Building Trust, Leadership, and Power for Action in Rural Communities

Ayres J¹*

1. Department of Ag. Economics, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA

Rural communities in the rural Midwest of the United States are experiencing rapid social and economic changes. Leadership in rural communities is fragmented and dependent upon part-time staff and volunteers who are over-committed with routine tasks. Few opportunities exist for individuals, groups, organizations, and government agencies to come together to discuss the changes and explore possibilities for their future.

This paper presents what has been learned through community visioning programs in nearly 50 rural counties in Indiana. This engagement program is offered through Purdue University. It brings together the diverse populations in the county to build stronger and more effective community relationships, understand community changes, develop a vision for the future, identify and build consensus on critical community issues that must be addressed if the vision is to be realized, and initiate collaborative action on the high priority issues. Populations who are not normally at the community decision-making table are brought into the process, trust is built, and significant projects and policies are adopted. New community leadership is developed, existing resources of the community are discovered, and collaborative processes are learned.

The paper seeks to explore, through case studies and a review of the literature, specific “hidden” concepts of successful community engagement including trust between individuals and organizations, power and power dynamics, and shared community leadership for the common good.

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