Our approach is participatory and steeped in the daily realities of rural people while being ground-truthed in experience and informed by the latest research. RSP shows up as an experienced and trusted partner to organizations, networks, and changemakers to navigate these complexities. RSP creates the right conditions and facilitates the processes that draw out collective wisdom and creates the visions, plans, and structures needed for organizations to maintain focus and nurture a culture that promotes equity, flexibility, and staff well-being.
Our mission-driven management consulting firm is founded on a commitment to inclusive participation and aims to have the plans, actions, and results emerge from the vision and goals of the people with whom we work. The following values are at the core of everything we do:
Our work is founded on the rock-solid belief that the people we work with have the skills, wisdom, vision, and capacity to solve complex problems, create effective solutions, and create transformative change. Our job is to pull out that wisdom, bring about collective analysis, help create action plans, and reflective practices. The consistent use of the Popular Education Spiral keeps us grounded in this value.
We strive to uncover, speak-to, and address the multiple oppressions that undermine the beauty, health, and well-being of all people and communities.
We work to build long-standing and equal-power partnerships with our clients—creating the trust and mutually supportive relationship needed to do difficult and messy work together.
Our results-based approach means that we start with the end in mind to ensure our work and the work of our clients are focused on clear outcomes. This approach leads to a more efficient use of resources, and ultimately a greater return on everyone’s investment of time, energy, and money.
We honor and learn from the work before us while working to strengthen and sustain the change infrastructure that will continue the work over long after us. We believe in opening doors and supporting young leaders to ensure that the work of creating more just and equitable rural communities endures over the long haul.
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As facilitators or network coordinators, we are not passive or empty. We have knowledge, expertise, experiences, and concrete ideas to offer. But we always start with the people we are working with. We always assume that the folks sitting in the room with us know more about how to make their communities livable than we do. Collectively, they have the wisdom to bring about significant change. They might not have tapped into that wisdom yet, but it’s there. It is our job to help them surface their collective wisdom and build concrete plans for taking their work to the next level.
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In our daily work, we use an approach called the spiral model for popular education, detailed in a post, here. We have adapted the spiral model from a book called Educating for a Change (by Rick Arnold and colleagues, 1999).
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Key Works and Influences:
Pedagogy of the Opressed, Pedagogy of Hope, Pedagogy of Indignation, and other works by Paulo Freire
We Make the Road by Walking by Paulo Freire and Myles Horton
The lifework of Myles Horton
Various work and writings of The Highlander Research and Education Center founded by Myles Horton and Don West
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Key Works:
The Facilitator’s Guide to Participatory Decision-Making (2nd ed.) by Sam Kaner, Lenny Lind, Catherine Toldi, Sarah Fisk, and Duane Berger
Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation by adrienne maree brown
“The Origins and Practice of Participatory Rural Appraisal” by Robert Chambers
“Participatory Rural Appraisal” by Ganesh Chandra
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Key Works and Influences:
Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals by Saul Alinsky
The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart by Alicia Garza
Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate for Radical Movements by Charlene Carruthers
The lifework and writings of: Helen Lewis, Mother Jones, and other Appalachian organizers.
The lifework of abolitionists and civil rights organizers including Fannie Lou Hamer, Frederick Douglass, Ida B. Wells, and Bayard Rustin.
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Further reading:
Community Wealth Creation
Rural Networks for Wealth Creation
WealthWorks
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Key Works:
Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown
The Hidden Connections: A Science for Sustainable Living by Fritjof Capra
The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision by Fritjok Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi
“Regenerative Design Principles” by Tre’ Cates and Jeff Su
“The Dawn of Systems Leadership” by Peter Senge, Hal Hamilton, and John Kania
“Regenerative Capitalism: How Universal Principles and Patterns Will Shape Our New Economy” by John Fullerton, Capital Institute
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Rural Support Partners equips changemakers, organizations, and networks to cultivate lasting, equitable, participatory change in rural areas.
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