In 2020, nearly 400 U.S. communities experience persistent poverty, which means than 20 percent of the population has lived in poverty for over 30 years. A group of community development financial institutions, community development corporations and financial intermediaries, including Rural Community Assistance Corporation, are bringing their respective experience and expertise together to fight it.

Beginning in 2015 Partners for Rural Transformation (PRT), which is led by a steering committee composed of RCAC (Central Valley), Fahe (Appalachia), HOPE Enterprises (Delta), Community Development Corporation of Brownsville (Texas colonias), Oweesta (Indian Country), and Communities Unlimited (South), began meeting. The group received funding to develop a coalition from NeighborWorks America and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

“PRT member organizations address the issues affecting their respective populations in different ways, and as a group, PRT does not overlook those differences. However, member organizations primarily focus on their similarities in order to build trust with each other,” writes Stanley Keasling, senior adviser to the chief executive officer of Rural Community Assistance Corporation, and Jim King, FAHE president and chief executive officer, in a Shelterforce article.

Read more about PRT’s work here: https://shelterforce.org/2020/01/17/how-a-dozen-organizations-are-fighting-persistent-poverty-together/