
In order for communities to achieve their full potential, each and every person must be invested in community success and consider themselves represented in decision-making for the community. For that to happen, all residents must feel welcomed, connected, and valued as members of the community. Moreover, they must be logistically able to contribute to relevant decision-making and action processes in their community.
This requires that the community consistently identifies and addresses impediments to participation, including transportation, education, health, and timing, among others – and that it removes any discriminatory barriers to participation based on personal characteristics such as socio-economic class, gender, identity, race, country of origin, religion, or place of residence.
Curated Resources
Field Items

Building Belonging & Creating Welcoming Organizations
What does it mean to be a truly welcoming organization and how can arts leaders be more inclusive hosts who foster belonging? Dig into an Arts Midwest hosted discussion with two artists who regularly tackle these questions, Ananya Chatterjea and Marcus Young.

Socially Connected Communities
Report from Healthy Places by Design on solutions for social isolation.

Building Inclusive Communities
Recorded event from Rural Assembly Everywhere and Welcoming Communities.

Everywhere Radio
Podcast series from Rural Assembly asking rural leaders why they do what they do and how they keep going in the face of conflict.

Rural Welcoming Initiative
Resources to create welcoming policies and new approaches to inclusion to create an environment where rural people can truly thrive.
Building Block Evidence
Evidence suggests this building block is important because feelings of belonging in a community are associated with individuals’ physical and mental health.1,2,3 Having local social connections can support people’s sense of belonging4, and research suggests that people with meaningful social connections are happier, have fewer health problems, have less depression, and live longer.5
Feeling a sense of community can predict individuals’ community participation, including volunteering, donating to community organizations, and participating in associations—as well as their reported overall life satisfaction.6 The positive effects appear to be true among people who emigrated to a community6 and people born in the local area,3 including in rural communities. People living in rural communities may have a stronger sense of belonging, possibly related to knowing and trusting their neighbors.7
Creating socially connected communities includes investing in “meaningful community engagement”.8 Creating and participating in a range of “inclusive and welcoming solutions” can foster a sense of belonging and support broader engagement in collaborative efforts.8 Such solutions include creating inclusive public spaces; prioritizing people in transportation systems; constructing affordable housing and spaces for gathering and zoning to encourage diversity; shifting power to community members, elevating cultural practices, communicating creatively, and creating universal broadband access; and making social connectedness a community norm through use of frameworks, trauma- and resilience-informed practices, and declaring community values.9
- Holt-Lunstad 2010
- Michalski 2020
- Kitchen 2015
- Schellenberg 2017
- Holt-Lunstad 2010 in RWJF-Social Isolation 2019
- Ramos 2017
- Turcotte 2005
- MN Compass-Chase 2018 in HPBD-Wilkerson 2021
- HPBD-Wilkerson 2021
We see the framework as a living document, which necessarily must evolve over time, and we seek to expand the collective ownership of the Thrive Rural Framework among rural equity, opportunity, health, and prosperity ecosystem actors. Please share your insights with us about things the framework is missing or ways it should change.