Lead Partner: Southern Rural Development Initiative
Description
The Southern Rural Development Initiative provides practical tools for rural community leaders, organisations, and related national sectors to create just and economically sustainable communities across the rural South US. SRDI’s work is based on some clearly defined concepts including:
- Community economic development: economic development that is initiated and controlled by the people that live in the community.
- Community organising: seeks to build power with and for the traditionally power-less and builds people’s capacity to analyze, strategize, mobilize and act.
- Policy advocacy: using research, communications and coalition-building to change the decisions and policies of the public sector.
- Community-based philanthropy: philanthropy that believes that all people in a community can both contribute to the development of endowment assets and be involved in philanthropic decision-making. Grassroots philanthropy addresses the underlying causes of inequality, not just its symptoms.
Principles that Guide our Work:
'Generating optimism about a rural comunity’s future is an essential step. New relationships – crosing race, class and age – at the community level are essential for change.'
Strong grassroots organizations employing multiple strategies are essential to building just and sustainable communities in the rural Southern US. Such organizations must be able to envision and help construct just and healthy rural communities. They must also be legitimate players in and shapers of community development processes.
Building grassroots organizations in resource-starved communities takes time, commitment and money. Organizations need core money for their core work, beyond funding for specific projects. A continuing flow of philanthropic and public resources is essential. State/regional
intermediaries are key to making local organizations sustainable – providing technical, financial and organizational support.
Cultures of low expectation are a prevalent and debilitating feature of many rural communities in the South. Generating optimism about a rural community’s future is an essential step. New relationships – crossing race, class and age – at the community level are essential for change. This requires new leadership models. We must build models for effective organizations that work for the average rural community and are not dependent on extraordinary leadership to succeed.
Capital and the organizational capacity to effectively utilize capital mus be built simultaneously– breaking down the “chicken-and-egg” dilemma. CED organizations must also get to scale to effectively compete with industries of last resort. And ‘scale’ must be redefined in ongoing discussion about what constitutes a healthy rural community.
Unleashing capital from public, private and philanthropic sources from outside the community to support innovation and leverage resources from within must happen. Wealth building is a key strategy for defeating poverty for the long-term.
Resources
The initiative has put together a wonderful resource available on this site:
http://www.srdi.org/srdi/parables/index.htm
http://www.srdi.org/srdi/la_parable/parable3final.html
Contact Details
128 E. Hargett Street,Suite 202Raleigh,NC 27601Phone: (919) 829-5900Website: http://www.srdi.org/srdi/