Rural Resources, Insights, and Collaborations by Aspen CSG and Partners
Insights and recommendations to do rural development and rural health differently—moving collectively toward equitable rural development with projects grounded in place and a people-centered vision of community impact.
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
Equitable community development focuses on the role of community development in facilitating neighborhood change to enable residents to thrive, highlighting the persistent racial disparities in community conditions and health across the United States and emphasizes the potential for change through collaborative efforts. The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) seeks to ensure that community development investments prioritize local residents' needs and prevent unintended consequences like displacement.
Community Heart and Soul
Community Heart & Soul is a resident-driven process that engages the entire population of a town in identifying what they love most about their community, what future they want for it, and how to achieve it. Developed and field-tested over a decade in partnership with over 120 small cities and towns across America, Community Heart & Soul is a proven process for engaging a community in shaping its future.
NADO Research Foundation’s Stronger CEDS, Stronger Regions Program
This brief from The NADO Research Foundation’s Stronger CEDS, Stronger Regions program focuses on how the policies and practices of rural economic development will now have to be transformed to meet the needs of new post-pandemic realities.
Rural Voices for Conservation Coalition
RVCC is committed to finding and promoting solutions through collaborative, place-based work that recognizes the inextricable link between the long-term health of the land and the well-being of rural communities.
Welcoming International
Inspiring change: Reflections on welcoming newcomers into rural communities in Australia and the United States
Rural Assembly
Everywhere Radio, hosted by Whitney Kimball Coe, features rural leaders and allies spotlighting the good, scrappy, joyful ways rural people are building a more inclusive nation.
Healthy Places by Design
The efforts that contributed to this report began in 2017 when the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF)’s Global Ideas for U.S. Solutions team invested in an initiative to better understand social isolation and how to address it.
Federal Reserve of St. Louis
Rural Development Initiatives (RDI) shares lessons from their Rural Community Leadership Program.
Wealthworks
To build a region’s wealth, WealthWorks considers not just financial assets, but includes the stock of all capitals in a region. The eight capitals: intellectual, financial, natural, cultural, built, political, individual and social. This approach takes into account all the features of a city, town, countryside or region that make it a good place to live, work and visit.
The University Of Wisconsin Population Health Institute
County Health Rankings & Roadmaps (CHR&R) brings actionable data, evidence, guidance and stories to support community-led efforts to grow community power and improve health equity. The University of Wisconsin Population Health Institute (UWPHI) created CHR&R for communities across the nation, with funding from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)
Rural Well-being: Geography of Opportunities presents the latest iteration of the OECD’s policy framework on rural development. This newly updated framework reflects several important changes in rural development in recent years and takes advantage of the organisation’s latest evidence-based analysis to improve understanding of the diverse and complex socio-economic systems that exist in rural places along with their connection to cities.
Welcoming America
Participants in the Rural Welcoming Initiative (RWI) access technical assistance and coaching, free Welcoming America membership, and ongoing learning opportunities to strengthen welcoming efforts in rural communities. Communities will be tasked with cultivating relationships, examining their current policies and programs, and aligning their local immigrant inclusion efforts to the Welcoming Standard.
