In rural America, community philanthropy thrives

Enthusiasm for rural giving springs in part from concern for the future of small towns.

By Richard Mertens | Contributor to The Christian Science Monitor

from the May 24, 2007 edition

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Rockville, Ind. - One woman left $500,000 to keep graveyards tidy. Another left more than $250,000 to send fourth-graders on field trips. Then there was Beatrice Collings, a widow with no children. When she died she left farmland worth $1.5 million for college scholarships.

"[Beatrice] had always wanted a college education, but never had the opportunity to get one herself," says Bradley Bumgardner, executive director of the Parke County Community Foundation.

The beneficiaries of bequests from Ms. Collings and others are the people and institutions of Parke County in Indiana, a place where covered bridges probably outnumber traffic lights and where more than a quarter of children here in Rockville, the county seat, grow up below the poverty level.

Parke County may be rural and poor, but it is no laggard in charitable giving. Thanks to Collings and many other donors, the Parke County Community Foundation is able to spend more than $500,000 a year on cemetery maintenance, scholarships for 100 students, field trips, and more: food pantry meals, handicapped entrances for churches, and this year, antique-looking streetlights along the main highway through Rockville.

Parke County is among a growing number of small towns and rural counties that are establishing foundations and asking local people to give to them.

"Community philanthropy is growing by leaps and bounds in rural areas," says Janet Topolsky, director of the Aspen Institute's Community Strategies Group, which promotes rural philanthropy in the United States and abroad. A 2004 survey found that rural foundations had more than doubled over the six previous years, she says. "A lot of it has come from the energy of local activists seeing other communities and saying, 'We can do it, too.' "

Enthusiasm for rural giving springs in part from concern for the future of places like Parke County. As manufacturers decamp and the number of farmers dwindles, many communities are searching for ways to survive and prosper. Persuading residents to give back to their communities, especially when they draw up their wills, is a leading strategy.

"We're in an era when federal and state money for rural development has really declined," says Don Macke, codirector of the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship in Lincoln, Neb. "That means if communities are going to develop, they need to find money locally."

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