Aspen CSG partners with Rural Development Hubs across the country to strengthen local leadership, align funding, and build regional capacity. Through research and peer learning, we support Hub leaders to refine strategies and apply what works across regions.
In Arkansas, we work with Hub partners that coordinate across sectors, align resources, and connect communities to advance long-term regional strategies.
Communities Unlimited
Service area: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Texas.
Communities Unlimited connects rural Americans to solutions that sustain healthy businesses, healthy communities, and healthy lives. They believe that access to opportunities should not depend on where you live, how much you have in the bank, or what you look like.
Visit organization: communitiesu.org
Featured in Aspen CSG resources: Measure Up: A Call to Action, Rural Development Hubs Report, Ten Podcasts Focused on Rural Community and Economic Development, Four Principles for Fostering Community Well-Being with Asset-Based Development, and more.
Hope Enterprise Corporation
Service area: Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee.
Hope Enterprise Corporation (HEC) is a community development financial institution (CDFI) dedicated to strengthening communities, building assets, and improving lives in under-resourced communities throughout Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee.
Visit organization: hope-ec.org
Featured in Aspen CSG resources: Funding Rural Futures: A Call to Action and Thrive Rural Theory of Change Working Group (2019-2021).
MDC
Service area: West Virginia, Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Mississippi, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Texas.
MDC equips leaders, institutions, and communities with the necessary tools and strategies to advance equity, particularly racial and gender equity, and economic mobility. For over 50 years, MDC has shared deep knowledge and proven tools to design, demonstrate, and sustain what works to boost everyone, particularly those who’ve been left behind, to higher rungs on the economic ladder.
Visit organization: mdcinc.org
Featured in Aspen CSG resources: Q&A with MDC’s Brandy Bynum Dawson, The Power of Connection: Rural Development Hubs in Action, Funding Rural Futures: A Call to Action, and more.
Southern Bancorp Community Partners
Service area: Arkansas and Mississippi.
Southern Bancorp Community Partners (SBCP) is a certified nonprofit Community Development Financial Institution that provides lending, financial development services, and public policy advocacy in economically distressed communities. Part of the Southern Bancorp family of financial organizations, SBCP works in tandem with Southern Bancorp, Inc., a bank holding company and Southern Bancorp Bank, one of America’s largest rural development banks, toward a shared mission of creating economic opportunity for all.
Visit organization: southernpartners.org
Featured in Aspen CSG resources: A Few Things to Know About Rural America.
Sustainable Forestry & African American Land Retention Network
Service area: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas.
The Sustainable Forestry & African American Land Retention Network (SFLR Network) creates a system of support for African American and rural forest owners that significantly increases the value of forests, land retention, and asset development for rural families in the U.S. South. The SFLR Network has improved forest management and forest retention by connecting African American landowners with established networks of local forestry support. This includes federal and state government programs, businesses, nonprofit conservation, legal, and community development organizations.
Visit organization: sflrnetwork.org
Featured in Aspen CSG resources: Using Relational Leadership to Build Power Together, and more.
