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 mobilizes resources to enable rural communities to unlock public and private investment to make a tangible difference across infrastructure, economic development, energy, climate, 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. 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.
It takes significant resources to access public and private funding. Rural organizations and Indigenous communities often report they lack the necessary support to form partnerships, develop projects, secure investment and financing, develop workforce and jobs strategies tied to local investments, sustain community engagement, and manage project 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 American organizations providing support directly to communities to unlock investment at the local level. We identify high-capacity rural and Native-serving organizations to support with flexible grants so they can work directly with communities to help them identify community priorities, develop projects and partnerships, and secure public and private capital to move them forward. Our national team collaborates with these partners to accelerate their progress by connecting them with technical experts and partners, and facilitating learning 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 public funding to work to improve quality of life, lower costs, create jobs, and grow locally-owned businesses. 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 that rural voices are shaping public investment decisions at the federal, state, and local level..
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 she cares deeply about building a world where rural communities have the resources to thrive. As an organizer with the Sunrise Movement, Emma led innovative electoral field programs and engaged young people in efforts to address climate change and create good jobs in the process. She later served as the Finance Director for a gubernatorial campaign in Rhode Island and most recently worked as Organizing Director for Renew US, supporting state coalitions to develop and pass legislation to construct green, affordable housing with high labor standards. Emma has a Bachelor of Science in Environmental Science from Brown University. In her free time, Emma loves knitting, exploring local trails with her dog, and baking.
Ernest Weston, Jr.
Network Advancement Director
Ernest leads strategy and partnerships at Resource Rural, strengthening networks, expanding access to funding, and ensuring local leaders have the resources to drive community-defined solutions. He brings more than a decade of experience in rural and Tribal economic development, capacity building, and federal program implementation. Prior to joining Resource Rural, Ernest served as Director of Capacity Building and Advancement for the Midwest Tribal Energy Resources Association (MTERA), where he supported Tribes in establishing energy departments, diversifying revenue streams, and advancing clean energy projects aligned with sovereignty and long-term community priorities. Previously, Ernest served as a Tribal Economic Development Representative with the U.S. Economic Development Administration, collaborating with Tribal governments across a 10-state region to unlock federal investments, move high-impact projects forward, and strengthen pathways toward sustained economic opportunity. He resides in the Black Hills of South Dakota with his family.
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
Ralph started his strategic communications career as a congressional intern for Congressman David Scott in Jonesboro, Georgia where he grew up. Later, he attended Morehouse College, studying psychology and journalism and eventually earned a Master of Science degree from Columbia University. Ralph Jean is a public affairs and strategic communications expert with experience managing projects for a diverse range of causes. A former journalist and a storyteller at heart, Ralph’s passion is producing stories about communities and the people who make them unique, supporting campaigns for public good and community development. When he’s not chasing leads or writing emails, Ralph likes to enjoy the outdoors hiking, biking, and paddle boarding parks across Georgia.
KATIE WIGGINS
GRANTS and OPERATIONS MANAGER
A Californian by birth and a rural Arkansan by choice, Katie brings substantial experience in holistic systems thinking to Resource Rural. In Central Arkansas, she is known as a leader of the ethically grown local food industry and founder of Farm Girl Meats. From the farm to philanthropy, Katie has a deep passion for orienting systems around comprehensive community needs. Her degrees and certifications include Emergent Learning, Agricultural Business, and Collective Impact Framework Design. Katie is happiest exploring wild spaces with her family, making ceramics from foraged clay, and playing with dogs.
Bret Serbin
Communications Manager
Bret is a former local journalist based in Northwest Montana, where she and her rescue pup live simply in a 200-square foot cabin in the woods. During her five years reporting on local issues across Montana, her coverage included topics like sexism in local government, extensive reporting on housing issues, and the shutdown of an abusive religious cult. Bret attended Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania where she studied English, Spanish, and Peace and Conflict Studies. She loves to spend time outdoors, hiking to hidden hot springs and skiing into decommissioned firetower lookouts across the rural West.
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 funding, and provide ongoing support while projects are implemented. They build lasting organizational and community infrastructure that sustains progress beyond a short-term federal, state, or private 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 advances 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 public investment to strengthen their communities. A berry farmer in Minnesota installs a solar array on his barn roof through the Rural Energy for America Program. Two friends in western Minnesota combine USDA support with local fundraising to open a community-run meat processing facility that now employs seven people and helps nearby farmers reach new markets. An Oneida farmer supplies Tribal elders with healthy, culturally grounded food through the federal Local Food Purchase Assistance Program. Across the country, rural and Indigenous communities are turning public investment into real progress — grounded in connection, innovation, and local business growth.
But too often, these stories go unseen. Resource Rural helps change that by partnering directly with community organizations to lift up rural people in their own voices — why this work matters and what it’s making possible. By documenting and sharing these stories, we ensure rural leaders are recognized, their contributions valued, and the real impact of public investment understood. Through our capacity-building work, we also support local partners in growing their own communications power — reaching new audiences, shaping narratives, and advocating for the future they know is within reach.
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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.
STATE COALITIONS
When economic development, community, and business organizations join together to support rural priorities, we can strengthen rural communities for generations to come.
Resource Rural supports state coalitions that are working together to foster economic and policy environments that advance rural prosperity. These coalitions take many forms. Some are working together to implement workforce development and job creation strategies. Others are directing state and federal funding towards climate and energy solutions or advocating for public funding and programs that will strengthen rural economic conditions. We work hand-in-hand with these coalitions to document and share their learnings with the broader field.
