This section of our website is where you’ll find community development resources designed by RSP to improve the practice of participatory rural development by sharing what we’ve learned from our work across Central Appalachia. Every month, we post resources including those that help ground you in the concepts that guide our work, planning tools, and occasional case studies of what’s worked and lessons we’ve learned along the way. These resources are intended for people doing similar participatory community, organizational, or network development to bring about system change, particularly in rural communities. Sign up below to receive notification when we post a new resource.
In rural areas across Appalachia, economic development has often led to profits for large, outside companies with little benefit to local people. These conventional supply chains mean that each link in the chain was working for their own self-interest. But a value chain offers a form of economic development that is more collaborative in nature, and likely to benefit more people in the communities where the chain is based.
When you ask people to describe what makes their community a great place to live, play, and work, you begin to understand the multiple forms of capital that, taken together, define what it means to be a prosperous, “wealthy” community.
In the fall of 2015, Rural Support Partners conducted an evaluation to understand and assess the value of our work across the region from the perspective of its partners. Read more to find out what we learned.