Kellogg Rural People, Rural Policy Initiative
YouthBuild USA has been selected by the Kellogg Foundation to participate in their Rural People, Rural Policy Initiative. Awarded funding of $100,000 over five years from the Kellogg Foundation, participation in the Rural People, Rural Policy Regional Network will allow YouthBuild USA to expand its capacity building efforts and policy development work in four underserved rural regions of the United States. In particular, this grant will enable us to deepen our work in Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta/Blackbelt regions as well as to initiate parallel work in the colonias/borderland region and tribal areas.
The Rural People, Rural Policy Initiative is a multi-year national initiative that energizes and equips rural organizations and networks to shape policy that will improve the vitality of rural communities and lives of their residents. One of the primary components of Rural People, Rural Policy is Regional Rural Policy Networks. The goal of establishing these Networks is to develop the knowledge, capacity, strategic direction, and action of a critical mass of organizations that seek to improve policy that affects people and places in rural America.
In 2004 YouthBuild USA launched a long-term strategy, with seed funding provided by the William Randolph Hearst Foundation, focused on capacity building, leadership training, strategic networking, and policy development in Appalachia and the Mississippi Delta. Working in collaboration with YouthBuild programs, young people, and other regional stakeholders, YouthBuild USA aims to serve as a change agent seeking to strengthen community responses, expand opportunities, and ultimately impact rural policy by responding to the needs and dreams of low-income rural young people.
Funding from the Kellogg Foundation, will enable YouthBuild USA to expand this same approach to our work in the colonias/borderlands and tribal areas, crafting a long term strategy that will build local capacity and knit the programmatic and policy strategies together for long-term change. Selection into the Kellogg Rural People, Rural Policy Network will allow YouthBuild USA to extract the critical learnings, innovative practices, and policy agendas across all four regions to strengthen our existing national youth policy work and enable us to create stronger links with other national intermediaries focused on the larger rural policy agenda.
USDA: Rural Community Development Initiative (RCDI)
The YouthBuild USA Rural Initiative has been awarded a Rural Community Development Initiative (RCDI) grant from the United States Department of Agriculture. This funding will be used to create sustainable employment opportunities for low-income young adults by training rural YouthBuild programs to create, identify, and integrate regional economic development strategies into their YouthBuild program operation. YouthBuild USA will provide training, technical assistance, and pass-through funding that will introduce rural YouthBuild communities to new approaches for fostering community economic development, guiding recipients to become active participants within existing regional economic development initiatives; or, where no such initiatives yet exist, to become catalysts for creating such regional efforts. As one rural YouthBuild Director stated, "We'll be able to use YouthBuild to drive the economic engine of our region and communities--creating jobs for young people--and help our communities see the value of young people as skilled and ready members of the workforce."
YouthBuild USA's RCDI work will focus on job creation and training strategies for low-income rural young people (ages 16-24) that are relevant to emerging and existing regional economic trends. The project will train mature rural YouthBuild programs to create five-year strategic plans that will focus on shifting the economic development landscape of their communities; and also train emerging YouthBuild sites to focus on retooling their programs to help build new regional partnerships for job development within their areas' existing economic landscapes. The ultimate aim of the project is to enable all rural YouthBuild programs to develop for their students and graduates pathways to personal and economic to self-sufficiency, rooted in their local communities.
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