Rural Democracy Initiative Network
Investing in local leaders and organizations to transform the lives of people in rural communities and small cities
Invest in a Winning Rural Network
RDI invests in a network that can transform the lives of rural people. With more than 168 groups and leaders, together we engage hundreds of thousands of people in rural areas, small towns, and small cities. Our common goal is to change major local, statewide, and national policy and political outcomes so we all have the tools and opportunities to build a good life.
Featured Initiative
Rural Youth Voter Fund
Expanding civic engagement and power-building strategies to mobilize young voters under 35.
Grantee Spotlights
Rural Democracy gives our grantees the tools and resources they need to transform their communities.
Our Grantees
Winning Critical Funding for Rural Schools
After federal cuts stalled needed school repairs, rural Michigan organizers built a local strategy that won 20.5M in long-overdue repairs.
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Rural Youth Building Power
In 2020, three friends founded Este Poder, a youth Latine-led organization building power for their rural East Texas communities of color.
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Cultural Ties Vital to Native Civic Engagement
2024 marked 100 years since Native Americans were legally granted U.S. citizenship, and today they are organizing to overcome the deliberate barriers that discourage their full participation in U.S. democracy.
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We met the Rural Democracy Initiative when we were first starting in 2020. Their early support allowed us to hire our first full-time staff, putting us on the sustainable path to becoming Arizona’s anchor rural power-building organization. Connecting through RDI with rural innovators in other states in those early days also gave us inspiration and much needed community.
Engaging Rural Voters
We create momentum that improves the lives of rural people when we support programs that educate and mobilize rural working families. Years of RDI investment have created a growing network of trained organizers, trusted messengers, and local leaders with the tools and resources to lead transformational conversations with rural people. In 2024, grantees across our network engaged in 23.5 million conversations with their local community members.
We support diverse groups across the country with a deep investment in Alaska, Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Montana, North Carolina, Mississippi, Kansas, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Wisconsin.
Impacting Elections
Our grantees have had tremendous success registering and turning out voters, as well as recruiting and developing grassroots candidates. Organizations in the RDI network are key to increasing participation and winning state and local races, including Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Supreme Court, legislatures, and local municipal races. We’ve seen the formula for success: year-round organizing over multiple years with focus and scale.
We Are Winning
Local engagement changes outcomes in local, statewide, and national elections. From electing candidates who represent rural people and prioritize our wellbeing, to ensuring legislation protects vulnerable community members and opens up opportunities, rural and small-town voters play a critical role in shaping results. RDI-supported groups in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Arizona have contributed substantially to wins in those states. Other recent electoral highlights include:
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- Our grantees’ organizing leads to decisive increases in voter participation in nearly all counties our grantees work in.
- Of the 66 candidates trained and recruited by 603 Forward in New Hampshire, 41 won their races in November 2025.
- In Virginia, voters elected a new governor while also flipping 13 House of Delegates seats, including five rural and small town districts where our grantees made a big impact.
- Loud Light defended voting rights and helped overturn a Kansas law that threatened felony convictions for registering voters.
- RDI grantees helped two candidates win election to the Georgia Public Service Commission, substantially changing the makeup of the board for the first time since 2000.
- Montana groups prevented an expensive utility rate hike that would’ve burdened working families.
Rural Groups Build Power by Solving Problems
As some rural voters become discouraged about politics, more groups in our network are building power by first addressing practical problems in their community. For example, Neighboring Movement in Kansas starts by leveraging community participation in projects like a new child care center, and Latino cultural festival, then transitioning to relational voter outreach. Food AND Medicine in Maine organizes rural working people, starting with food donation and distribution. And West Virginia Can’t Wait’s Hometown Heroes program builds local leaders who provide critical senior services, support for people with felony records, and clothing pantries in local schools. Starting with tangible successes, these community leaders are more effective in tackling policy change and electoral participation.
Building Capacity
Our capacity-building programs help groups to become more effective and sustainable. We provide our grantees access to enhanced voter data and outreach tools, opportunities for learning and collaboration, and ongoing lessons and updates from the field. We also offer an intensive communications training and coaching pilot, new fundraising support, and urgent safety and security resources for organizations and individuals.
Tools & Resources
Rural Democracy provides tools and original research to support our Network
Rural Battleground Polls
The polls explore rural attitudes and points toward ways to engage rural communities.
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All the People, All the Places
A valuable landscape analysis for funders and other partners focused on the challenges and opportunities facing our small cities and rural areas.
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Connections
Communications
The RDI network drives effective communications by establishing local trusted messengers, reaching people through local press, and showing the connection between national talking points and local impacts.
Learn morePolicy
We work to advance policies that improve the lives of rural people and ensure democracy works for us all. The Rural Democracy network has fueled a historic surge of rural progress, profoundly affecting numerous recent policy successes.
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