Covering Rural Territory (CRT)!

• Last January, the RDP Learning Network convened a Peer-Exchange Workshop entitled Covering Rural Territory: Affiliate and Alternative Structures for Rural Development Philanthropy. The workshop included more than 60 participants from 41 rural-focused community foundations and philanthropic organizations. Together, they explored six common structures being used by community foundations to cover rural territory—comparing everything from governance to staffing to grantmaking to costs and benefits.
  
  
• NEW! CRT Framework and Model Case Studies: Using workshop presentations and interviews with Learning Network members, RDP staff have revised the model descriptions and collected six brief, illuminating case studies detailing how community foundations initiated and sustain their version of one of the Six Models for Covering Rural Territory! We'll release the Framework at the Fall Conference in Atlanta, with case studies to follow. Check back here for updates.
  
  
• Get all the resource materials and presentations for Covering Rural Territory!

Building Rural Endowments!

• "There's Wealth in the Boonies!" The next RDP Peer-Exchange Workshop is sure to be as chockfull of tools, stories and camaraderie! Mark your calendar for There's Wealth in the Boonies: Engines for Building RDP Endowments, January 29-31, 2003 in Washington, DC.
  
  
• Get a taste for what's to come from the BRL closing panel: Connecting Donors to RDP. View the transcript.

On the Road in Atlanta:
RDP learning and networking at the Fall Conference

Planning to attend the Council on Foundations Fall Conference for Community Foundations in Atlanta? Be sure to attend the following RDP-related events:

• WORKSHOP: Variations on a Theme—The Role of Affiliates
  Tuesday, Sept. 24, 2:00-3:30 p.m.
  This session will highlight the three most common affiliate structures, and examine how three community foundations have addressed the pros and cons of each structure. Presenters will include Karen Zerhusen of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation, and RDP Learning Network members Carla Roberts (Arizona Community Foundation), Elizabeth Fentress (North Carolina Community Foundation) and CSG's Janet Topolsky.
  
  
• WORKSHOP: Covering Rural Territory—Structural Models for Serving Rural Areas
  Wednesday, Sept. 25, 10:00-11:30 a.m.
  In the first half of this session, community foundation leaders will briefly detail the four leading structural models community foundations are using to better serve rural areas. In the second half, participants will break into peer groups to explore the model that most interests them. Presenters will include RDP Learning Network members Lew Feldstein (New Hampshire Charitable Foundation), Jeff Yost (Nebraska Community Foundation), Ben Johnson (Greater New Orleans Foundation), Terry Holley (East Tennessee Foundation) and CSG's Janet Topolsky.
  
  
• And join us for...
  A Reception for RDP Learning Network & Friends
  When? Tuesday Evening, September 24, 2002
  What time? 6:30-8:00 p.m.
  Where? Grand Salon C, Hilton Atlanta
  

News YOU Can Use
Useful info & goings-on around the world of RDP…

• RDP Special Services On the Road Again: Catch RDPLN Director Janet Topolsky on the road this fall, using RDP tools and frameworks to help community and private foundations across the country:
  
  
  1. Michigan Council of Foundations' Rural Fund Development Workshop, St. Ignace, September 28-29—with former Montana Community Foundation CEO Sid Armstrong
     
     
  2. California League of Community Foundations' Serving Rural Communities Workshop, Humboldt County, October 14-15
     
     
  3. Philanthropy Northwest 2002 Annual Conference and Membership Meeting's Rural and Strategic: Getting Rural Grants to Make a Real Difference Session, Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, October 28, 2002
     
     
  4. Southeastern Council of Foundations' Rural Communities: Hidden Treasures of the South Session, White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, November 13
  
  
• Fall Rural Funders Forum:
  Has Public Policy Failed and Why Should Funders Care?
  Friday, November 1, 2002, Mayflower Hotel, Washington, DC—
  The fourth Fall Rural Funders Forum will examine public policies that support rural communities and their residents and discuss funders' roles in policy-making. View the agenda.
  
  
• Neighborhood Funders Group Annual Conference:
  "A MORE PERFECT UNION:
  Charting a Strategy for Economic Justice"
  November 1-3, 2002, Mayflower Hotel, Washington, DC—
  The conference will examine what public institutions can do to address poverty and inequality and how foundations can play a role. At a rural-focused closing plenary, foundation leaders and community activists will describe how public support has been leveraged with private philanthropy and community action to develop programs within diverse communities. Get more information.
  
  
• Rural Entrepreneurship News: This monthly electronic newsletter of the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship summarizes developments in rural entrepreneurship. CRE is a RUPRI national research and policy center with founding support from the Kauffman Center for Entrepreneurial Leadership. To subscribe, send an email to taina@ruraleship.org.
  
  
• Policy Watch: The New Homestead Economic Opportunity Act, S. 1860 sponsored by Sen. Byron Dorgan of North Dakota: This bill offers incentives to individuals and families to live, work or start a business in rural areas as one strategy for fighting rural out-migration. Get more information.

What's NEXT for RDP?

The RDP Learning Network was conceived in 2001 as an initiative to help rural-focused community foundations, other foundations and rural practitioners learn together how to use the tools of community philanthropy to build stronger rural futures, especially in communities struggling with rural poverty. Over the past 18 months, through face-to-face exchanges and through the use of new tools and on-line and print communications, the Learning Network has engaged hundreds of members and friends in peer-learning activities that are shaping a field of practice and a network of practitioners—all working to advance RDP practice and outcomes.

What's happening now? Over the next six months, the Learning Network has face-to face peer-learning events already in the works:

• A network-wide Peer Exchange Workshop on the topic of Building Rural Endowments, January 29-31 in Washington DC
  
  
• The last of three Learning Institutes for two RDP Learning Clusters
  
  
• A one-time small-group RDP for Start Ups Peer-Learning Institute
  
  
• A one-time Strengthening Rural Families Peer-Learning Institute for a select group of community foundations and rural practitioners, sponsored by the Annie E. Casey Foundation
  
  
• A host of RDP Special Services (see above)

Over the same period, CSG will revise and finalize the RDP framework guides and case studies drafted for its past Peer-Exchange Workshops and Institutes, and make them available in print and through the RDPLN website, beginning with Rural Structures and Characteristics and Building Rural Livelihood—to be followed by a new framework on rural endowment building.

So What's Next? Added to the activities above, so far, in 2003, CSG plans to:

• Build Learning Network peer-exchanges on the air and online through the Talkin' RDP! Listserv (see below), Talkin' RDP! Learning Archive, RDPLN-hosted conference calls and the RDP website
  
  
• Continue mining its many RDP-focused peer-exchanges over the past decade to develop more RDP framework guides and case studies.
  
  
• Provide RDP Special Services to groups working to improve their own or their members' rural development philanthropy capacity and outcomes, especially in economically disadvantaged communities. CSG's RDP team can assist rural-focused foundations and organizations with board development, endowment building, grantmaking and program design. Working with groups, CSG can help design peer-learning and collaborative implementation strategies for improved rural service and resource development.
  
  
• CSG will be seeking new partnerships and sources of funding to ensure that the RDP Learning Network continues to improve RDP networking and practice in service to rural communities.