National Rural Funders Collaborative
May 6-7, 2003 Meeting Report and Follow-Up Recommendations
Henry A. Wallace Center for Agricultural & Environmental Policy at Winrock International

I. Background and Context

In the letter to their Steering Committee, NRFC states that the May 6-7, 2003 meeting in Washington D.C. was scheduled to "establish strategy-based priorities and begin to form broader alliances with agency representatives key to those priorities…discussions with partner agencies during that event will serve to identify other issues and priorities that learning network partners and agency officials may want to begin to address collaboratively as well."

The Wallace Center set four objectives for the meeting based on NRFC's desired outcomes:

1. Obtaining input from grantees, funders, and agency representatives into NRFC's national rural policy agenda framework.
2. Providing the venue for groups to develop plans for next steps on their specific policy issues.
3. Strengthening linkages between grantees and agency representatives regarding policy issues.
4. Obtaining input from grantees, funders, and agency representatives into the September annual meeting.

Twenty-one participants attended a core part of the NRFC meeting in Rosslyn, VA, either in its entirety or for parts of the afternoon sessions (a final participant list is in Appendix A); others were involved in the agency meetings. Attendees at the agency meetings are listed in Appendix B.

Below is a report of the key outcomes of the meeting divided into those that relate to NRFC's national policy agenda (section II); and the specific issues with action plans as developed by the groups (section III) including information on the agency meetings. Our recommendations for next steps are included in section IV.

II. National Policy Agenda

The meeting had three components that fed into the expansion of NRFC's National Policy Agenda. On the first day, the three agency representatives spoke briefly about the "key" concerns of their agencies or organizations. At HHS these are workforce health care access, family self-sufficiency, disabilities, aging, prevention, disparities in health status, and tribal communities. At USDA-CSREES these are community-led development, entrepreneurship, public university engagement, leadership development, youth involvement and integration of programs. At CDFI (Treasury Department) priorities are minority home ownership and distressed communities (rural and Native).

Several guest speakers also added items to the list of key concerns and opportunities. These included the Assets for Independence Act and the Savings for Working Families Act, identified by Brian Dabson of the Corporation for Enterprise Development (CFED), and cluster development and entrepreneurship, identified by Paul Kalomiris of the National Governor's Association (NGA).

Based on the afternoon's presentations, the entire group identified a number of ideas and concepts that should inform their work. These were:

Looking at RD programs for their ability to include leadership/capacity building; bring in CBOs to talk to agencies; retrain agency people to understand rural; increase consultation between rural/HHS

Rural and tribal community colleges-link with land grants for resources

Focus on entrepreneurial person versus the institution

Build policy based on success stories/trends

Maximize program flexibility - must be written into the regulations

Look to rural areas as labs for entrepreneurial activity

Highlight differences between rural and urban

Distrust of federal agencies taking over rural efforts

Evaluation of programs-learning from experience

Quantifying impacts - need information. Yet there are burdens; accountability

Colleges - incorporate community learning (gives validity to community, passes on experience)

Tribal communities - no infrastructure (tribal community colleges serve as an alternative to tribal government)

The next morning brought other ideas from the agency staff that Sally Maggard and Dianne McSwain had gathered for meetings with the grantees. After all this input, the group added several items to the national policy issue matrix that includes information gathered through: (1) interviews with grantees and funders; (2) the Santa Fe, NM meeting; and (3) conversation with agency representatives (Dianne/Sally). The matrix follows the NRFC's framework of wealth creation, leadership, and family and child welfare. The issues to be added to the matrix are:

Wealth Creation

1. Link Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) and Child Care Tax credits (16 states have legislation)
2. Encourage alternative financial institutions

a. Community-based credit unions. Comments made by Alice Veenstra include that the support system is intensive and that credit unions require $1-4 m capitalization, about 5 years between first plans and first loans, and require $200,000-300,000 in lawyer fees. On the other hand, loan funds can be started with $100,000 and can give out the first loan within the first year. Banks have all different scales, start-up costs, etc.
b. Capacity building for CDFIs

3. Engage Federal Home Loan and Banking System

Leadership (Entrepreneurship)

1. Identify pots of money for planning grants and encourage learning and skill development, instead of struggling with the "Go forth and collaborate" command
2. Change the relationship with USDA and other federal agencies and CBOs
3. Form angel networks for wealth creation/entrepreneurship (these require resources to get off the ground; takes money to determine the feasibility of whether entrepreneurship and angel networks are appropriate for a place)

Child and Family Welfare

1. Tribal self-sufficiency. Identify new economic models for tribal areas
2. Access to technology
3. Need ideas for health care/small businesses
4. Building on what was heard at HHS meeting from the department that focuses on persons with disabilities. AK could pilot a technology program and see how the service handles extreme conditions.

The complete matrix with these new national policy issues included can be found in Appendix C.

III. Specific Issues of the Learning Groups

A. Review of work through May

On the afternoon of May 6th, Kate Clancy reviewed where the groups were following the New Mexico meeting in January and discussions between then and now. In the area of leadership/entrepreneurship, the issues identified in January were: (1) categorical programs do not address entrepreneurship; (2) somebody needs to capture some of the existing innovations and models; and (3) continuing education for agency staff in entrepreneurship would be helpful. Ideas proposed for a strategy at the meeting were to (a) re-engage the Rural Caucus; (b) map out congressional delegates and match them with states; (c) map out allies in agencies and other partners; (d) capture successes; and (e) build alliances with other networks.

The HHS work that had focused on transportation in New Mexico moved to a focus on health care access between January and May. The issues include: (1) the Clinical Lab Improvement Act with regard to which HHS just made movements to address the specific rural concerns identified by the group; and (2) the Indian Healthcare Improvement Act (ICHIA) which is due for reauthorization. IHCIA allows tribes to provide health care beyond the basics and allows a health aide program only in Alaska, where aides do primary care. The groups would like to extend this program to all tribes because many natives in the lower 48 do not live on large reservations. The aide program could provide care for the small communities in which most of them live.

The third issue determined important at the New Mexico meeting was Individual Development Accounts (IDAs). The specific targets for this issue are: (1) expanding IDA eligibility, (2) changing match criteria, loss of eligibility for other programs, and (3) increasing administration allowable.

Because the agency meetings on the morning of May 7th played such a large role in the action plans that came out of these specific groups, we have included information about those meetings here. In two cases (IDA and entrepreneurship) we have provided detailed information from those meetings because NRFC staff was not present. We have provided some information from the HHS meeting that should be complemented with Jim Richardson's notes.

On the afternoon of May 7th, each of the groups developed an objective and related activity steps for a short-term (e.g., one year) timeframe based on their discussions the previous day and at the agencies.

B. Entrepreneurship/USDA meeting

Many useful introductions were made at this gathering. In the first section of the meeting, Deb Markley and Brian Dabson provided some context/conclusions about entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurship community at the national level (i.e., what is happening in entrepreneurship across the country and what are the main issues).

June Holley gave a power point presentation on AceNet and the organization's activities. But more importantly she explained many of the barriers AceNet is facing as they go about their work (for example, using Rural Business Enterprise Grants (RBEG) money for the kinds of work they want to do - facilitating a cluster instead of working with just one business). She stated that there is a real need for peer training and peer learning (for example, a network of kitchen incubators).

The group then discussed the need to bring innovators together for learning and setting up venues where innovators can share with others (organizations and agencies). At the same time, it was suggested that the group look at the authorization of some programs (e.g. RBEG) to see what might be tweaked. The discussion shifted to using the National Rural Development Partnership (NRDP) state councils as a means to start the discussions/convening and to identify the barriers to using federal categorical programs. Also mentioned was whether some USDA money (from each division?) may be used to have a facilitated meeting of all units within USDA that work on entrepreneurship and begin to identify overlaps and ways of collaborating.

Susan Matteucci from New Mexico made a connection with Linda Epstein at the meeting. Susan would like to look at whether they can get a disadvantaged business access to entrepreneurship training through the Office of Small and Disadvantaged Business Utilization (OSDBU) in the Commerce Department to get the designations needed - one group in the region that would then train other groups in the area.

Below is the objective, and related activities, that came out of the morning and afternoon session on entrepreneurship.

Objective: Create continuous feed forward and feed back loops between community based organizations and USDA to inform policy development and implementation.

C. IDA/HHS meeting

A number of issues relating to IDA were discussed by the participants in the offices of Sheldon Shalit at HHS. First was the issue of increased administrative support and support services. Sheldon stated that the recommendations for the reauthorization in Congress include suggesting that case management may not be part of administrative services. However, the funds may have to come from the pot of money that goes to clients (since the total amount of money available is not changing) - right now 85% of the money goes to the client and 15% goes to administration. If case management moves out of the 15% area, then there is less available in the 85% zone for clients. He mentioned that pressure is needed from the field. Sandi Smith recommended that local organizations should be able to use the match part as they see fit. Currently local match mirrors federal allocation. In terms of the discussion around support services, Sheldon suggested bringing in more match since 15% of the scoring for these program comes from looking at this.

Also raised was the concern that the regulations are slow. This was a 5-yr project and it is a very prescriptive and micromanaged program. The reserve fund is part of the problem - it is 1:1. The need is for expanding program flexibility for things like home improvement and creating water facilities (Bernie mentioned for buying cars too-an important tool for getting rural people to jobs-but Sheldon has not had that discussion with this administration and would prefer to push home improvement rather than cars since superficially they are not seen as an appreciable asset). Bob Zdenek suggested that we submit a list of concerns and HHS might not oppose the requests; they just have not had the discussions.

Discussions around income eligibility included Bob's suggestion that linking the federal home loan bank to IDAs could be helpful. Sheldon stated that there is guidance on rules and that one needs to work with a law that is less specific. HHS had wanted the program to be very simple and the match money is difficult. People have high expectations of what they want the program to do. There is (may be?) a shift in the requirements from 200% poverty level to 80% of median salary, but in some cases 80% is a very high number. IDAs are meant to allow people to build financial skills and are not only for the poor.

Discussion then went to the flexibility of match and administrative support. They could make IDAs a true pipeline for many income levels. Sheldon would like to see capacity building to help organizations deal with clients for the long-term through two grants; one for supporting the organization so the infrastructure can grow (since right now all the money goes to the client) and then the second for the clients. This would be statutory; Sandi noted that it could face adamant objections in Congress. Bernie Mazyck suggested that it could ride faith-based initiatives and strengthening organizations. It was noted that case management of a client costs 3 times as much to run the program than what clients get out of it (e.g., $3000 for case management while a client only saves $1000). HHS recommendations have been submitted to Congress and Sheldon does not want to reopen that issue. The reauthorization will come up between May and October.

Finally, discussion moved to linking EITC and child tax credits. This is primarily an urban model (Chicago). Bob works with tax sites and gets more free tax preparation services. Rural community action networks CDBG - could link it to asset building.

Below is the objective, and related activities, that came out of the morning and afternoon session on IDAs.

Objective: Within the reauthorization of AFIA, make sure that program support services do no come out of administrative costs. Ideally, have two pots of money - one for capacity building for the IDA organization, and one for clients. A second objective mentioned - but a plan not developed-was to increase the flexibility for which funds can be used - e.g., home improvement.

D. Health care/HHS meeting

Eighteen people representing a number of HHS offices and programs were present at the meeting. The first part of the meeting was devoted to a discussion of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act by Jim Berner and HHS Staff. Jim knows many of the key players in the Indian Health Service and they will be engaged in the policy follow-up on this issue. Over the last hour or so, the group heard about rural policy issues from eight different program representatives, including the Office of Rural Health Policy, Administration on Aging, Administration on Children and Families, Substance Abuse and Mental Health, and the ASPE. The key points of what was said are as follows:

Rural Health Policy - Marcia Brand staffed Task Force

1. Create single-point of access to enter HHS programs (>225 rural programs), so swimming through them is tough
2. There has been a national advisory council on health, now they would like one on human services
3. Seven grant programs
4. August conference for regional level work
5. Increase access to technology
6. Foster collaboration between rural providers
7. Technical assistance for smallest rural hospitals
8. Technical assistance for EMS

Administration on Aging (AOA) - Laura

1. Integrating access to health care
2. Prevention
3. Collaborative efforts
4. Regional centers that may be of use

Administration on Children and Families - Jim Gatz

1. Take a comprehensive approach - health is not separated from human services
2. TANF: Block grant reauthorization - hopes to pass it soon. Would have lots of new technical assistance and much of it would be directed to rural areas.
3. Preventative services
4. Addressing needs of children living with extended families and without resources
5. Works for Clarence Carter
6. NRFC should contact the regional centers and the Living Cities Initiative (a funders collaborative - Casey, McKnight, Knight, etc.). There has been a compassion grant in northern NM (Greg Kelptory)

The Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMSHA) - Olanda

1. Grants for substance abuse/mental health
2. Targeting methane and crank labs
3. SAMHSA rural network - addresses stigmas
4. Identifying health centers around the country with HKRSA

Also, a good discussion on evaluation occurred at the end of the morning with all agreeing that it was especially difficult in rural areas, that performance measures had to fit the context, and that they work better with older, established organizations. More specific follow up on evaluation was suggested, specifically:

1. Follow-up with SAMHSA on evaluations and see what they have tried to do (see samhsa.gov - directory of model programs they have)
2. ANA is also moving toward performance-based models
3. Reviewing the conversation specifically with ACF would be useful.
4. OCS is sponsoring rural listening sessions. Mostly service provider types, but they would like to include more policy-types, since that transition/translation between practice and policy can be so challenging.
5. Have more conversations with specific units
6. Phil Traynor - lots of information can come out of focal group evaluations
7. Bernie - there are 2 layers: Policy - TANF, AFIA are the 2 big issues and engagement of service providers and how they play out in the communities.

Below is the objective, and related activities, that came out of the morning and afternoon session on health care.

Objective: Passage of the new version of the IHCIA containing Community Health Aide (CHA) program authority for all federally recognized tribes.

IV. Observations and Recommendations for NRFC's Continuing Policy Work

A. The NRFC niche

Although NRFC has said that its policy niche will be an emphasis on regulatory and administrative matters, at least 2 of its 4 strategic grantees are working on legislation (IDAs and ICHIA). This has implications for the further development of the NRFC National Policy Agenda - especially insofar as NRFC needs to distinguish between its larger agenda and its grantees' specific work. This also signals the need for NRFC to decide how it will allocate internal and external policy resources to support policy work undertaken by its grantees, on the one hand, and to build a broader agenda supported by its larger constituency, on the other. A related issue is the need, in the near future, to develop an internal policy re: who speaks for and represents the NRFC on policy issues. We suggest that agreement be reached among the funders, agency partners, and grantees on this; then that the policy be made clear to all partners (old and new) through e-mail or at the September meeting.

B. Group efforts on specific issues

While leaders have been required to engage in policy efforts at the local/regional level, to attend workshops, and to undertake other tasks, NRFC evaluations do not address these policy efforts. NRFC should expand its evaluative agenda and work to include policy development as well. For example, by simply providing a basic questionnaire to its grantees on their policy efforts, NRFC could construct an evaluation of participants' policy efforts to measure on-going work as well as final outcomes.

NRFC should also further clarify who takes the lead on various issues. Is it the agency partners? The lead grantee? The soon-to-be-hired full-time NRFC policy staff? Obviously this is important and we recommend that it be clarified among the parties as soon as possible. Related to this is our suggestion that Jim stay in touch with the strategic partners over the summer to follow their policy activities. This could be done via the evaluation form mentioned above.

Also, as we discussed at the workshop, NRFC might give some more guidance to the strategic partners as to how collaborative it wants them to be on national issues. The grantees are perfectly capable of, and in some cases, have a preference for working alone, or with already established national connections. No problem with this - but NRFC should also be forthright in its expectations as to goals/objectives that the Collaborative has set for itself and the grantees.

C. National policy agenda

There are process and substantive questions here. Further clarification is needed of the role of each of the partners - grantees, funders, agency folks, with regard to the development of the agenda and the outreach on it (i.e. WHC or other venue). The substantive question is what will the final NRFC agenda include in terms of issues and what will that mean to external rural policy players? Another task is to decide how the NRFC will bring their agenda into the national discussion (see section A also). Maybe this could be discussed at a steering committee meeting or at the September meeting or both.

D. September meeting

In preparation for the gathering, 3 things should be done: (1) clarify and/or develop NRFC guidelines/policy/etc. on the issues described above; (2) ask the groups what they want at the meeting in the way of a) topics; b) plenary, workshops, etc.; and (3) make clear in the sessions the distinction between the specific issues and the rural policy agenda.

Appendix A

List of Participants - NRFC Policy Meeting
May 6-7, 2003
Rosslyn, Virginia

Appendix B

NRFC Policy Meeting
Entrepreneurship Group Meeting at USDA

Participant List

Linda Epstein: OSDBU, USDA; 202-720-2212; Linda.Epstein@usda.gov

Larry Yee: CSREES, USDA; 202-720-4564; lyee@csrees.usda.gov

Susan Matteucci: Southwest Creations, NM; 555-247-8559; ssc@swcp.com

James Jacobs: Rural Development, USDA; 202-619-0139; jjacobs@rurdev.usda.gov

Deb Markley: Center for Rural Entrepreneurship; 919-932-7762; dmarkley@nc.rr.com

Brian Dabson: Corporation for Enterprise Development,
202-408-9788; briand@cfed.org

Dave Sears: NRDP, USDA; 202-690-4749; david.sears@usda.gov

June Holley: AceNet; 740-592-3854; juneh@acenetworks.org

Jim Maetzold: NRCS, USDA; 202-720-0132; jim.maetzold@usda.gov

Lydia Oberholtzer: Wallace Center; 703-525-9430; loberholtzer@winrock.org

Susan O'Dell: Forest Service, USDA; 202-205-1385; sodell01@fs.fed.us

Sally Maggard: CSREES, USDA; 202-720-0741; smaggard@csrees.usda.gov

NRFC Policy Meeting
Health Care Group Meeting at HHS

Participant List

Jim Berner: Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium; 907-724-3646; jberner@anmc.org

Dianne McSwain: IGA/HHS; 202-401-5926; Dianne.mcswain@hhs.gov

Regina Schofield: IGA/HHS; 202-690-6060; regina.schofield@hhs.gov

Andy Knapp: IOS; 202-690-5400; andrew.knapp@hhs.gov

Jim Richardson: NRFC; 214-824-4450; jr@nrfc.org

Charmaine Ramos: Alaska Tribunal Health Consortium;
907-729-4491; curamos@anthc.org

Margaret Giannini: OD/HHS/OS; 202-401-5844; margaret.giannini@hhs.gov

Eileen Elias: OD/HHS/OS; 202-205-1106; eileen.elias@hhs.gov

Craig Vanderwagen: IHS/HHS; 301-443-1083; wvanderw@hqe.ihs.gov

Nycole C.Lewis: IGA/HHS; 202-205-1314; nycole.lewis@hhs.gov

Phil Traynor: Catholic Charities; 559-269-6434; ptraynor@ccdot.org

Christy Machida: HRSA/ORHP/HHS; 301-443-3712; cmachida@hrsa.gov

Jennifer Chang: HRSA/ORHP/HHS; 301-443-0736; jchang@hrsa.gov

Joy McGlaun: IGA/ORHP/HHS; 202-690-8371; joy.mcglaun@hhs.gov

Jay Surdukowski: IGA/ORHP/HHS; 202-2o5-3505; jaysurdukowski@hhs.gov

James Gatz: ACF/HHS; 202-401-5254; jgatz@acf.hhs.gov

Peggy Halpern: ASPE/HHS; 202-260-0285; peggy.halpern@hhs.gov

Ulonda Shamwell: SAMHSA/HHS; 301-445-2868; ushamwel@samhsa.gov

Marcia Brand: ORHP/HRSA/HHS; 301-443-4619; mbrand@hrsa.gov

Bernie Mazyck: SCACDC/NRFC; 843-579-9855; bmgcacdc@bellsouth.net

Renu Karir: Hewlett Foundation; 650-234-4500; r.karir@hewlett.org

Shelly Grow: Wallace Center; 703-525-9430; sgrow@winrock.org

Kate Clancy: Wallace Center; 703-525-9430; kclancy@winrock.org

Lori Stalbaum: AOA; 202-357-3452; lori.stalbaum@aoa.gov

John Horejsi: ACF/OFA/HHS; 202-401-5031; jhorejsi@acf.hhs.gov

Mary Woloskie: ACF/OFA/HHS; 202-690-5790; mwoloskiz@acf.hhs.gov

NRFC Policy Meeting
IDA Group Meeting at HHS

Participant List

Bernie Mazyck: South Carolina Association of CDCs; bmscacdc@bellsouth.net

Sandi Smith (CFED)

Renu Karir: William and Flora Hewlett Foundation; rkarir@hewlett.org

Sheldon Shalit: ACF, HHS; 202-401-4807; sshalit@acf.hhs.gov

Bob Zdenek: ACF, HHS (consultant); 202-407-4728; rzdenek@acf.hhs.gov

Shelly Grow: Wallace Center; 703-525-9430; sgrow@winrock.org

Appendix C