Welcome to Zest!—a periodic email update intended to give you a dash of current Rural Development Philanthropy (RDP) flavor with easy links to additional information on the RDP Learning Network's website...

In this edition of Zest, you'll find:

• Start Talkin' RDP!
  Your on-line discussion board has been launched!
  
  
• Covering Rural Territory
  First RDP Learning Network peer-exchange workshop receives rave reviews…read about it & link to workshop materials
  
  
• News YOU Can Use!
  Goings on around the world of RDP…
  
  
• Why Go Rural?
  Top 5 reasons to go rural…and top 5 tips for staying rural
  
  
• What is RDP?
  
  
• Contact us!

Start Talkin' RDP!
Your on-line discussion board is launched.

Some days, it may seem like your rural-focused foundation or organization is breaking entirely new ground as you reach out to serve rural communities. But, chances are, your peers have faced similar challenges. Advice, suggestions and support from your peers may be as close as your computer.

Talkin' RDP! is the Learning Network's web-based interactive discussion board. If you have access to the Internet, you can start Talkin' RDP! The RDP discussion board will allow you and your peers to share insights, post queries, read messages and research Rural Development Philanthropy (RDP) topics as they unfold. Talkin' RDP! will encourage, expand and accelerate peer exchange throughout the RDP Learning Network—and without the expense of traveling to an annual conference or even making a phone call. Moreover, as the discussion board is utilized more and more, it will bank a wealth of practical, just-in-time advice on the varied topics of RDP:

• RDP Program and Grantmaking
• RDP Endowment Building
• RDP Management, Structure and Governance
• RDP Technical Assistance (for example, referrals of speakers and consultants)
• The Kitchen Sink (miscellaneous)

Getting Started: Participation in Talkin' RDP! is a benefit of RDP Learning Network membership. To access the discussion board, you must first be a member of the Network and agree to actively share your RDP experience and expertise in ways that advance RDP practice and effectiveness. Remember, membership in the Learning Network is free and open to anyone with a commitment to rural development philanthropy.

Upon arrival at the Talkin' RDP! site, you will be prompted to log in with your USER NAME and PASSWORD. If it is your first visit or if you are new to the Learning Network, you must click on Join the RDP Learning Network to complete the revised network form and receive your user name and password. Once you have received your user name and password, you are ready to jump in! You may post a query, access and review previous discussions or simply monitor a discussion that is in progress.

If you ever get stuck, easy-to-follow directions are only a click away, under Help. And, CSG program associate and Talkin' RDP! moderator Mridulika Menon is just an email away. Discussions will be monitored daily to ensure that the topics are appropriate and relevant and that users are finding what they need.

Covering Rural Territory
Rave reviews & resources at the ready

"Covering Rural Territory exceeded my expectations. I have never attended such a well organized, well run workshop. Every presenter was thoroughly prepared and had his presentation organized to cover the topic directly. I feel I was given so much to think over and work with on a very relevant topic."

"I'm a retired professor, [and have been going] to conferences my whole professional life and have never attended one as full of vital info, as well organized and attended and run by as many well-meaning dedicated people as this one."

I met a number of fine people with whom I connected and will have no trouble calling them up in the future!"

Earlier in the 20th century, community foundations were founded to serve one city or one highly populated county. In the past 30 years, community foundations have expanded or been founded to serve many counties, a whole state or multiple states—with service areas encompassing significant rural territory. These regional foundations have discovered that the practices and structures—from grantmaking to governance—that sustained metro foundations prove less effective when applied to rural, historically underserved and economically disadvantaged communities.

Learning Network members presented this challenge to CSG and in response, CSG tapped into its nearly ten years of experience helping community foundations build philanthropic assets in rural communities. CSG developed a conceptual framework to explain and explore the range of rural community foundation structures and practices used to serve diverse, historically underserved and poor communities. CSG then designed a peer-exchange workshop called Covering Rural Territory to bring together leading practitioners to illustrate the framework, present on-the-ground stories and share hands-on tools and strategies for implementing and improving rural development philanthropy.

Covering Rural Territory included more than 60 participants from 41 rural-focused community foundations and philanthropic organizations in 28 states. Together, these RDPers explored six representative structures being used by community foundations to cover rural territory—comparing everything from governance to grantmaking to costs and benefits. Participants gathered in small groups to further explore strategic implementation issues such as rural marketing and publicity and the best ways to identify and train rural leaders. Finally, participants were divided into groups to present their own rural coverage challenge to peers who had been there, done that.

News YOU Can Use
Goings-on around the world of RDP…

• Save the date! Second RDP peer-exchange workshop to be held this summer: RDP Grantmaking & Capacity Building: Programming for Community Economic Development Impact, July 24-26, 2002—Washington, DC. More on this in May!
  
  
• Community foundations with affiliates form affinity group: A group of community foundations that are members of the Council on Foundations (COF) have established a network for community foundations with affiliate structures. The group, known as Aff-Able, will address issues common to community foundations—both rural and metro—that manage affiliates.
  
  A conversation at the RDP Learning Network's Covering Rural Territory peer-exchange workshop last January began a discussion of how to activate Aff-Able and to coordinate efforts with the RDP Learning Network. For more information about Aff-Able, visit the COF website or contact Carla Roberts, vice president of affiliates, Arizona Community Foundation.
  
  
• Need help introducing donors to rural philanthropy? Rural 101 is a professionally produced power-point presentation—complete with voice-over—designed to "make the case" to foundations and individual donors for why they should be making grants and investing philanthropic resources in rural communities. This may be just the way to introduce your donors or board to the joys and opportunities of rural philanthropy. Developed by the Rural Funders Working Group of the Neighborhood Funders Group (NFG)—with input from foundation leaders as well as CSG's RDP Team—Rural 101 will be available by mid-March. For more information, visit the NFG website or contact Spence Limbocker, executive director of NFG.
  
  
• Free community economic development publications: Two oft-requested CSG publications that had gone out of print are now available free of charge in PDF format on The Aspen Institute website: Measuring Community Capacity Building: A Workbook-in-Progress for Rural Communities, and Developing Entrepreneurial Economies in Rural Regions: Lessons from Kentucky and Appalachia. Also, check out our list of other publications available for purchase.
  
  
• Learning Network membership is growing steadily—check out our map of learning network members! Are you a member? It's free and open to community foundations and any other philanthropic and/or community economic development organizations committed to RDP. Join today!
  
  
• RDP Baseline Survey update: Following a second request to US community foundations to participate in the RDP Baseline Survey, we received hundreds of submissions! The data is being calculated even as this edition of Zest is written. Stay tuned to our survey results page and the Spring edition of Zest for updated and noteworthy survey analysis!
  
  
• Learning Clusters to gather this spring! The second of three Learning Institutes for the Learning Network's two learning clusters will be held this spring. Cluster A, made up of Create Foundation (MS); Humboldt Area Foundation (CA); Nebraska Community Foundation and West Central Foundation (MN), will meet in Berkeley Springs, WV, from March 17—20, 2002, and Cluster B, North Carolina Community Foundation; Foundation for the Tri-State Community (KY-OH-WV); Foundation Northwest (WA) and Wyoming Community Foundation, will gather at Wye River, MD, from May 5-8, 2002.

Why Go Rural?
Top 5 reasons to go rural … and top 5 tips for staying rural

By Marion Kane, Executive Director, The Barr Foundation (Boston, MA); Formerly President, Maine Community Foundation

Excerpted from Marion Kane's opening remarks at Covering Rural Territory Workshop, on January 22, 2002, in Washington, DC.

Borrowing from David Letterman a bit to frame my stories, here are five reasons for community foundations to go rural and five tips for when you do:

1. Go rural because it is where the money is.
2. Go rural because a little money can go a long way.
3. Go rural because it is where the need is.
4. Go rural because rural communities are great "learning laboratories."
5. Go rural because you'll never find better people or make better friends…although patience and a thick skin will be necessary attributes!

And, now, five tips on how to survive and thrive while serving rural communities:

1. Look at the community through local eyes: find connectors and translators—the people who know the community and how to relate to it.
2. Talk the talk.
3. Use the right tools.
4. Be patient, persistent and show you are there for the long haul.
5. And, finally, appreciate that you have the best job around!

Read the provocative and inspiring stories behind Marion's 5 reasons and 5 tips!

What is RDP?

Rural Development Philanthropy is the process and practice of creating and strengthening locally controlled endowment, grantmaking and community programs to improve rural livelihoods, economies and community vitality.

The RDP Learning Network is a diverse group of community foundations and philanthropic organizations learning from one another innovative strategies to improve RDP practice and outcomes.

With primary support from The Ford Foundation, The Aspen Institute's Community Strategies Group (CSG) is managing the Network and collecting and disseminating RDP tools, stories and strategic lessons to the community foundation and community development fields.

Contact Us!

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.

Email us with suggestions and questions about anything RDP.