Grants awarded to improve Appalachia national policy

By Patricia Dewees

Our rural communities need to play a stronger role in influencing policies and programs designed to help them, and three Athens-based agencies have received grants from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation that will allow central Appalachia to add their voices to national dialogue.

The Appalachian Center for Economic Networks (ACEnet), Rural Action and the Institute for Local Government Administration and Rural Development (ILGARD) at Ohio University's Voinovich Center have each received a W.K. Kellogg grant as part of its Foundation Networks for Rural Policy Development program. Under this program, grantees in rural communities across America have the opportunity to participate in national discourse on policy issues by developing communication plans to educate policy makers. ACEnet, Rural Action and ILGARD will implement issue-based communication strategies designed to inform policy makers about issues critical to the economic development of southeast Ohio communities.

"These grants will help us develop our voices and the messages that legislators need to hear," said Carol Kuhre, executive director of Rural Action. "The overall goal of the grants is to improve the lives of rural people by developing sound national policy that actually benefits our region."

"So often we hear about national rural economic development policy that works in one area of the country, but won't work elsewhere, like in Athens, Ohio," said June Holley, ACEnet president. "This situation is only going to change if communities define for themselves the policies that will help them the most. The Kellogg Foundation is helping us change that through their new grant strategy."

"We're all doing things that can shape policy and redefine how resources are allocated," said Rachael Hoy, senior project manager at ILGARD. "This grant will really help build our organizations' capacity to carry out policy work at the local and state level."

Each organization will identify a specific local issue and develop a plan for informing the community and leaders about the issue. The policy areas may include funding for sewer and water infrastructure, sustainable forestry and agriculture regulations, small-scale food production as an economic strategy and certification and access to capital and markets for entrepreneurs.

Hoy said the specific policies examined will come out of conversations with practitioners and stakeholders.

"We are not approaching this work as experts," she said. "We expect to design ways to have rural people who are impacted by policies define the issues that matter to them."

The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930 to help people help themselves through the practical application of knowledge and resources to improve their quality of life and that of future generations. Its programming activities center around the common vision of a world in which each person has a sense of worth, accepts responsibility for self, family, community and societal well-being; and has the capacity to be productive and to help create nurturing families, responsive institutions and healthy communities.

Patricia Dewees is the associate director of professional development at the Voinovich Center.