Our Focus
We focus our work in and across four areas that are fundamental to thriving rural communities – Arts & Culture, Environmental Stewardship, Social Services and Education. We understand the interconnections of these focus areas and value opportunities that work at their intersections.
Arts & Culture
Arts and culture bring people together, expand hearts and minds and build vibrant communities. They cultivate, enhance and sustain a sense of community by helping people understand and respect who they are, who their neighbors are and the unique place they call home. Arts and culture also support the creative economy, providing important economic impact in rural communities.
We look for opportunities that harness the power and potential of arts and culture to build better rural citizens, communities and economies. We want to hear and amplify the voices of our rural communities, which we know can often be best heard and shared through art.
Social Services
Rural Oregonians know that we depend on one another and how we take care of each other matters deeply. We understand that people cannot reach their full potential, contribute their best or be creative when they are in pain, hungry or don’t have a safe, stable home.
We fund efforts that support rural Oregonians in meeting their basic needs so that they are better positioned to pursue their passions, creativity and life dreams.
Environmental Stewardship
The future of rural Oregon’s people and places are tightly intertwined. We depend on our environment to provide our water and food, nurture our spirits and offer us recreation. Our wise, steady and innovative stewardship, always paramount, holds increasing importance for our quality of life as the climate changes.
From watershed and ocean health to sustainable agriculture, fisheries and food systems to accessible outdoor experiences, we invest in opportunities that build collective responsibility for and/or improve the health of our life-sustaining environment.
Education
Education opens doors, changes lives and strengthens our rural communities.
We support innovative educational programming, including programs for our children who are not best served in traditional educational settings and in career-technical areas that build skills of the builders, mechanics, craftspeople, plumbers and others we depend on to keep our rural communities working. We also support strategies that create equitable rural access to higher education, as well as youth literacy, libraries, and civic education.
Where We Work
We support rural Oregon communities, including tribal communities. All proposals, regardless of an applicant’s location, must have a clear and compelling benefit to rural Oregon.
