1990-1993: The Vision Takes Shape
The vision for SRDI -- as a force that could reverse the persistent poverty of the rural South -- was first shaped by Funders Who Fund in the South, an affinity group of the National Network of Grantmakers (NNG). Discussions began in 1990, focusing on the region's lack of philanthropic resources and the resulting dearth of potent community based organizations that could take capital and help shape just and prosperous rural communities.

Shaped by 18 months of discussion, 28 organizations gathered for a 3 day meeting in October 1992 at the Aberdeen Woods Conference Center near Atlanta. Some were funders, others regional economic development organizations and land based centers. Characterizing the meeting as "historic", the funder/organizers handed leadership over to a coordinating committee of 12, primarily representing community based development organizations. The concluding statements read:

"Historically, each organization in the Initiative has a record of significant accomplishment which it has achieved in relative geographic isolation and with limited resources. Each has only begun to scratch the surface of need in rural poor communities…Consequently the Initiative has begun to explore whether through collaboration all three kinds of organizations (lending, granting and land based centers)might be able to have an even more pronounced impact on rural poverty issues and command a larger influx of both public and private capital with which to develop new ventures and strategies."

"The sponsors foresee a decade long project of collaboration leveraging as much as $100 million in rural development capital. The Initiative will also call heightened attention to the critical needs of rural America by placing rural poverty issues on a par with prevailing philanthropic concern for reducing poverty in inner cities…The Initiative is similarly concerned with the lack of critically needed philanthropic capital for addressing rural poverty issues in the South, a 12 state area which can claim only 11.2% of the nation's philanthropic assets."

Critical organizational meetings for the new collaborative followed in February 1993 at the Arkansas Land & Farm Development Corporation, in June at the Highlander Center in Tennessee and in October at the Franklinton Center in North Carolina. The year was spent defining the collaborative's mission, strategies, membership and fundraising goals.

SRDI's 1993 mission statement: The Southern Rural Development Initiative exists to leverage capital and strengthen the capacity of non profit organizations to promote local ownership and/or community based sustainable social and economic development in the rural south.

SRDI's earliest funders included the Bert and Mary Meyer Foundation, the Jessie Smith Noyes Foundation, Rockefeller Family Funds and the Needmor and Sapelo Foundations..

SRDI was incorporated in February 1994 as a Georgia non-profit corporation. Until its tax exempt status was granted in November 1995, SRDI received private grants through the Tides Foundation. Debby Warren, SRDI's first staff and Executive Director began in December 1994.

1993 - 1995: Clinton's Presidency: A New Era for Rural Development?

Clinton was elected one month after the Aberdeen meeting—a President from a rural place in the South. SRDI's leadership quickly responded to this opportunity, with the paper, Rural Development Reconsidered: A Perspective From the South directed to Clinton's transition team, Executive Branch designees and Southern members of Congress. The Public Welfare Foundation opened its Washington office to SRDI's leadership during the Clinton transition months

In late 1994, the Clinton Administration announced the first round of Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Community (EZ/EC) designations. Within a year, SRDI got a $500,000 grant from the US Department of Agriculture to help those 9 Enterprise Communities linked with SRDI members with a range of sustainable strategies. Building a local philanthropic base, managing loan funds, developing ventures from solid and agricultural waste; optimizing the leverage opportunities that EC communities have; and using telecommunications to move the EC agendas forward were the focii of this two year project.

1994: Organizational Growing Pains

Tensions surfaced during the collaborative's second year. A motion to expand SRDI's three sectors to include a "grassroots organizing" sector was defeated. The collaborative needs to firmly focus on organizations specifically involved with attracting and managing capital, SRDI's leadership concluded.

The Land Based Sector expressed its disappointment that the Regional Economic Development Sector was not going to use the capacity and reputation of its members to build a regional pool of capital for underserved rural areas. These tensions - over the inclusion of organizing groups and the focus on raising large regional pools of capital - continue to this day.

The three sectors carefully articulated their agendas in 1994. For the Land Based Sector, one primary goal was to attract substantial resources to support the implementation of a range of collaborative programs in the areas of core support, historical/cultural preservation and celebration, and youth. The Economic Development Sector's goals including developing a regional CED Studies Program, modeled after North Carolina's.

1995-1997: Partnering with Key Regional Institutions

Partnering with the 1890s. In June 1995, SRDI and six of the 1890s black land grant institutions in the South jointly hosted a conference, Building Sustainable Rural Communities: The 1890s and Community Partnerships. Finding common ground in the areas of research, product development, small business support, youth and legislative advocacy was the intent of the gathering. A $50,000 grant from USDA enabled SRDI and the six historically black universities to better understand their common constituencies and mission and develop a plan of action.

Tangible results of this partnering include:

• The Boggs Rural Life Center and Ft. Valley State University, both based in rural Georgia have collectively brought significant telecommunications resources to the six county area served by Boggs and demonstrated that a multi-county garbage collection and recycling effort can reduce waste and create jobs and income in rural communities.
• Alabama A&M and Tuskegee Universities are researching the demand for financial services in rural Alabama in support of the advocacy efforts of the Alabama New South Coalition and the Federation of Southern Cooperatives.

Musgrove: A New Vision for Southern Philanthropy. In early 1997, SRDI took the lead in organizing a special conference on the future of southern philanthropy at the Musgrove Plantation on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Hosted by the Sapelo Foundation and co-sponsored by the Southeast Council of Foundations, the meeting drew 40 staff and trustees from Southern private and community foundations, as well as staff from the Ford and Mott foundations.

The primary accomplishment of the weekend was the development of a set of values to guide philanthropy's growth in the South.

The conference moved SRDI forward by:
• Highlighting the need for philanthropy to extend itself into rural areas of the region;
• Establishing an ongoing collaborative relationship between SRDI and the Southeastern Council;
• Bringing SRDI to the attention of the region's philanthropic leadership;
• Increasing the stature of SRDI members as a legitimate and important sector of southern philanthropy; and
• Opening opportunities for the development of programs that will significantly impact rural philanthropy on a regional basis.

1996 - 1999: Building the Infrastructure

During this period we intensively focused on building an infrastructure of key development and philanthropic organizations through the region.

Producing Peer Trainers. In 1995 SRDI launched the first of its unique board training institutes, producing over three years a cadre of peer trainers that could help build strong community-based boards across the rural South. With a series of grants from the Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation, SRDI is demonstrating that peer trainers work, that board development is a critical need in the region and that a collaborative like SRDI can readily lead this effort.

Positioning the Community Based Philanthropies. In 1998 SRDI's philanthropic members took the unusual step of collective self-examination. Starting with market research that asked donors about their attitudes to the region's community-based philanthropies, the members scrutinized their language, skills and structure. Trustees and staff gathered at critical meeting in February 1999 to answer the question: are we positioned and able to substantially grow?

SRDI's members are leading the field of community-based philanthropy in asking these hard questions, in doing the necessary research and in developing peer training programs to build the requisite skills of staff and trustees.

Growing CDCs across the Region. In June 1998 SRDI kicked off its project, Growing CDCs in the Rural South. In the first year, SRDI regranted Ford Foundation funds to emerging state CDC associations in Louisiana, South Carolina and Arkansas, spawned a CED Studies program in each of those states, helped build CRA advocacy skills, and enabled Southern CDC leaders to participate in national forums.

Getting the Banks to the Table. In the summer of 1998, SRDI began its initiative to build CRA advocacy skills at the statewide level in the South, first focusing on Alabama, Arkansas and South Carolina. A major victory came one year later with a $3.5 billion commitment from AmSouth (serving 9 southern states) for affordable housing, nonprofit capacity and small business development.

1999-2004: SRDI Accomplishments

Examples of our accomplishments over the past five years include:

• Spearheaded the Southern Philanthropy Consortium. In 1999, SRDI produced maps detailing the sharply inequitable distribution of philanthropic assets and grants between rural and urban counties in the South. The result: collaboration with the Southeast Council of Foundations and the Foundation for the Mid South, focused on generating philanthropic assets for and in the rural South. This initiative has sharply raised the visibility of “rural philanthropy” including a lead article in The Chronicle of Philanthropy, regular workshops at the SECF annual conference, a prominent grant from the national New Ventures in Philanthropy and new statewide funders forums.

• Launched the Philanthropy Index. SRDI has developed and helped launch a potentially powerful new tool for organizing rural communities to inclusively create and distribute permanent philanthropic assets. Currently being tested by diverse leadership groups in twenty-three communities across the South, this tool speaks to the SRDI core belief that everyone can be a philanthropist and philanthropy can benefit everyone.

• Catalyzed new statewide CED institutions. SRDI has catalyzed and supported new statewide intermediaries in Georgia (the Fund for Rural Georgia) and in Alabama (the Hope Unity Fund). Both states lack the CED infrastructure that can play critical funding and capacity building roles for local organizations.

• Created the Philanthropy Education Program (PEP). SRDI designed PEP four years ago to help the region’s community-based funds and federations develop new methods of ‘donor engagement’ that both acknowledge and build upon the race and class dynamics underlying philanthropy. Through this lens, the funds are then viewed as ‘marketplaces’ of cross-class and cross-race experience and collaboration. This bold and difficult capacity-building adventure is the first of its kind for the community-based philanthropy sector.

• Mobilized CED Resources to Articulate the Alternatives. In December 2002, SRDI began a process to respond to anti-prison organizers’ needs for effective job creation strategies. Entitled Articulating the Alternatives: Prisons, Waste Dumps and Casinos, this initiative was launched at a remarkably diverse convening of 40 experts, organizers and activists in February 2003. SRDI is now working with organizers and community leaders in Tallulah, Louisiana to replace a much criticized juvenile detention facility with a community learning center.

• Supported youth engagement in SRDI member organizations. Rural Youth Building Rural Communities is an SRDI initiative that intentionally connects young people to community-based organizations in the rural South. Begun in 2002 with support from the W K Kellogg Foundation, this project provides financial incentives and technical support to nine community-based organizations to begin engaging young people as leaders now in their organizations and communities.

• Spurred an examination of manufactured housing as an asset-plus strategy. To demonstrate how manufactured housing – which often comprises more than 60% of new housing starts in rural counties in the South – can become a vehicle for asset development, SRDI has identified key public and private partners who can participate in marketing, financing and development initiatives. SRDI is providing research, strategic thinking and technical assistance to make the demonstrations successful and bring them to the attention of key advocates and policymakers.2005 – Present: Strategic Planning, New Staffing, and Focused Vision
With the support of Strategic Interventions, we interviewed 40 stakeholders, studied the environment, analyzed our work and structure and developed our strategic plan.
Here is a summary of our critical strategic shifts:

Critical Shifts