Volume 1, #1: Autumn 2001
Welcome to Zest!—a periodic email update intended to give you a dash of current RDP flavor with easy links to additional information on the RDP website...
In this edition of Zest, you'll find:
Rural Development Philanthropy (RDP) is the process and practice of creating and strengthening locally controlled endowment, grantmaking and community programs to improve rural livelihoods, economies and community vitality. Learn more about RDP and its four key learning questions!
The Rural Development Philanthropy Learning Network is a diverse group of community foundations, philanthropic organizations and alliances engaged in peer-learning exchanges to help improve RDP practice and outcomes. Over the next year, the RDP Learning Network will:
Since 1993, The Aspen Institute's Community Strategies Group (CSG) has managed the Rural Development and Community Foundations Initiative (RDCFI), a national initiative aimed at helping community foundations learn from one another as they explore and implement strategies to serve rural communities. CSG is responsible for facilitating communication and sharing among network members in the least cumbersome, most practical manner possible. Face-to-face exchanges, interactive technology (telephone, e-mail, internet, and so forth...), and written materials will connect the best RDP practices to practitioners in the Network and beyond. Learn more about Learning Network exchanges and resources!
Field-wide information related to community-based philanthropy in rural communities has been limited in both scope and availability. While annual statistics are collected to depict the giving of the 1000 foundations with the largest assets and grantmaking budgets, little effort has been expended to record smaller-scale (but no less meaningful) charitable and philanthropic giving. This smaller-scale philanthropy often serves as the seed capital for rural programs and sometimes serves to leverage grants from larger, national foundations. Most often, this type of organized philanthropy is conducted by community foundations—few of whom rank as one of the top 1000 givers, and thus, little data is available concerning where and what their philanthropic assets support.
To assist in developing a "snapshot" of community foundations' rural development philanthropy efforts, the RDP team disseminated the RDP Baseline Survey to 685 community foundations (rural and urban) throughout the United States in July 2001. The Baseline Survey asked community foundations to consider their overall governance, grantmaking, endowment building and community economic development activities. Providing definitions based upon the "rural continuum" established by the USDA's Economic Research Service, the survey then asked foundations to estimate the percentage of their total activities that served or represented "rural," "borderline rural/metro" and "metro counties."
As of September 15, 2001, CSG had received 160 surveys for a 23 percent response rate. Over the past month, we have entered survey data and have begun to analyze the response. The following chart shows the respondents' categorization of RDP elements across rural, borderline and metro counties. Notice that other rural elements do not necessary correspond with percentage of rural service area. Relying mainly upon averages across the response pool, the RDP team has developed a preliminary analysis of the current state of RDP in the United States. We continue to seek and to receive responses to the survey—both on-line and in paper form. In coming months, and as additional surveys are received, more detailed analysis will be made available on the RDP website and in other forums. Read more on the preliminary results of the 2001 RDP Baseline Survey.
A buoyant crowd of fifty-plus RDP networkers representing the US, Canada, South Africa, Kenya and Great Britain, braved the early morning hours (and rain) to convene at the Fairmont Waterfront Hotel in Vancouver, BC, on Tuesday, October 16 for the first-ever RDP Networking Breakfast. Held in conjunction with the Fall Conference for Community Foundations, the breakfast provided an opportunity for RDP Learning Network members and non-members alike—as well as the RDP team and its primary investor, The Ford Foundation—to assemble face to face. A brief presentation about the network, upcoming activities and the preliminary results of the RDP Baseline Survey left time for RDP'ers to chat informally and exchange contact info.
Keep an eye out for invitations to these informal Learning Network events and let us know of conferences and programs near you that might benefit from the opportunity for informal RDP networking, contact the RDP team.
Foundation Northwest (eastern Washington and Northern Idaho), the Foundation for the Tri-State Community (the nexus of Kentucky, West Virginia and Ohio), the North Carolina Community Foundation and the Wyoming Community Foundation sent teams of staff and board members to the four-day Learning Institute. Each foundation seeks to improve and expand its capacity to better serve rural, economically challenged communities.
The four days of peer presentations and teamwork engaged the teams in honest and intense reflection and analysis. Fortified by a resource team of national and international community development leaders and, of course, by one another, the four teams shared their strengths and challenges and left Charleston with a "personalized" Learning For Action Questions & Action Steps that will guide their foundations' rural development philanthropy efforts over the next six to eight months. The Learning Cluster will meet again in spring 2002 to recount their successes and missteps with their peers to further refine their Learning For Action strategy. Presentations and resources that emerged from the institute will soon be made available online.
The second RDP Learning Cluster is scheduled to meet in Santa Fe from October 27 to 31, 2001. Participants in the second cluster are: West Central Initiative (Minnesota), Humboldt Area Foundation (California), CREATE (northeast Mississippi) and Nebraska Community Foundation. Learn more about the Learning Clusters.
The workshop will present several distinct approaches to covering large rural territories and will articulate the commonalities and themes that emerge from these efforts. Covering Rural Territory will not advocate one strategy over another. Instead, you will have the opportunity to explore the ideas and strategies that can best be applied to your own organization and community. Designed to encourage and reward active participation from every workshop participant, you will experience an open, friendly and collaborative atmosphere that will allow participants to get down to the business of learning, sharing and improving their rural coverage models. To ensure meaningful participation from all who attend, participation will be limited.
Priority registration is being offered to Inaugural Learning Network members from now until November 2. If space remains, registration will then be opened to the entire field between November 5 and December 7, 2001.
With primary support from The Ford Foundation, The Aspen Institute's Community Strategies Group (CSG) is managing the RDP Learning Network, collecting and disseminating RDP tools, stories and strategic lessons to the community foundation and community development fields. Located in Washington, DC, CSG structures and contributes to focused learning that supports the innovation of organizations and funders working to achieve more widely shared and lasting prosperity in communities.
The RDP Team includes CSG staffers: Janet Topolsky, Elizabeth Myrick, Diane Morton and Mridulika Menon, as well as a cadre of national and international consultants boasting hands-on RDP expertise.
What is Rural Development Philanthropy?
What is the RDP Learning Network?
RDP 2001 Baseline Survey
Preliminary Results Just In
Networking Breakfast Brings RDP'ers Together in Vancouver
First RDP Learning Cluster Convenes in Charleston, SC
Covering Rural Territory Workshop
Scheduled for January 2002
Who is the RDP team?
What is Rural Development Philanthropy?
What is the RDP Learning Network?
Baseline Survey Reveals Snapshot of Rural Philanthropy
First-ever RDP Networking Breakfast Held in Vancouver, BC
Learning For Action in Charleston, SC
One of two Learning Clusters selected to participate in the most intense level of RDP Learning Network activities kicked off their RDP "learning for action" journey at historic Middleton Place just outside of Charleston, South Carolina, from September 30 to October 3, 2001.
Covering Rural Territory Scheduled for January 22-23, 2001
Covering Rural Territory, the first of three RDP Peer Exchange Workshops will be held at the Renaissance Hotel Washington, DC, beginning Tuesday, January 22, 2001. Statewide and regional community foundations all over the country are struggling and succeeding in serving large, underserved and expansive regions. Have you ever wished you could spend some time asking your peers how these models work, what they cost and how you might apply them to your own area? Whether you are considering affiliates or county funds, remaining centralized or simply modeling a "regional" rather than provincial approach to community development, this two-day, peer-exchange workshop will both be of benefit to you and benefit from your participation!
Who is the RDP Team?
Zest, the Flavorful RDP Update is a production of and for the RDP Learning Network.
If you have suggestions or materials that you would like to contribute, please email us.
