about us
Upper Iowa Beef is the biggest company in Lime Springs, a rural town in northeast Iowa supported in large part by the agricultural industry — from feed crops to raising cattle. An $8.8 million federal grant will allow the homegrown company to expand its meat processing facility, which will create jobs and improve capacity, allowing Upper Iowa Beef to work with even more angus cattle producers. | Photo: Upper Iowa Beef
Resource Rural aims to leverage billions of dollars from federal programs for rural communities across the United States–where outside investment has fallen far behind support for suburban and urban counterparts–to make a tangible difference across climate, infrastructure, economic development, and workforce projects. Beyond the dollars raised for communities, Resource Rural will build rural community capacity, diversify and strengthen rural economies, grow civic power, shift narratives, attract philanthropic investment, and document learning.
We believe our nation is better off when rural people and organizations have the resources to thrive.
We must invest in rural America – the backbone of our country and economy. Rural communities help us innovate, strengthen our domestic supply chain, advance clean energy and food, and sustain a multiracial democracy.
Yet small town and rural leaders are often unable to access philanthropic and federal investment, especially in Black and Indigenous rural communities of color. We founded Resource Rural to change this dynamic and channel resources to local people working to improve community infrastructure, create good jobs, lower costs, and boost quality of life. The unprecedented federal funding available through the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the Inflation Reduction Act, the CHIPS and Science Act, and other legislation presents a generational opportunity to invest in rural America and strengthen our nation.
But it takes significant resources to access this federal funding. Rural organizations and Indigenous communities often report they lack the necessary support to track and navigate available opportunities, develop and finance projects, form partnerships, apply for federal grants, develop workforce and jobs strategies tied to federal funding, sustain community engagement, and manage implementation and compliance requirements.
Resource Rural provides a platform for philanthropic donors to pool resources to invest in the support infrastructure for rural and Native-led organizations. We identify high-capacity rural and Native-serving organizations to support with flexible grants so they can work directly with communities to help them prepare for, apply for, and implement federally funded initiatives. Our national team collaborates with these partners to navigate federal funding, connect with technical experts and partners, and learn from each other.
We also partner with rural and Indigenous communities across the country to document and broadly share compelling stories that showcase how rural people are putting federal funding to work in their areas to change lives. In collaboration with the Rural Climate Partnership, we provide support for rural-led climate solutions focused on specific federal funding opportunities. We enable locally led policy advocacy and organizing efforts to ensure state and local governments maximize the benefits of federal investment for their communities.
Volunteers at Lifeline Church of God prepare meal kits for veterans in Princeton, West Virginia. Watch the congregation’s story of community contribution here. | Photo: J.D. Belcher
Students with the ACT Now Coalition in West Virginia participate in a federally-funded solar workforce development program. See how funds from the American Rescue Plan Act made the program possible here. | Photo: J.D. Belcher
OUR TEAM
Our team spans the country, bringing tools and expertise to our partners.
Ann LichteR
director
Ann is passionate about partnering with rural people and organizations to advance their goals. She has helped rural organizations access federal and philanthropic funding, develop policy proposals, and expand their impact. She has led multiple efforts to design, implement, and scale new programs at the national level. At the Center on Rural Innovation, Ann designed and launched the Rural Innovation Initiative to support rural communities’ efforts to diversify and strengthen their economies with a focus on tech jobs and startups. As an executive at the U.S. Department of Labor, Ann piloted new approaches to promote labor law compliance, including expanding the use of data to drive enforcement strategy and operational decision-making. Ann grew up in Elkins, West Virginia. She is a Truman Scholar and has a Bachelor of Arts in cultural anthropology from Wellesley College and a J.D. from Columbia Law School.
Emma Bouton
Advocacy and Organizing Director
Emma grew up in rural New Hampshire and cares deeply about climate justice and building a world where rural communities have the resources they need to thrive. As a youth climate organizer with the Sunrise Movement, Emma led innovative electoral field programs and campaigns to stop the development of fossil fuel infrastructure. She later served as the Finance Director for a progressive gubernatorial campaign in Rhode Island and most recently worked as Organizing Director for Renew US, supporting dozens of climate, economic, and racial justice organizations across the country. Emma has a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from Brown University. In her free time, Emma loves painting, exploring local trails with her dog, and baking.
Benya KRAUS
DIRECTOR OF NETWORK ADVANCEMENT
Calling home both rural Waseca, Minnesota and Bangkok, Thailand, Benya is committed to strengthening rural-urban interconnectedness through civic leadership development, cultural exchange, and innovative capital reinvestment and financing strategies. Previously, Benya co-founded Lead For America where she launched and grew the American Connection Corps program, an AmeriCorps national service corps that has supported over 400 leaders in returning to and serving their hometowns in rural and small cities. She is a General Partner in her community’s local real estate fund, was previously appointed to the Minnesota Governor’s Workforce Development Board, and most recently led the UChicago Institute of Politics rural programming and national Bridging the Divide inaugural conference. Benya has an Master of Business Administration with concentrations in Finance and Entrepreneurship from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, where she attended as a Neubauer Civic Scholar and was selected as a 2023-24 Obama Foundation Scholar. She graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Tufts University with a Bachelor of Arts in International Relations.
Madeline McGill
Communications Director
Hailing from Colorado, Madeline began her career working on economic justice campaigns with non-profits and labor unions across New England. In 2018, she moved back to the Southwest to help found the Rural Utah Project, bringing their fundraising and communications programs online. After building a storytelling program with the advertising equivalency of $11.1M in the Four Corners, she saw that powerful programs could be built in the most unlikely geographies. In 2021, she founded Western Desk, a rural-based consultancy, to develop storytelling and narrative capacity within small organizations — creating programs that center the contributions of working people. In her free time, you can find Madeline roaming the canyons of the Escalante with her collie, Melon.
Ralph Jean
Communications Manager
Bret Serbin
Communications Manager
Bret is a former local journalist living in Western Montana. Her coverage has included topics like sexism in local government, extensive reporting on housing issues, and the shutdown of an abusive religious cult. Originally from Pittsburgh, PA, Bret attended Swarthmore College where she studied English, Spanish, and Peace and Conflict Studies. Her deep appreciation for the outdoors drives her commitment to serving rural communities.
Katie Wiggins
Grants and Operations Manager
A proud rural Arkansan since 2004, Katie grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area. She brings substantial experience in holistic systems thinking to Resource Rural, along with her love for rural communities.
In Central Arkansas, she is known as a pioneer of the ethically grown local food industry, and she founded Farm Girl Meats. Katie has additionally served as Chief of Operations at Loblolly Creamery and Director of Marketing at the Arkansas Goat Festival.
Previously, Katie worked with The Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation as Grants & Learning Officer. There, she advocated for shifting power across philanthropic spaces, and she reoriented grantmaking and learning practices to center community needs. Katie’s degrees and certifications include Emergent Learning, Agricultural Business, and Collective Impact Framework Design. Katie likes to spend time exploring wild spaces with her family, making ceramics from foraged clay, and training her dog to do silly tricks.
Local Resource Partners
Our national team and funding support amplify the impact of our local resource partners. They are rural organizations and Native-led groups that equip their communities and neighbors with the tools to build shared prosperity and strong local economies. They work with local leaders to cultivate trusting relationships, identify community needs, develop projects, prepare and apply for public funding, and provide ongoing support while projects are implemented. They aim to build lasting organizational and community infrastructure that sustains progress beyond a short-term federal or state grant.
Our partners are rooted in the rural regions they call home, with a deep appreciation for the people, assets, and cultural context that make these places unique and ripe for public and philanthropic investment. They have existing relationships and expertise that can be leveraged to advance economic development efforts. Our partners share our commitment to ensuring resources reach the places that previous investments have overlooked. They are also committed to supporting one another, sharing lessons, and advancing policy solutions that enable equitable rural investment.
Our Core Areas of Work:
Resource Rural’s network works directly with local communities to help them access public and private funding that advance local economic priorities.
Resource Rural supports four interconnected strategies to amplify the work of our partners:
National Hub and Network
Resource Rural’s National Hub is working with partners across the country to enable rural and Indigenous communities to unlock public and private investment.
Resource Rural works locally. To us, that means collaborating with the folks who are already doing the work, so we can accelerate existing efforts and avoid duplication. Our network of local resource partners — community-based organizations, community development financial institutions, regional hubs — knows their communities best and is ready to dive in and drive with project design, partnership development, grant proposals, and implementation. With the support of the National Hub’s experienced and knowledgeable staff, we build lasting partnerships that we can all return to year after year.
Storytelling and Communications Support
In small towns and cities, Native nations, and rural counties, people are working together to use federal funding to make good things happen in their communities. A berry farmer in Minnesota installs a solar array on his barn roof using Rural Energy for America Program funding. A coastal community in Mississippi creates a flooding mitigation plan with funds from the Inflation Reduction Act. A college on the Navajo Nation uses American Rescue Plan Act funds to create a mill to process Diné wool using traditional methods. Across the country, rural people are looking out for each other and towards the future, while federal funding provides them the tools to see projects realized.
These stories don’t often get documented and shared. Resource Rural will address this gap by working directly with local organizations to identify stories and talk with local people to hear in their own voice why they’ve taken on this work and what they’ve achieved in their community. By documenting and sharing these stories, Resource Rural will ensure communities and local people see that their contributions are recognized and valued, and that more people learn about the inspiring ways in which rural and Indigenous people are using federal investments to make the places they live in and love stronger.
In addition to storytelling, as Resource Rural grows, it will provide support to its partners and build their communications capacity.
Advocacy and Organizing
Rural community members understand better than anyone else what their own communities need to thrive. But without advocacy and organizing, their voices are not always heard.
Federal and state programs create opportunities to bring communities’ visions for lower utility bills, good jobs, affordable housing, and much more to life. However, it can be difficult for local organizations to stay on top of funding opportunities and track their implementation. For many federal programs, states will be making decisions about how the funding gets allocated.
Without a concerted engagement from community members, some states and local governments may not participate in funding programs. Or if they do — they may structure programs in a way that makes it hard for rural communities to benefit.
Resource Rural provides organizations and coalitions with the advocacy resources and organizing support they need to ensure that public funding is invested in rural communities, especially those most in need.
High Leverage Climate Opportunities
In collaboration with leadership at the Rural Climate Partnership, Resource Rural climate strategies energize rural-led climate solutions. This partnership stimulates a virtuous cycle in which people learn about and access the tools and opportunities provided by the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, and CHIPS and Science Act to create jobs, diversify local economies, generate energy security, and strengthen resilience.
- Drive clean energy transformation in coal-intensive rural electric cooperatives, including working with co-op boards to encourage them to access resources made available through IRA.
- Advance climate-forward agriculture and conservation by reaching farmers with information about soil-building, cost-saving, and climate-friendly practices that the IRA provides $20 billion in funding to incentivize.
- Tackle barriers to clean energy siting to access billions in IRA and BIL funding to support the build-out of renewable energy projects, the vast majority of which will be in rural areas.
- Unlock the power of the IRA’s direct-to-consumer incentives, rebates, and tax credits to empower rural homeowners and businesses to realize energy and cost savings while reducing GHG emissions.
