Rural Development
Rural Initiatives
The Mountain West is now experiencing economic and demographic pressure that is changing how the landscape supports our economies and communities.
Our Rural Initiatives program helps people guide how that change occurs in their own communities.
About
The Rural Initiatives program offers rural Montana and Tribal communities the coordination, knowledge, and time to articulate, fund, and implement community-driven projects — capacity that rural communities often lack and can’t sustain on their own.
What we do
Too often, both conservation and rural development projects follow a top-down process, with outside “experts” identifying needs on behalf of communities, rather than supporting the people who live in communities as they determine their own needs.
Our program is different: Heart of the Rockies Initiative builds relationships with community partners, listening to their needs and visions.
When invited by the community, we then support community-driven projects that have the highest potential to positively impact that community in whatever direction they choose to take their projects and visions.
Technical Assistance
Funding is widely available through federal, state, and private sources to support rural community projects, but it can be difficult to find, and access to the funding often involves an intimidating application and administrative process.
The communities that most want and need this funding typically don’t have staff with the time, knowledge, or experience to successfully navigate this process.
Technical assistance provided by Heart of the Rockies Initiative helps rural communities actually gain access to this available funding.
Why
Our Rural Initiatives program bridges the too often and mistakenly polarized interests of rural development and conservation.
We recognize that thriving western rural communities are inextricably linked to thriving conservation.
Our program supports vibrant and thriving rural communities by improving quality of life, economic opportunities, and outdoor experiences for established residents.
We work to ensure rural communities seeking opportunities to retain their livelihoods do not have to turn to extractive industries or harmful development that fragments the landscape.
The community-driven projects we support increase revenue from responsible agriculture, tourism, and recreational opportunities.
Rural communities provide the food, water, and other natural resources on which we all depend; simultaneously, rural community industries are equipped to accommodate and steward the habitat needed for wildlife to thrive.
When we help keep people in their rural communities by retaining livelihoods, we help sustain and develop their sense of place. Simply put, people protect the places they love.
Rural Initiatives Successes
Number of communities in Western Montana the Rural Development program has served
Funding the Rural Development program has secured for on-the-ground community projects.
Projects
In partnership with Montana Access Project, the Rural Initiatives program offers a Get Grant Ready Workshop.
This workshop helps increase community awareness and knowledge of grants available to rural communities, provide additional capacity for small communities that need extra support, and allow Heart of the Rockies to work with new communities.
Get Grant Ready Guidelines include KEY ELEMENTS that most funders are looking for. They are designed with many grant programs in mind to help you build out and develop a project idea.