Revitalizing Rural Communities: Lessons from the Rural Community College Initiative.

MDC, Inc. is a private nonprofit whose mission is to expand opportunities, reduce poverty, and build inclusive communities in the South. The Rural Community College Initiative (RCCI) is a national project that supports community colleges in distressed rural areas in moving their people and communities toward prosperity. MDC and the Ford Foundation both worked to help RCCI move toward attainment of its goals. Nine demonstration community and tribal colleges joined the RCCI project in 1994, and 15 additional colleges joined RCCI in 1997. Each received implementation grants of $75,000 for the first 2 years, and smaller grants for 2 additional years. The colleges were able to leverage substantial support from foundations as well as state and federal government. RCCI community teams worked on small business development, workforce training, improving access to education, forging connections between the college and K-12 schools, developing distance education, improving developmental studies and academic support, and reaching out to draw more disadvantaged and minority students to the college. RCCI focused on developing solutions from within, as well as keeping development strategies local. The document includes an examination of barriers to implementation of RCCI, and a summary of how to move from vision to action. (Contains 10 references.) (NB)