Resource
What Works in Rural America
Working with more than 150 groups across the diverse regions of our country, we are actively learning about and testing rural civic engagement tactics and strategy.
Rural Voters Are Persuadable, and Support Progress on Many Issues
Rural voters are the swingiest voting demographic–moving 8% or more, in either direction, over the past decade. Rural young people are especially uncommitted, and when they mobilize it can make a difference on issues statewide.
Many small-town and rural Black, Indigenous, and people of color audiences are rarely contacted. They have great potential for issue engagement and mobilization.
Rural folks of color and young people face strong barriers to democratic participation and need specific, personal reasons to believe policies and leaders can do something about the issues and conditions that impact their lives.
Show Up and Pay Attention
- Leaders, efforts, and groups looking to create progress need to show up and deliver on rural issues, including the new federal funding.
- Pay attention to what local people are asking for: broadband, keeping hospitals and grocery stores open, access to capital for family farmers and small businesses, affordable housing, and quality jobs.
- Listen to local people and develop local leaders from within the community — don’t parachute in staff or consultants who can’t speak from shared experience.
- Invest more in rural action and groups — there is an extremely high return on investment.
Develop leaders who may go on to serve in local office
- Rural residents will often see more personal impact from local offices.
- Many local elected positions are nonpartisan and less polarized.
- Local leaders are most effective engaging their local communities to participate as voters.
Heartland Fund has been an amazing learning community, giving partners a window into the most effective ways to support positive change in rural America. Their insight includes cutting-edge rural grassroots tactics, new narrative strategies and media platforms, and original research that is helping to redefine how we think about rural communities.
Elevate trusted local messengers
- Real people from the community understand rural life and are the best spokespeople.
- Diverse messengers are good. High school kids and young people are great messengers.
- Rural people prefer plain talk over jargon, so use their own words. Less produced content is more relatable.
Listen more than speak
- Deep canvassing is a very potent, labor-intensive, but scalable persuasion tool.
- Relational organizing — using peer-to-peer networks for mobilization and persuasion — is also labor intensive but can be highly cost-effective.
Smart narratives work
- We should talk about popular policies that impact rural people — using language and framing compelling to local audiences. We should not shy away from cultural issues on people’s minds. Show how racial justice, accurate education, fair immigration policies, and access to abortion care benefit all of us.
- Utilize tested narrative frameworks that work, including:
- Race Class Narrative
- Winning Jobs Narrative
- Issue-specific messaging from GALvanize and RuralOrganizing.org
- Relatable messaging from the Winning Jobs Narrative can connect the personal impacts of federal policy on jobs, small business, and family support.
- Humor is very persuasive.
- Speak to how our policies and movements benefit “working people, small business owners, and family farmers.” Elevate these people as heroes in our narratives.
Utilize rural and small-town media outlets to counter disinformation and amplify the truth
- Local advertising is often very inexpensive, and local outlets are hungry for content.
- Utilizing rural radio, local newspapers, agricultural papers, yard signs, and billboards increases visibility. Rural people who support progress feel very isolated and need to see other supporters and gain a sense of community.
- Local earned media coverage, amplified through social media, is most effective.
- Invest in protecting and preserving trusted local media outlets.
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Tools & Resources
Heartland Fund provides tools and original research to better understand and improve rural communities.
Rural Map and Dashboard
Rural classifications to the country’s census tracts, counties, congressional districts, and states.
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Rural Voter Polling
The polls explore rural attitudes and point toward ways to engage rural communities.
Read more