The purpose of this grant was to provide funding to the Rural Center to provide leadership and capacity-building outreach in the Northwest region in advance of Golden LEAF launching its Community Based Grants Initiative there in 2020. This was a continuation of the work done by the Rural Center in the Northeast region in 2018 and then in the Sandhills region. The primary goal of the program was to ensure that participating counties had an increased readiness to pursue economic advancement funding opportunities, particularly Golden LEAF’s. The Rural Center worked within the region to identify a core regional team comprised of county managers, Council of Government staff, community college and university key staff, and economic development partners. Members from the core regional team and key stakeholders from across the region participated in a two-day Homegrown Leadership training program to equip them with the knowledge and tools to understand comprehensive rural economic development. Identifying low-hanging fruit and “shovel-ready” projects were priorities in the capacity-building process. The project participants reviewed regional and local strategic plans to inform project ideas and ensure that new projects were supporting a broader vision for the community and region. The Rural Center also provided coaching to the communities, meeting at least once a month in-person with each team in the region and guiding the teams through an exploration of a variety of state and national best practice models, drawing on sources of innovation from other rural communities around the country.
