Greetings!
This year, I was interviewed by the Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group (CSG) as part of their research that identified “Rural Development Hub” intermediaries as effective community and economic development partners in rural America. CSG has now published the final report of this research, with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. I want to share the final report with you:
Rural Development Hubs: Strengthening America’s Rural Innovation Infrastructure.
This report offers value and insight for the entire country. The report focuses on the role – and aggregates the wisdom – of a set of intermediaries that are doing development differently in rural America.
Rural Development Hubs are main players advancing an asset-based and inclusive wealth-building approach to rural community and economic development in this country. Hubs are full of the creative adaptation and ingenuity critical to doing the hard work of rebuilding economies and communities for the 21st century.
Region Five Development Commission (R5DC) was one of the 43 Rural Development Hubs that Aspen CSG was able to interview as part of their research – though CSG trusts there are many more. The recommendations that emerged from CSG’s Hub interviews can help investors, policymakers and other decision-makers who have questions about rural America. I urge you to take a close look at the report.
Acknowledging there is still much work to do, R5DC is grateful to have learned from some of the nation’s best practitioners and to have worked alongside investment partners committed to advancing rural regional equitable economic ecosystems. In this report we are classified as a “Unicorn Regional Organization” which is fitting given that R5DC is uniquely positioned as a unit of government who also staffs a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization, both committed to regional prosperity for ALL people. The CSG’s report has been the first to accurately record the rural relevancy of complex organizations like ours.
As someone who cares about the future of rural and all of America, I hope that you share the report and its recommendations with your wider network.
If you have any questions or comments on the report itself, or want to get a hard copy, please reach out to Katharine Ferguson, Associate Director of CSG (
Katharine.Ferguson@aspeninst.org) or any of the
Aspen CSG staff or
R5DC
staff.
With respect,
Cheryal Lee Hills
R5DC & NCEDA Executive Director
