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 Louisiana, we work with Hub partners that coordinate across sectors, align resources, and connect communities to advance long-term regional strategies.
Baton Rouge Area Foundation
Service area: Louisiana.
Among the largest community foundations in the country, the Baton Rouge Area Foundation seeks to improve the quality of life in greater Baton Rouge and across south Louisiana. The Foundation pursues its mission by serving donors to build the assets that drive initiatives and solutions, supporting local nonprofits with strategic consulting to ensure overall impact and sustainability, engaging community leaders to develop appropriate responses to emerging opportunities and challenges, and partnering with others to leverage collective resources and create the capacity to be a stimulus of positive regional change.
Visit organization: braf.org
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.
Foundation for Louisiana
Service area: Louisiana.
The Foundation for Louisiana funds, leads, convenes, and collaborates to build on the existing power in communities and address the greatest and most critical needs facing Louisiana. They have invested $60 million in more than 260 mission-critical nonprofit organizations working across the state toward building a more just Louisiana.
Visit organization: foundationforlouisiana.org
Greater New Orleans Foundation
Service area: Louisiana.
The Greater New Orleans Foundation is a community foundation dedicated to driving positive impact through philanthropy, leadership, and action across the Greater New Orleans region, serving 13 parishes. It connects donors with causes, supports nonprofits through grantmaking and capacity-building, and plays a leading role in civic initiatives, from disaster recovery to environmental resilience and regional development.
Visit organization: gnof.org
Featured in Aspen CSG resources: Through Natural Disaster to Prosperity: A Call to Action.
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: Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, and West Virginia.
MDC equips leaders, institutions, and communities with the necessary tools and strategies to advance equity, particularly racial and gender equity, and economic mobility. For more than 50 years, MDC has shared deep knowledge and proven tools to design, demonstrate, and sustain what works to boost everyone, particularly those who have 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.
