Building Rural Capacity to Navigate Population and Economic Change

View this Publication

Rural landscape representing the communities and regions featured in this Aspen CSG case study

Rural regions and Native nations across the US are navigating population and economic change.

This case study examines how rural regions and Native nations build the collective capacity — commitment, resources, and skills — needed to navigate population and economic change. Drawing on conversations with 28 practitioners across the country, it looks at how Rural Development Hubs coordinate local action, and profiles Hazard, Kentucky, as a real-world example of capacity building in practice.

Regions Flourish When Local People Can Make Decisions About Their Own Economies, Institutions, and Futures

Rural and Indigenous regions are facing population and economic change; their ability to thrive amidst these shifts depends on whether they have the collective strength of commitment, resources, and skills to act.

Across the United States, rural regions and Native nations are experiencing different patterns of population change. Some are losing residents and employers. Others are seeing new in-migration tied to remote work or amenity demand. In some places, the population is currently stable, but underlying shifts in industry, housing, and workforce are underway.

In small communities, even modest changes can reshape social networks, local institutions, housing markets, and economic opportunity.

Community capacity determines whether these changes lead to stability or displacement. Regions with sufficient commitment, resources, and skills can coordinate responses, align investments, and adapt institutions. Where community capacity is low, even well-funded opportunities can go unused.

If governments and institutions trust local leaders and provide support, partnership, and boots on the ground, then rural regions will increase their capacity and build welcoming and inclusive communities.

Kristina Cannon — Main Street Skowhegan, Maine

What Is Community Capacity?

Community capacity is the collective strength of the commitment, resources, and skills that enable a region to act on shared priorities.

Commitment

Local leadership, civic participation, and willingness to act and work across divides

Resources

Funding, staff, infrastructure, data

Skills

Grant writing, project management, facilitation

These components are interdependent. Strong commitment without resources limits execution. Resources without skills reduce effectiveness. Skills without commitment do not sustain regional action.

This understanding emerged from Aspen CSG’s decades-long commitment to supporting capacity building in rural and Indigenous communities. For more, see Measuring Community Capacity Building: A Workbook for Rural Communities.

Why Capacity Is the Constraint

Many rural regions have ideas and opportunities; the limiting factor is the ability to organize and execute.

Rural and Indigenous regions often operate with a small number of organizations and staff. The same people manage multiple roles across government, housing, workforce, health, and economic development. This creates bottlenecks and burnout:

Limited grant writing capacity reduces access to federal and philanthropic funding
Thin staffing constrains project management and compliance
Fragmented coordination leads to duplicated or misaligned efforts

These constraints are structural. Smaller tax bases (or no tax bases, in the case of Native nations) limit public investment. Federal and state programs often require administrative capacity that exceeds what many communities can sustain. As a result, available resources don’t consistently translate into local outcomes.

Community is infrastructure, and we need to treat it as such. That capacity is more resilient than anything else.

Alex Beck — Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation, Vermont

Who Builds Capacity in a Community?

Too often, outside entities (e.g., government, philanthropy, NGOs) have used the term “capacity” to talk about what rural communities and Native nations lack — in this deficit framework, “capacity building” involves outside organizations coming in to fill a hole in rural communities.

Aspen CSG believes this approach is not only ineffective but also harmful. Rural communities and Native nations want to be thriving versions of themselves, and rural people are best positioned to understand what capacity they need to get there.

Rural practitioner balancing multiple roles across housing, workforce, and economic development

Rural practitioners often balance multiple roles across housing, workforce, and economic development.

I’ve been working on Latino leadership programs because many people in our community don’t have a real chance to move up. Positions often go to people from outside, while local talent is overlooked. So I’m partnering with nonprofits to provide the training and support folks need to step into leadership.

Lupita Garcia — Energy Resource Center, Colorado

If federal, state, and philanthropic grantmaking and technical assistance programs recognize rural capacity limitations, then they can have realistic expectations for communities and support change without overburdening them.

Megan Lawson — Headwaters Economics, Montana

How Rural Development Hubs Increase Capacity

Rural Development Hubs expand effective capacity by coordinating people, resources, and skills across a region.

A Rural Development Hub is a regionally rooted organization that aligns partners and fills gaps in local systems. Hubs do not replace local organizations; they increase what those organizations can do together.

Hubs enable leaders to connect within and across regions, facilitating the movement of knowledge and resources across boundaries. They coordinate amongst organizations, enabling shared capacity, stronger collaboration, and better stewardship of limited resources.