Rural LISC Mission
With residents and partners, Rural LISC supports resilient and inclusive rural communities as great places to live, learn, work, and innovate. Rural LISC strives to identify priorities and opportunities and deliver the most appropriate support to meet local needs. We achieve this through a comprehensive, integrated approach to programmatic areas focused around Creative Capital, Broadband + Digital Inclusion, Workforce + Financial Prosperity, Housing, and Disaster Solutions.
What is Rural LISC?
In 1995, the Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), a community development support organization working in metropolitan areas across the country, launched Rural LISC, a national program created to expand LISC's reach beyond urban areas to include rural communities. Today, Rural LISC partners with more than 140 rural community-based organizations, including five financial intermediaries, helping them identify challenges and opportunities and delivering the most appropriate support to meet local needs. Together we are working to transform communities in more than 2,400 counties across 49 states and Puerto Rico.
Recognizing that rural communities' needs are not focused on agriculture alone, Rural LISC provides a wide range of services, including training, technical assistance, information and financial support, to help rural community developers address the problems rural communities face. We use our Comprehensive Community Development Strategy to support our partners in expanding investment in housing and real estate, increasing family income and wealth, stimulating economic development, improving access to quality education, and growing healthy environments and lifestyles.
Our News & Stories
Christa Vinson on the unique challenge of bringing broadband to rural America
Rural America disproportionately lacks access to high-speed broadband, an essential component of modern life. Though the issue—and many attempts to address it—go back much farther, the 2021 Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act appropriated $42.5 billion for the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment (BEAD) Program to close the gap once and for all. In this episode of Reimagine Rural from the Brookings Institution, Tony Pipa visits Macon County, Alabama, with Christa Vinson, Rural LISC Senior Program Officer for Broadband and Infrastructure and also talks with leaders from Jal, New Mexico, and Humboldt County, California to learn how they have overcome their challenges to bring broadband to their rural communities.
Rural Rockstars Dunn & McChesney Promotions Announced
If you've ever met Julianne Dunn or Keegan McChesney, you immediately recognize their exceptional talent and genuine commitment to support rural communities as great places to live, work, and innovate. With that, it is our pleasure to announce their promotions to Senior Program Officers on the Rural team. Please help the Rural team in congratulating both Julianne and Keegan on their well-deserved promotions!
Keeweenaw Food Co-op
In a Michigan town of just 5,000 people, the Keeweenaw Co-op has over 2,000 member-owners! We're proud to highlight their mission to provide high quality organic and natural groceries and finance their expansion to a new location in downtown Hancock, MI.
Moving the Needle in the Mississippi Delta
Rural LISC and the Walton Family Foundation are working together to move the needle on economic opportunity in the Mississippi Delta. These are the stories of how our partners are working with Delta residents to train for new careers, launch new businesses and pursue their family's dreams of homeownership.