Summit Day 1: Wednesday, February 21, 2024
We are happy to share this recap and report out from our powerful time together on February 21st and 22nd. This resource page includes key takeaways, recordings, slides, resources, and funding opportunities presented in the Summit.
Introduction & Context Setting
- Speakers
- Lindsay Ryder, Director, Integrated Rural Strategies Group, Neighborhood Funders Group
- Stephan Cheney, Sr Program Coordinator, Integrated Rural Strategies Group, Neighborhood Funders Group
- Manisha Vaze, VP of Programs, Neighborhood Funders Group
- Olivia Trabysh, IRSG Coordinating Committee and Philanthropic Consultant
- Recording
- Resources
- Slides (NFG & IRSG mission statements, IRSG Strategic Framework)
- Day 1 Word Cloud
Making the Case for Funding Rural Communities
- Speakers
- Hester Dillon, Director, Indigenous Communities Program, 11th Hour Project (IRSG Coordinating Committee)
- Fabiola Ortiz Valdez, Director of Organizing, Food Chain Workers Alliance (IRSG Movement Advisor)
- Gabriela Quintanilla, Hudson Valley Program Officer, North Star Fund
- Recording
- Resources
- Call to Action: Funding Opportunities
Navigating Federal Funding Opportunities for Rural Communities
- Speakers
- Ann Lichter, Director, Resource Rural, Heartland Fund
- Kelly Wyche, Senior Advisor Climate and Energy, Heartland Fund
- Brandon Dennison, ACT Now Coalition (WV)
- Paul Getsos, Project Director, United Today Stronger Tomorrow
- Recording
- Day 1 Resources
- Slides
- Video: Act Now Solar Training program in West Virginia
- What’s in it for rural? Analyzing the opportunities for rural America in IIJA, CHIPS, and IRA (Brookings, 2023)
- Community campaign advocating for transit improvements in rural Utah
- Small Town Summit hosted by United Together Stronger Tomorrow building capacity of rural community organizers
- Resource Rural
- Health & Environmental Funders Network’s Toolkit: The Current Federal Funding Landscape Resources for Funders
Closing Reflections
- Recording
- Resources
- Heartland Fund: A Case for Support (funding rural organizing work)
Summit Day 2: Thursday, February 22, 2024
Introduction & Context Setting
- Speakers
- Lindsay Ryder, Director, Integrated Rural Strategies Group, Neighborhood Funders Group
- Stephan Cheney, Sr Program Coordinator, Integrated Rural Strategies Group, Neighborhood Funders Group
- Domenico Romero, Unitarian Universalist Veatch Program at Shelter Rock (IRSG Coordinating Committee)
- Recording
- Resources
Building Rural Community Power: What It Looks Like and How It’s Done
- Speakers
- Brandi Mack, The Butterfly Movement and IRSG Movement Advisor (Facilitator)
- Natalie Collier, President/Foundation, The Lighthouse | Black Girls Project
- Brandi Turner, Co Director/Programs Manager, Sipp Culture
- Carlton Turner, Lead Artist / Co Director, Sipp Culture
- Recording
- Resources
- Southern Black Farmers Community-Led Fund
- A Community Advised Fund housed at RSF Social Finance (RSF), invests in the realization of self-determining and healthy Southern rural Black communities through their control of land, local and regional food systems, water, energy, cultural narratives, and legacy extension.
- Sipp Culture’s Mainstreet Cultural Center (Capital Campaign)
- The Butterfly Movement, Camp Butterfly
- The Lighthouse | Black Girls Project, Black Women Vote Coalition
- Report: Reckoning with Sustainability: Black Leaders Reflect on 2020, the Funding Cliff, and Organizing Infrastructure (Building Movement Project, 2024)
- Southern Black Farmers Community-Led Fund
“In the nonprofit world, sometimes we’re exclusively looking for inputs and outcomes, but in the context we’re working in relationships are everything…and relationship building takes time.” This doesn’t always follow a grant timeline. We’re not trying to build institutional power, we’re trying to build community power, which is different.
Taking it Deeper: Weaving Power and Equity and Demonstrating Impact
- Speakers
- Kien Lee, VP of Consulting, Community Science
- David Chavis, Senior Fellow, Community Science
- Slides
- Resources
State of the Movement: Rural’s Role in Advancing Progress
- Speakers
- Sade Dumas, Spark Justice Fund, Borealis Philanthropy (IRSG Coordinating Committee)
- Eric Martinez, Executive Director, Mano Amiga
- Sharon Lavigne, Founder and Director, Rise St. James
- Ashley Shelton, Founder and President, Power Coalition for Equity and Justice
- Toi Washington, Founder, Trans Women of Color Healing Project
- Recording
- Resources
- Spark Justice Fund at Borealis Philanthropy
- Mano Amiga
- How Years of Organizing Put Drug Reform and Diversion on the Ballot in Central Texas, October 2022.
- Cite and Release is Keeping People Out of Jail, August 2023.
- The Texas Tribune, the Caldwell/Hays Examiner and advocacy group Mano Amiga sued the county over its practice of holding closed magistrations, February 2024.
- Rise St. James
- Trans Women of Color Healing Project
- Power Coalition For Equity and Justice
- Key Learnings
- “You can’t have equity if you don’t have equity in power.”
- “Voting is a social determinant of health.”
- Watchdog organizations are so crucial, both in environmental spaces and immigrant spaces! And these issues affect each other. Pollution, climate change, and global warming are exponentially affecting the global south, low income communities, and immigrant communities much worse than high income, white communities and the demographics in power!
- Calls to Funders:
- Give and trust rural groups. You will be able to see us take back rural america
- Offer multi-year funding. Give us your support not your reports.
- More funding for education, community planning, and research.
- More funding specific to rural communities. Fund work using the full wheel of change, including power building. How are we supporting groups to build ideas?
General Resources
- 🎶 IRSG Summit Spotify Playlist (curated by our own Stephan Cheney!) and offered by popular demand
- Graphic Recording Provided by Jayda Shuavarnnasri