Asset-based Regional Approach

NRFC has focued its grantmaking from 2007 – 2011 on strengthening rural asset-based economies and economic strategies employing a “connecting and catalytic” methodology – both 1) connecting or linking those economic alternatives and strategies to other asset-based approaches, to traditional and non-traditional/alternative forms of philanthropy, to networks for grassroots advocacy and policy change, and 2) catalyzing, accelerating and moving those efforts to scale through alignment with larger regional economic engines and with regional community-building sectors and institutions, e.g., colleges and institutions, health systems, financial institutions, etc.

NRFC is supporting “demonstration” opportunities for investment within three broad rural regions where poverty is “colorized,” i.e., where families and communities of color are disproportionately poor:

• The Rural South (especially North & South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Arkansas, Louisiana – with a focus on African American families and communities);
• California & the West (especially California, Arizona, New Mexico, Texas, Hawaii and Oregon – with a focus on Latino and Immigrant families and communities); and
• The Northern Great Plains (especially Montana, North and South Dakota, Minnesota, Colorado , Michigan and Nebraska – with a focus on Native American families and communities).