A Second Chance to Get Rural America Right

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Grant makers have responded to the political rise of Donald Trump by investing heavily in democracy and civic life. Since 2016, when Trump won his first election, funding has more than doubled for campaigns and compacts that combat misinformation, bridge divides, and connect Americans in the face of growing, almost desperate isolation. 

Despite these efforts, public trust and civic strength continue to sag. The majority of democracy funders say philanthropy has not developed the right strategies. Some have concluded that the anti-democratic forces animated and nurtured by Trump are simply too strong, while others optimistically plan for a “return to normal” after he’s exited the White House. 

But these analyses ignore the economic and cultural context that make Trump and his agenda appealing to so many. And it brushes aside the underexamined role that philanthropy and institutions played in creating the conditions for his ascent.

Threats to democracy arose long before the New York billionaire descended his golden escalator and became a populist icon, and they won’t evaporate when he leaves power.

What to do? 

Any prescription for the next three years must take into account a little-noticed divide at the heart of America’s discord. On one side of this deep-rooted schism are the “somewheres” — those who feel a deep commitment to a region, neighborhood, or hillside, like my neighbors and family in rural Kentucky. On the other side are the “anywheres,” those whose connections to place are tenuous, even flexible.

Policymakers are often “anywheres,” but so, too, are many foundation executives. Often products of elite colleges and denizens of big cities, they can overlook the values and motivations of those who feel a deep commitment to a specific place. Substantial resources rarely flow to the strategies of “somewheres,” especially those in the working class South. Instead, the “anywheres” design an intervention, funding only work tailored to the untested strategies of their RFP. Afterward, focus groups and case studies analyze the outcome, but the program architects seldom live with the long-term consequences of what they wrought. This cycle threatens the credibility of local leaders and leaves communities more cynical about promises of change. 

Philanthropy’s Broken Promise

Philanthropy had a chance to break this destructive pattern as the country emerged from the Great Recession. The 2008-9 economic crisis hollowed out America’s middle class and sparked a massive transfer of wealth to the rich, but many philanthropies bailed on their rural commitments. Metro areas that were home to many philanthropy headquarters rebounded well from the downturn, while small towns and cities in middle America struggled. 

In the spirit of President Obama’s “More Perfect Union” 2009 inaugural address and its promise to close gaps for all Americans, his administration worked to include rural communities in its plans. Notably, it created the White House Rural Council, led by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa. 

In 2011, Vilsack brokered an agreement with the Council on Foundations to incentivize rural grant making. He sounded an alarm on behalf of an increasingly frustrated constituency who, though deeply patriotic — and dare I say patient — was weary of disregard and condescension. 

Philanthropy didn’t live up to the agreement’s promise. Rural investment actually dropped from 2011 to 2015, when Vilsack left the administration. While 20 percent of Americans lived in rural communities, foundations were committing less than 5 percent of grant dollars to rural people. Average investment in the American South itself was 44 percent less than in other regions.

While some grant dollars were aimed at rural America, national intermediaries promising to “scale connection” and “bridge partisanship” absorbed much of it. Too often, they funded people from outside our communities while ignoring residents, who best know their problems and are best positioned to solve them. 

Meanwhile, Donald Trump centered his early campaign in flyover regions. He showed up and acknowledged the frustrations of the American working class, and they’ve been with him since.

“The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer,” the president said at his first inauguration, in 2017. “Everyone is listening to you now.” 

The Opportunity Ahead

We missed the opportunity to listen to rural America in the 2010s, but we don’t have to miss this one. Amid Washington’s paralysis, the administration’s unpopular approaches to immigration and foreign affairs, and increasing questions about whether Trump will deliver for the working class, the majority of American voters are frustrated with systems that fail to support them. People are ready for a better invitation, one that offers the chance not only to be heard but also to be part of the solution. 

Philanthropy is uniquely positioned to offer that invitation, but it must start with the acknowledgment that funders didn’t keep their promises to rural people. 

Low trust in institutions and indicators of civic health are potholes that were shaped by uneven grant making in the years before Trump’s first campaign. Conceding that philanthropy hasn’t done right by rural Americans is the first step to repairing their trust, because it is directly linked to the perception that institutional leaders don’t care about or listen to people outside the cities. 

Rural funding still accounts for less than 7 percent of all foundation giving. Philanthropy can begin to reverse the trust decline by making reparative investments. Consider doubling giving in the South, rural America, tribal areas, and other Indigenous  communities, and look beyond the counties already rich in civic opportunity.

Investment should go to places where civic life is bubbling up organically, but not without a commitment to equitable distribution of resources and opportunities so that the same few areas don’t always get support. When neighbors come together to solve a problem, fund them to take a next step and expand to work on other community issues. And please divest from what writer Sam Pressler has dubbed “connection grift” — bridging strategies that aren’t grounded in the state or region. Regional networks like ours at the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange or those of 100 Rural Women in Minnesota, the Rural Organizing Project in Oregon, or Front Porch Forum in Vermont are better suited to create multiracial, interclass solutions than distant organizers promising to scale connection.

Perhaps most important, philanthropy must no longer treat middle America as its proving ground to test new ideas. The success of local democracy work hinges on this question: does it aim to extract learning for the funders, or is it a genuine effort to support local communities? We have to invest in people’s capacity to solve problems by engaging them in the work. 

The issues we are facing as a nation cannot be solved from a distance. Too many Americans have been left out of civic life, and the best way to signal that we are listening to the everyday people of this country is to invest in them. If America’s institutions want to regain public trust, they have to demonstrate their faith in the American people.

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