Donors Ourselves

The Center for Rural Strategies, working in consultation with the Kenya Community Development Foundation and the East Tennessee Foundation, launched the Community Philanthropy Initiative in 2004 with support from the Ford Foundation.

Through the creation of innovative materials and wide-reaching communications, the initiative’s purpose is to advance international understanding of how local resources can be aggregated and redeployed, even in the poorest regions, to create economic opportunity and sustainable community improvement.

Since the beginning of the initiative, the following has been completed and is available to the public:

* A half-hour video documentary, “Donors Ourselves,” on the operations and effectiveness of the East Tennessee Foundation and the Kenya Community Development Foundation in working with rural communities to create philanthropic resources to sustain their development. Recently completed is the 10 minute version for use by communities and others in the field for presentations and information about rural development philanthropy.

Shot with production teams from the United States and Kenya, the documentary uses narrative accounts to tell the stories of the two foundations’ direct involvement with their respective communities. The video includes first-hand stories from community leaders who helped establish the foundations and from the community agencies that have benefited from the foundations’ grant making and capacity building.

* Building on the experiences of these communities and those of people from around the world, a print publication also titled “Donors Ourselves” was released in February 2007. It contains essays about the experiences of East Tennessee Foundation and Kenya Community Development Foundation leaders and the development of these two very different yet similar institutions; voices from the global perspective on the principles of effective community/rural development philanthropy and a partial list of resource institutions for those interested in information about this work.

* Other project materials will be web-based media/tools and presentation materials for seminars and conferences, and community use. The 10 minute version of “Donors Ourselves” is available online now and essays from the book will be posted soon.

In October 2007, Rural Strategies convened a group of practitioners and advocates at the Wye River Conference Center to investigate the ways in which rural development philanthropy can become a sustainable and growing force for positive change in rural communities worldwide. Links to the participants’ websites are included and a report of the activities will be available in early 2008.The documentary and other materials will be distributed through networks and organizations that are in position to promote community foundations and rural development philanthropy internationally as well as directly from www.donorsourselves.org. Contact Katharine Pearson Criss at Rural Strategies: katharine@ruralstrategies.org. for more information and to hear about work as it is completed. Also, you may find information about rural communities and the work of Rural Strategies at www.ruralstrategies.org and www.dailyyonder.com.