Funding Rural | Episode #15 | Season 2: Dreama Gentry “Demographics are not Destiny”
When we talk about pathways to success for young people in rural and Indigenous communities, what does that look like? Dreama Gentry of Partners for Rural Impact shares that it can look many different ways. Dreama grew up in Appalachian Kentucky and has had a long career working with young people. Today, her organization works to empower and uplift young people across several regions of the US.
“The first question around scale is, what are we scaling? Are are we scaling the program, or are we scaling our framework and approach?” –Dreama Gentry
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More about Dreama Gentry, J.D.
A proud Appalachian with no desire to live anywhere else. First in the family to attend and graduate from college. A hope dealer who unabashedly brings the voice of rural children and families into every room.
Dreama Gentry is founder and CEO of Partners for Rural Impact (PRI), a national intermediary that mobilizes rural leaders, strengthens capacity of rural organizations, and activates policy makers and philanthropic partners to ensure the 14 million children and youth living in rural America are on a path to upward mobility. Partners for Rural Impact has eight offices across the country, 350+ employees with an annual budget of $60+ million.
Dreama is the architect of the nation’s first rural Promise Neighborhood, and the designer of a rural-focused Full Service Community School model built upon the essential framework of community schools. Under Gentry’s leadership, PRI has implemented and sustained four rural Promise Neighborhoods in Appalachian Kentucky and is leading more than 130 Full Service Community Schools in rural areas of Kentucky, Texas and Missouri.
A graduate of Berea College and the University of Kentucky College of Law, Dreama serves on the Economic Mobility Alliance Steering Committee and the National Comprehensive Center Advisory Board.
Dreama has deep roots in rural Appalachian Kentucky. Her family arrived in Harlan County 200+ years ago. They left Harlan under interesting circumstances and settled in Crab Orchard 120+ years ago on land that is still in the family. Dreama and her husband, Hasan Davis, have lived in Paint Lick for more than 30 years. They are the extremely proud parents of Malcolm, founder of Affrilachian Arts, and Christopher, who is completing a degree in cybersecurity leadership from Dakota State University in South Dakota.
“What’s the big, bold, community-driven vision that somebody wakes up every morning thinking about? And how do they think about, ‘What’s the data?’ What are we working toward? When do we know we’re successful?” –Dreama Gentry
Discussion Questions
- When Dreama talks about young folks exploring their community and feeling a sense of belonging and possibility, what ideas come to mind? In what ways could your organization invite more young people to feel connected to the place in which they live?
- Dreama explores the desire to scale support. Are there times when your organization’s interest in scaling their support efforts might supersede the needs of the community they serve. What is the ultimate goal with the support?
- Dreama talks about the Strive Together model which is a place-based partnership that has a local leader and cross-sector folks gathering at the table. In this framework, there is ownership, accountability, and collaboration that is rooted in the local context. Are there unexplored opportunities for your organization to work inside that model in more rural communities?
Resources
- About Us – Partners for Rural Impact
- Dreama Gentry | Kennedy Center
- The Top Education Issues Affecting Rural Communities
“…You can’t program your way out of changing a system or a region or a place. But if you take high quality programs and you…blend it with what I call ‘civic infrastructure,’ this system of support from birth to 24, then you actually can wrap around young folks and move the outcome for every kid…” –Dreama Gentry
Transcript: Episode #15 | Season 2: Dreama Gentry “Demographics are not Destiny”
Erin Borla 00:00
You’re listening to Funding Rural. I’m Erin Borla with the Sisters, Oregon based Roundhouse Foundation. When we talk about pathways to success for young people in rural and indigenous communities. What does that look like? Well, it can look a lot of different ways as Dreama Gentry has learned. She’s had a long career working with young people, and recently she founded and serves as the CEO for Partners for Rural Impact. Her organization works to empower and uplift young people across several regions of the US. Dreama grew up in rural Kentucky, and even though her path took her away from her roots for a little while, those roots shaped her at a very deep level.
Dreama Gentry 00:48
And I often say, I have an Appalachian by birth and by choice. It’s where I live, it’s where my home is, and it’s why I do my work. And I think that’s the beauty of rural America, is that those of us who came from rural America and who have the opportunity to come back and live in place and do the work. Now I live about 20 minutes from my family farm, so I’m not on the family land, but it is the place my family has been since the early 1800s and so this is our home.
Erin Borla 01:20
Yeah and you had this pathway to success, right? You, you left, came back, talk a little bit about that, and then I want to get into what you’re doing with Partners for Rural Impact.
Dreama Gentry 01:32
Yeah. So my story is similar to the story of, I think many folks who are in rural America and are working to improve and to provide opportunities for others. Is I grew up in Appalachian Kentucky. I didn’t realize I was growing up in a place of poverty because I was surrounded by family and I was supported, and my parents loved me and they supported me. But it’s interesting, they didn’t have the goal that I would go to college. Their thought was success would be graduating high school and getting a job and starting a family when I decided I wanted to go to college, they were right there for me. They didn’t understand, though, how to navigate that. And so luckily, I had guidance counselors and I had college access programs that are was engaged with in the summers. And so I ended up in college, and I went to Berea College, which we could talk forever about Berea College, but it’s a unique College in Appalachian Kentucky. You had to be poor to attend, and you had to have a lot of academic promise, and you actually attended for free, so there was no tuition. So I graduated from Berea with no debt, and was able to go on to law school and practice law for a couple years, and I realized, wait a minute, I’m doing good work. I was working at a plaintiff’s firm, but I was still seeing the folks I grew up with not have the same pathways and the same supports. So I came back to Berea College and asked them to let me work with them on creating more pathways for to mobility for others, and they brought me on board half time I was at a local high school In Rockcastle County, Kentucky, doing college access work, and it was all about lifting educational aspirations for that community, and how partnerships between post secondary and community and school districts could do that. That was in 1995 and continued that work at Berea College, and actually worked with some great presidents that allowed me to scale the work about two and a half years ago. We took that work and we spun it out into Partners for Rural Impact, because what we realized is the what worked in Appalachia could work around the country, and in this time of polarization, it’s important that rural places around the country bond together to support and create a country where all rural students can be successful. So Partners for Rural Impact has been doing that since 2022 and excited about now leaning in across the country and doing the work.
Erin Borla 04:05
That’s really exciting. And I love that you sort of came back to where you started and saw the need in where you grew up. And how do we, how do we change this? And we hear that so frequently. You know, it takes one passionate leader to be able to make an impact. You use that phrase upward mobility, help me understand what that means?
Dreama Gentry 04:28
Yeah, I’m glad you asked, because I think often when folks say upward mobility or economic mobility, they’re meaning different things. So when I say upward mobility, it really boils down to a choice filled life. And the Urban Institute has a great complex definition of upward mobility that includes economic mobility, safe neighborhoods, housing, but they also include this idea of an opportunity filled life. And to me, a choice filled life is when you have the resources, the supports, and what’s necessary for you to actually achieve what you seek to do. So when I say upward mobility, and that’s a goal that all young folks should have, that they have the opportunity to make real choices and follow through on real choices
Erin Borla 05:17
And seeing possibility, right? I think we talk about that in in rural and remote, and I’m sure that other places as well, of like not being able to see what’s outside of the your fish bowl. And so recognizing that there’s an opportunity to see beyond is such an interesting and important component. And for young people, when we’re really struggling at those you know, 14, 18 years old, even even older, trying to figure out, where do I fit and how so finding somebody that can lift that piece, I think, is really exciting.
Dreama Gentry 05:52
And I think it’s it’s interesting because young people today have the internet to give them a view of places outside the rural place, but it’s not a real view, right? They haven’t been there. They haven’t experienced it. They haven’t seen that real opportunity. I also think that even in small towns, rural communities, young folks haven’t really seen all the opportunities that actually could exist for them there, because they might be raised. When I was raised, one of the things my mama would always tell me is like, Oh, that’s not for you, right? That’s for the other kids. And I do think that, how do we support young folks in exploring their own communities and realizing all of it is for them, but also, like you said, exploring what it would look like in other places too.
Erin Borla 06:39
So tell me a little Partners for Rural Impact is just a few years old, but you were inspired by connecting. Was it the Harlem Children’s Zone? That’s really what kind of lit your fire for this place based work, I mean, in addition to your connection to place. But tell me about that first interaction.
Dreama Gentry 06:57
Yeah, and I will say that when I started the work in 1995 it was around College Access and Success, and it was, how do you do really great programs to serve kids? And so from 95 up until 2010 we were scaling up programs that worked throughout Appalachia. We were doing really great programs, primarily with middle school, high school students. But when I met Jeff Canada in 2010 it was around the Promised Neighborhood Program, which was a federal version of his Harlem Children’s Zone program. We were the first rural place to be funded by the federal government to have a Promise Neighborhood. And the big aha for me there was it’s actually possible to start working from birth to 24 and to actually work to create a system of support in a community where every young person has the same supports that I want my children to have. They have chances for great early learning. They enter kindergarten ready to learn. They’re at grade level. They have after school programs, they have career exploration, they have tutors, and then they’re actually supported moving from secondary into post secondary. And so Jeff Canada’s Harlem Children’s Zone model really opened my eyes to you can’t program your way out of changing a system or a region or a place. But if you take high quality programs and you take it with and blend it with this, what I call civic infrastructure, this system of support from birth to 24 then you actually can wrap around young folks and move the outcome for every kid, not just the kids enrolled in a program, and that was like a really eye opening piece for us. And so in 2010 we started working in three communities and really thinking about, what does it look like in a tiny, rural place to support families from prenatal all the way up to when their children enter post secondary and are successful, and that’s really the big aha for the work and Jeff Canada’s model. And, you know, it worked in Harlem, New York, but it works in Owsley County, Kentucky, too. And that’s pretty cool. It looks totally different, but it’s the same foundation, the same framework.
Erin Borla 09:17
And that’s, I think, where you know it the podcast is really focused on philanthropic work. But how do we philanthropy always talks about scale, right? How do we scale? How do we scale? Well, it works in Harlem, but it’s working in Kentucky, in a small rural county in Kentucky. What does that look like for scale?
Dreama Gentry 09:34
So I think the first question around scale is, what are we scaling? Are we scaling the program, or are we scaling our framework and an approach? And I think it’s a framework and an approach that can be scaled and adapted locally as easily as a program. When I think about how we took the framework of Harlem Children’s Zone. Um, we brought it into Kentucky, but we placed it within public schools. So it changed the cost of it. It changed the focus piece. In Harlem, it’s actually its own Harlem Children’s Zone, and it has actually the the physical space, and kids go there because they can right after school. But in Kentucky, it’s actually part of the public school. It stays open and provides out of school time. So I do think that as philanthropic partners are thinking of scale, they need to think about, what are we really trying to scale? And then also, I would even say, question whether it’s really scale we should be working toward.
Erin Borla 10:40
We get lost in this idea, right? And as a funder, where we’re sort of not at the table all the time, right? We’re funding partners that are doing the work. They’re the on the ground, direct service organizations. And we can get lost in the idea of, do we want to make strategic impact, or do we want to move a metric? Do we want to impact, you know, 12 people? Or do we want to change a system?
Dreama Gentry 11:09
Yeah. And I do think that a part of what is seductive about scale is also that you want to some folks want to reach 1000s of young people, and then they think about, okay, how can we reach 1000s of young folks in a rural place? Because there’s not 1000s of young folks. So the other push on scale that we’re trying to get folks to think about is, if you’re really adamant about moving third grade reading outcomes and you want to do it at scale, we actually have systems, and we’re creating systems through these partnerships across the country to actually connect in with partnerships that are doing that work in multiple places. So you might be able to reach your 12,000 3rd graders, but they might be in 10 different states, and sometimes folks don’t think of that as scale either. So I do think like Jeff Canada, he scaled his work in Harlem, and he added blocks and he added blocks, and now they’ve reached the size that they’ve stayed. But what he also has done by sharing the model with us, with folks across the country, in rural and urban places, is now he’s actually scaled it nationally in this loosely held model. So I just think that what do we mean when we talk about scale? Is it replication? Is it saturation? One powerful piece in a rural community is while Jeff in Harlem could reach 1000s of students with his Harlem Children’s Zone, that might still only be a small percentage of all kids in Harlem, but in Owsley County, Kentucky, I have 120 kids per grade level, and I’m reaching 95% of all kids, still a small number. But actually, we’re actually moving that population level number in that small, rural place, easier than he is in Harlem. And so it’s just, how do we factor all of those things in? And think about what it is we were wanting to see, what is the result we’re wanting to see? I think it is impact. Like you said.
Erin Borla 13:17
Yeah, yeah. And that saturation model is a really fascinating one, and I don’t think we use it enough, I really don’t. I think that’s a really interesting component. So you and I got connected through Strive Together, and I love the work that they do. They’re a national organization, and they use this phrase called Collective Impact. How does Collective Impact work with partners for rural impact, like, help us understand all those components, because sometimes we get lost in the phrasing and different like, like other phrases we mean different things to different people.
Dreama Gentry 13:52
Yeah, and it’s been a really great journey with Strive Together. And I will say that in 2016 when it seemed like folks were suddenly discovering rural and I was getting all these phone calls. I don’t know about you, but people were calling and saying, Hey, tell me about rural America and how we can do work in rural America. One of the calls was actually from Jennifer Blatz, who’s the chief, the CEO at StriveTogether. But what Jennifer did is she’s like, I really want to learn about what you’re doing in rural America, and how we can actually partner with you to make sure that Strive Together is engaging and responsive to rural places. And so that really was the beginning of a strong partnership between partners for rural impact and Strive Together, because she recognized that they have a network. The network was not including many rural places, and that the network would be richer if it included rural places. So we joined ourselves with our Appalachian work, and then we’ve we, over the last several years, we’ve actually been helping them bring new rural places into their network. So when we think about the Strive Together, Collective Impact model. The word that I’m using nowadays to talk about the work is place based partnerships. And a place based partnership is where you have at the local level. And the local level could be at the town level, the county level, or even a multi county level in rural but you have somebody waking up every day thinking about what collective impact looks like in that community, and how, if you align everybody around the table, you think of the resources and you have all the sectors around the table, how do you actually move outcomes for kids from birth to 24 what’s the big, bold, community driven vision that somebody wakes up every morning thinking about, and how do they think about, what’s the data? What’s our what are we working toward? When do we know we’re successful? And so to me, that’s the Strive Together model. It is having that place based partnership that has a leader, the cross sector folks sit there at the table. They think about it, and they’re thinking about, let’s think about our third graders. How do we make sure they’re reading at grade level? What’s the barriers? Oh, we have food insecurity. You can’t learn to read if you’re hungry. Well, what about the unhoused population? How do we deal with that? What about safety and security? And there’s tables where that happens, and then there’s strategies coming out of that that the resources are pushed behind. And it’s interesting, because when I dug into the model, after talking with Jennifer back in 2016 I realized this is what happens in rural places, sort of organically and informally, because rural folks sometimes the superintendent also might be a pastor, and maybe their brother is actually the person who is actually working at the hospital, right? So you already have these folks that are already circling around young folks, but by formalizing it and using data and setting specific targets, I think we can actually move the dial on most kids in rural America. So that’s that place based partnership model that we, along with Strive Together purpose built communities, which does that work in urban areas around community and economic development, and the William Julius Wilson Institute, which is part of Harlem Children’s Zone, the four organizations have made a commitment to each other that together, if we’re all focusing on this, this cradle to career approach in our own communities, we actually can move the dial on upward mobility across the nation and ensure that in this country, we really are a place where demographics are not destiny, that we really do have choice.
Erin Borla 17:41
Yeah, it’s like social determinants of health, what you’re talking exactly for folks that are in health care, and what happens in philanthropy, and it happens in other institutions as well. But we get really siloed into the like, Oh, I’m only focused on this one thing, and this is it. So to be able to have my favorite phrase that I heard a while ago was, well, I don’t have the right people at the table. It’s because you need to build a bigger table. And I think that’s a really important piece. And you’re right. I think rural does it really well, where they know who’s who’s making those moves and who needs to be at the table, who’s missing from the table. But the next step is that capacity to say we know what our priorities are in order to help move this issue forward or support students in this way. Now, what you know now, how do we build that capacity? And I know you recently were connected with the Chronicle of Philanthropy, and we’ll get into that here in a little bit, but I wanted to touch on there was a quote in there that struck me from one of your staffers, Amon Couch, and referencing a county that he’s working with where 70% of the students receive public assistance, and part of the issues are around transportation, access, health care. And that’s something that his quote exactly, is you can’t learn English or math or anything else when your teeth are throbbing. And it struck me, because that’s the same thing our organization has said for years around we were started as an arts and culture funder, and we have said, said frequently, it’s hard to be creative when your teeth hurt and you don’t have access to healthy food or clean water. All those things impact what we’re trying to do to be successful. So I just, I wanted to highlight that because, like, oh my gosh, these are all these intersections come together. But talk a little bit about, so maybe a success story that you’ve seen around some sort of building that table.
Dreama Gentry 19:39
Yeah, and I think I’ll go to Leslie County, Kentucky, which is the county that Amon was was talking about. We started partnering with leadership and and community members in Leslie County, Kentucky in around 2011 and we’re still working there. We’re still supporting their leadership table. We’ve also brought in community schools. Other programs into the community and and one of the things we realized in Leslie County is there’s a lack of capacity of people power, and especially if you think about young folks being supported in the schools. The schools are on a shoestring budget. When we started working in 2010 they were in stake takeover, and they were really struggling, but what they had was local leaders who wanted to bring in partners to support that. So one of the things we realized early on is there were residents there in Leslie County that really were looking for their next opportunity, and some of them had some college credits. So we designed, working with the community, a partner core program, an AmeriCorps program, where if you had two years of college and you wanted to serve in the local high school, then we would put you in there. You become a partner corps member. You would tutor, you would be working with the families, and you would be motivating the young folks. And so we placed 20 partner corps members in the high school, and they were all ages of folks. They all had some college and what we realized is it was just magical, because having that additional folks in the school ensured the teachers could really focus on instruction. There was somebody else actually then following up with tutoring and mentoring and connecting with the families. But we also realized that as we pulled that cross sector table together to think about the food security, the health and the others, is that the partner corps members were letting us know what the issues were in the school and what things needed to be addressed. So suddenly we were starting to hear these pieces. So one piece came up was the dental care issue. And so through though, a partnership with somebody at the table, one of the universities that was a couple of hours away came in, and they had dental students that started to come down and do dental care. And we realized at one point they came in and like, 50% of the young folks were needing the dental work, the dental care, so that’s a health piece. And folks were like, wait a minute, that’s health work. Why are you focusing on that? And it’s because it came up from that leadership table the same way that the partner Corps came up that we need additional bodies around the table. One of the cool things they’re doing now is they’re doing the community school model, which I really think works well in rural and they started really focusing on home visiting and early childcare piece, because how do we actually make sure that when kids are coming into first grade, they’re supported and their parents are engaged? And so it’s been really interesting to even watch in one community. If you have that infrastructure in that table, and you have somebody there thinking and listening to all of those voices, it you can then figure out the partners to solve the problems. One of the things we’re most excited about, we’ve started a collaborative called the Rule to Rule Collaborative that has representatives on it, from the Delta, from Appalachia, from California, from New Hampshire, and multiple states. And what they all have in common is, at the local level, they’re all leading these place based partnerships, and they’re all working toward the same results, and together, the voice is greater. There needs to be more of a focus at the federal level of investing in rural places and rural kids and rural families. And part of, I think what I get when I do those visits to DC is, well, what works in rural and so part of what we have to do is we have to say these things work community schools work in rural America. This Collective Impact model works in rural America, home visiting works in rural America. And we all need to be speaking from the same place. I do think there are powers that be that try to get me in Appalachia. I think I have to compete with my friend Karen in the Delta, and that we have to compete over one slice of rural money, and we have to push back from that. So the policy piece and developing this coordinated federal agenda that actually is supporting what works for kids is something we’re really passionate about. And I will say that what works for rural kids works for urban kids too. And so we’re really excited to be working alongside the Strive Together, W, J, W, Purpose Built Communities to actually say, how do we create a nation where all kids are supported, no matter where they live? And then how do we so it’s not rural versus urban either. So I do think the policy piece is a big piece of sharing what works, and then making sure at the federal level that’s being heard. I do think that the same time on the philanthropic side is, you know, the numbers on, you know, there’s not much private philanthropic money coming into rural places, right? I’m sure you had Wynn Rosser come on and Wynn probably talked about the number, I can’t remember the percentage.
Erin Borla 25:03
Seven percent.
Dreama Gentry 25:04
Seven percent, right? How do we change that? And I do think that part of what we’re excited about at Partners rural impact is we do think, because we now have a network of rural places across the country, we actually convene rural folks together on a regular basis. We’re developing these relationships with place based partnerships who have local infrastructure. We can be a pass through entity. And so it’s exciting. We got our first investment from the Black Rock Foundation, and that investment is to actually support the infrastructure for this flow through process, and then to give us some dollars to actually practice with. So if corporate America, or if a philanthropic funder wants to invest in chronic absenteeism in rural America, they can fund us, and we’ll have the mechanism to reach communities across the country. And so I do think it’s making things easier for philanthropy is part of what we can do. So the creating the opportunity for the flow through dollars, convening rural places and sharing what works, and driving toward that shared policy agenda, are three pieces that we’re excited about leaning into in the next couple years, and then I do think an exciting piece for me around the relationship with with philanthropy is that it is solutions focused. It’s not deficit focused. It’s really around a belief that I’m just inspired to see folks hold that, hey, if we actually listen to local communities, they know what needs to happen to move kindergarten readiness or third grade reading or post secondary attainment. If we can listen to them and help provide the infrastructure, then solutions will happen. And I think that’s something that’s that’s interesting about this whole approach is it really is local control, right? It’s local voice and local control, and mix that with evidence and best practice. And I think that’s how you get these solutions, and you get the impact.
Erin Borla 27:16
I’m so pleased to have gotten to know you and get to know what Partners for Rural Impact is doing. It just is, it’s such a gift. So thank you for spending time.
Dreama Gentry 27:26
And I do appreciate you and your leadership, and you’re also continuing to center the places, and that’s the hard part, right? It’s hard to do this work at scale and continue to center kids and families, and so it’s great to be on the journey with you.
Erin Borla 27:52
Over the past few seasons of this podcast, we’ve heard from a few national organizations that are doing work at a rural level, at a regional level, and one thing that keeps coming up is the is the local empowerment. How do we involve local communities? Dreama talks about using that model that was Harlem Children’s Zone in rural Appalachia. How do we take that model and scale it slightly differently so it’s we’re not tied to the exact thing that has to be scaled exactly like the first way that it was started, but it’s modified and modified and led by community, led by the folks on the ground that know what their community needs and how it can be adapted and how things can work in their area, and listening to those folks on the ground through a convening, through a building a bigger table, right? Those are all the opportunities that we can have if we go to community and hear what their real needs are first. I want to make sure to shout out for the Partners for Rural Impact Summit they do every year. It’s coming up here in April. I do hope people take a moment and check it out, especially those funders that are really interested in youth, education, education, outcomes, all those different things, they really do a great job. As always, be sure to check out FundingRural.com for show notes and other information.
Transcribed by A.I.
