This week it was my honor to participate in a “summit on Rural America” hosted by the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association. The goal was to get people “inside the beltway” to think about “rural as rich” – a place of resources and talent, where resourceful and self-reliant people on Main Street can make small investments go a long way. The critical need for all Americans to have affordable access to Broadband and the skills to use it was a big theme of the day. Here are my notes of highlights of the day.

• Representative from the White House Council on Rural says: most important investment we (including fed government) can make to address persistent rural poverty is invest in kids.
• Chuck Fluherty is talking about BB and “quality of place” as key to rural vitality.
• Repeated calls for need for community leadership capacity building
• Significant call to “place-based” philanthropy to partner and focus NOT necessarily on Economic Development (job creation ) directly but rather on developing human capacity.
• Place-based philanthropy being called on to step into role of conveners and host conversations across community silos.
• Fluherty also talking about the importance of inclusion and is endorsing collective impact model.
• Recognition here that each rural community is unique and rural funding streams need maximum flexibility (not AS much true in urban spaces where you can count on a suite of institutions being in place)
• Calls to think forward 7 generations
• National foundations being called upon to spend more of their wealth on rural
• “People matter. Leadership matters”