and saying, hey, what boxes have we checked off and what is the community need based on? It's evolving nature, and workforce readiness has been identified as a big need because as more organizations are coming to Nashville, more jobs are available and it's important to make sure that people have the right training to be able to go in and fill those positions. And. In order for us to be effective there, we do need to be able to collaborate with other organizations, with other, city governments, municipalities within the region. That's where I hope to see this grow. I've been fortunate to participate in groups that meet to talk about what we're doing and what we've seen that works and what the challenges are. One of them the Digital Equity Leaders Network organized, and so there are monthly meetings where people come and provide information, but there's a listserv where we can put up questions and people who have done the work come in to participate. This work functions best across a network. Of course we have amazing hyper-local networks. We have amazing local and city network, but the idea is for the network to form across the state. Our state partners have done a great job of being present for that and connecting us with partner municipalities. The other thing that I hope to see and it's already happening, is for us to have a better understanding that that's where we started with digital inclusion and people didn't even understand what the phrase meant. I don't love the phrase, I think that at a very basic level, it just has too many syllables. When we talk about communicating better with residents these$5 words don't always work well. So when there's this national conversation about these words that we don't wanna say, like equity and inclusion, it isn't about the language, it is about the work. As the maturation of our program moves us toward this workforce readiness and we begin to describe the work differently and talk about new projects that we're doing. The work itself, the focus of the work and the goals of the work, they don't change. It's, so that residents have what they need to thrive, no matter what we call it. I think the understanding of that is what will help us build these partnerships across government, nonprofit, academia, and private organizations to do the thing that we all wanna do. We wanna see everybody win.

Paul:

I love the lens of inclusion is really not just about being kind to people for kindness sake. It is that, and also it's about thriving communities, it's about economic development, it's about workforce development. It is all of these things. And I love sort of bringing the conversation to a close, just talking about when we do it right, it's about thriving communities. Communities that are healthy in every way including economically. And I love your vision for bringing that to the entire state of Tennessee. So for the next Pearl Amanfu out the world, who says, I have that helper heart. I see these problems. I see these needs to build networks to grow. Do you have any words of wisdom or advice on someone maybe earlier in their career who is, and it is a meandering path to get into this work, there isn't one straight line, there's no clear road sign indicating. But are there any indicators you would think for someone who's in interested in this, things they could be following in order to get into this work and have the kind of impact you've been able to have?

Pearl Amanfu:

I think it's beneficial to follow national guidance organizations like NDIA, but I think it's more important to talk to people, talk to your neighbors, talk to your coworkers, talk to the organizations that you serve. Even if you work in for-profit and you don't do anything at all related to this, have conversations and understand everyone has a heart to help in some way. It's really just about bringing that out and making it connect with their goals. Hey, you can meet your goals to grow your company and help residents to get better jobs. So it's how do we have those shared goals? But a lot of the things that we've been able to do have been a result of conversations that started long before we had opportunities to work together. One of our training partners tech goes home. They are the ones who provide the training for the digital navigator program, and they're the ones who do our train the trainer. We have been talking for nearly a decade about ways that we could work together, when this program did not exist. And we've maintained that connection and just gotten together to brainstorm. And so by the time the opportunities did arise I had a clear understanding of what their goals were, what they've been doing, what they haven't been doing, what they wanna do. And they had a similar understanding of our needs and goals and so, even when we encounter opportunities that are maybe not directly for us, they could be for a partner that we understand so well because we've been talking. So talk to people, make friends with everybody. There are relationships that I did have when I was working in music or when I was working in automotive that have come to different kinds of fruition today that have interacted with the work that I'm doing. Have conversations and don't be afraid to share what your ideas are, even if it doesn't feel like there are opportunities to enact them, where you see an opportunity to help be pushy. A lot of this work has just come to fruition because I've been willing to bring something to the table repeatedly, even if it doesn't seem like it's of interest. Because the more conversations we have, the more we pay attention, the more we understand. Tried to bring it in from the left, it didn't quite work. I'm gonna bring it in from the right, because I see how things are evolving and there are ways to make it happen. So yeah, talk to people, talk to your neighbors.

Paul:

Isn't that the secret of just being a good human? At the end of the day, people talking to people.

Pearl Amanfu:

At the end of the day, that's what it is. It's about connections and how those connections reach across the community so that everybody can get what they need.

Paul:

Pearl, it has been so inspiring to hear you talk about the work that you're doing and just what it means to you as a person, but also what it's meant to your community and to Nashville. Creating equity, more access, economic growth, all of these values that we want and just boiling it down to it's finding out what the real problems are, talking to the people, removing those barriers, building those networks. What a great example for folks wanting to create thriving communities. Thank you very much for sharing your life's work with us here on the podcast.

Pearl Amanfu:

Thank you so much. Thank you. It is been really good talking with you and thank you for your fabulous questions. While we were talking, I was able to just pick up on some other ideas that I've had in the past and I was like, Hey, I need to go back and do that. Or Hey, I need to go back and talk to that person. So I really appreciate this conversation.

Paul:

We will wrap up so you can get to work, there's some good work to do. Thanks Pearl.

Pearl Amanfu:

Thank you again.

Paul:

Thanks so much for joining us for this conversation. To say that talking to Pearl was refreshing is an understatement. It's great to be reminded that in an era of dividers and influencers, there are people out there quietly building community, creating change networks, and doing the hard and often unseen policy work that's so necessary. I'm reminded that inclusion work is highly entrepreneurial. It takes a special type of person to notice that something is broken for others and take up the labor to make it better. I'm grateful that Pearl shared her journey and the inside of her work with us today. Pearl's work to leverage technology and data for public benefit is focused on access, affordability, and relevance of technology. In a world where we're all dazzled by the latest in crypto, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and cloud innovation, it's good to be reminded that none of these technologies truly matter if regular people can't make use of them. It's Pearl's mix of practical support and community collaboration that has helped Nashville to lead in this area, which is so often the case in public service work. I hope you enjoyed this conversation. Please do subscribe and follow us for more. I'd like to thank my colleagues who work with me on this podcast. Kathy Watton is our show producer and editor Frederick Brummer and Ahmed Khalil created our theme music and intro. We're going to keep having conversations like this. Thanks for tuning in. If you've got ideas for guests, we should speak to, send us an email to the311@northern.co. The public service is about all of us, and when it's done right, digital can be a key ingredient for a better world. This has been The 311 Podcast and I'm your host, Paul Bellows.