Digital Inclusion Trailblazers are municipal, county, or regional governments that are paving the way and providing excellent models for digitally inclusive communities. They are intentional. They are invested. They are committed to advancing digital equity. The Trailblazers recognition isn’t just an award — it’s also a collection of valuable resources. The places selected as Trailblazers provide models to aspire to, demonstrating how local governments can support their own digital inclusion ecosystems.

Any local government may apply to be a Digital Inclusion Trailblazer. Local governments include:

• Municipalities
• Townships
• Counties
• Regional governments

Individuals or organizations outside of local government should encourage their local government to apply, and may even assist by compiling documentation and resources for submission. However, the primary and media contacts for each application must be staff at the local government seeking Trailblazers recognition.

Applications for the 2026 Trailblazers recognition will be accepted through October 13, 2026. NDIA staff reviewing submissions may follow up to clarify documentation within the application window. All applicants will be notified of their Trailblazers status prior to a public announcement of the 2026 Trailblazers recipients this Winter. Trailblazer communities will also be honored with an awards ceremony at Net Inclusion 2027.

 

• The Trailblazers Scoring Worksheet is a helpful tool for "pre-scoring" an application and identifying sources of documentation for each indicator prior to beginning work on the actual application.
• Hovering over an indicator in this application will display examples of acceptable documentation for that indicator.
• There is no size limit on file uploads; however, large files (50Mb or larger) may take a long time to upload or remove, and may be more prone to errors or timing out. Consider compressing large files or breaking them into multiple files for upload.
• While each indicator will only be counted once, multiple sources of documentation are allowed and encouraged! This highlights your community's work and enhances the value of the Trailblazers Resource Inventory to other communities.
• To ensure the highest score on your application and to avoid the need for follow-up inquiries, please double-check that all indicators for which you are seeking points have at least one source of documentation (uploaded file or URL) prior to clicking the submit button.

You may submit documentation of your efforts for each indicator for which you wish to be considered by uploading files or URLs (or both) to this form. To provide a complete picture of your work and to maximize the value of the knowledge database, we encourage you to provide as much documentation as possible for each indicator. All relevant resources submitted through applications will be shared publicly in the Trailblazers resource repository, with attribution.

Important: When selecting your community from the Local Government Name dropdown menu (below), a link will be made available to view the previous year's materials. This link will open into a new tab. Please do not close your 2026 application page (this page). The link provided is only for accessing past materials, not for continuing the 2026 application.

Returning 2025 Trailblazer communities may access materials submitted for last year’s application and resubmit them as part of their 2026 submission. We’ll provide a link to your prior year’s application materials and ask that you review the materials you submitted to determine which are still relevant and which are out of date. As with new submittals, prior year's documentation will be reviewed by NDIA and is not guaranteed approval.

Applicants are encouraged to submit materials for indicators that they did not achieve in 2025.

A note on indicator 1b: Dedicated local funding for the current fiscal year. Documentation from last year does not qualify. Applicants who received points for this last year must submit updated documentation in order to receive points for this year’s application.

Please read the following step-by-step instructions before completing your 2026 Trailblazers application:

• Select your community name from the dropdown menu. This will activate a link to your prior year’s application materials.
• Clicking the link will open your community’s 2025 Trailblazer application in a new tab. The materials in this view are static and are strictly for download purposes. You cannot edit the content in these fields.
• Please review your 2025 Trailblazers application materials and note whether any information is still current, incorrect, or out of date, or if you would like to submit new information.

2025 Trailblazer Application Materials:

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