| For Immediate Release 5/18/2004 |
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| RESEARCH RELEASED AT STAND UP FOR RURAL AMERICA DAY FORUM REVEALS HUGE RURAL PHILANTHROPY GAP | |||
| Rural Advocates Challenge Foundation Leaders to Give More and More Equitably | |||
| WASHINGTON-Fifty-five million people, or 20 percent of the U.S. population, live in rural America, but reports released today by the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy (NCRP) and Southern Rural Development Initiative (SRDI) show that rural development receives a tiny $100.5 million out of the more than $30 billion in grants that U.S. foundations distribute each year, and only a small fraction of all foundation assets are located in non-metropolitan counties. "Rural America lags behind the rest of the nation in nearly every measure of success-housing, employment, pay, educational opportunity and access to healthcare," said Dee Davis, president of The Center for Rural Strategies. "Rural Americans are poorer, sicker, and more inclined to suffer from substance abuse and violence. You would think American philanthropy would be looking to see what they could do to improve things. Instead, the data show a policy of benign neglect rather than positive engagement." Rick Cohen, executive director of NCRP and author of Beyond City Limits: Philanthropic Needs in Rural America, said, "There is a persistent pattern of philanthropic undercapitalization in rural America, particularly in terms of foundation and corporate grantmaking for rural community development." Not surprisingly, a handful of big foundations and regulated financial institutions do the best job. Bank of America leads the corporate sector when it comes to philanthropic support for racial and ethnic communities in rural America, and the banking sector appears to be the most philanthropically responsive to rural development grantmaking overall. Rural America also has far fewer foundations than urban areas. "The research we did with L& M Associates shows 7,527 foundations with $15.1 billion in assets located in non-metro counties, but philanthropic wealth is unevenly distributed," said Jason Gray, policy director of SRDI. "About $4 billion, or 27 percent of their assets, reside in just 10 counties, while 617 counties, 33 percent of (more) Tuesday, May 18, 2004 Page 2 of 2 all non-metro counties, have no foundations or foundation assets at all. Our research also indicates that the distribution of assets correlates with race. Counties where minorities are less than 20 percent of the population have per capita assets of $313. In counties where minorities are in the majority, per capita assets are just $96." Bob Warwick, chairman of the Steering Committee for Stand Up for Rural America, a campaign to help rural community developers get more attention and resources, said: "This data is especially troubling because thousands of grassroots nonprofits are working hard to transform distressed rural communities across the country. They make up half of the entire community development industry. We knew they weren't getting their fair share of philanthropy, but we didn't know just how big the gap is." "It is easy to think of rural America as poor and lacking in capacity - but in fact it is growing in philanthropic and community development capacity every day," said Jason Gray. "SRDI is leading a growing network of rural philanthropy developers who are demonstrating that homegrown philanthropy can help community developers and others transform rural places." |
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