A draft version of the RFI was first made available in September 2000 at the Council on Foundations Fall Conference for Community Foundations in Milwaukee. The primary goal of the Learning Network is to increase rural development philanthropy in a strategic, thoughtful way. To remain true to this purpose, CSG s review team is most interested in creating matches among foundations that can learn from each other because they are experiencing or have already faced similar RDP challenges. Thus, clearly detailing your RDP challenge and context, and your commitment to advancing RDP work is the most important thing you can do to apply. Of course, we don t want to discourage you from seeking additional resources or letting us know if you have some.
More resources are good because they can help stretch the reach and impact of all of our efforts.
But they will not be the deciding factor for us in determining who will be invited to participate. As the RFI materials suggest, CSG is interested in the challenges associated with serving sizable rural regions. We do want to be sure that the expertise we have developed through our work with statewide and regional community foundations will be relevant to participants in the Learning Network. Nevertheless, we realize in some cases, a community foundation s RDP challenges may overlap completely with the key topics of the Learning Network, except you serve only one county. We also know that three counties in one state may be smaller than one county in another.