In May 2024, Aspen Institute’s Community Strategies Group released a report on “Collaborative Strategies for Rural Health and Economic Prosperity” that’s worth sharing.

Principle #1: Recognize the interconnected goals of rural health equity and rural development and work to align these fields through a common language and shared, overlapping measures of success.

One way IVWF addresses the lack of aligned understanding of rural work and concepts like “health equity,” is through our Learning Exchanges. We convene nonprofits, businesses, healthcare, government and education to learn together and find commonality.

Principle #2: Align funding, planning, implementation, and evaluation systems across the rural health equity and rural development fields to advance common goals.

Beyond IVWF’s Learning Exchanges which aim to bridge gaps between sectors, IVWF works directly to encourage funding and proposal collaborations to avoid working in silos with parallel and/or conflicting processes. If done in collaboration, communities are better enabled to meet their goals.

Principle #3 from The Aspen Institute’s Community Strategies Group: Bring together resources across rural health equity and rural development to design and implement projects grounded in community assets, awareness or exclusionary histories, and leadership of those most affected. https://www.aspencsg.org/strategies-for-rural-health-and-prosperity/

It’s important to keep the work focused on – and led by – the affected rural residents and communities at all levels. IVWF is a Rural Development Hub, serving as a neutral strategy for outside enterprises wishing to ground work locally and regionally. It is part of our job to identify and connect community assets to market demand to build a better Imperial Valley for all.  # # #