From 1966 through 1977, 700 men and women were selected, primarily because they had demonstrated some capacity for personal initiative, to be fellows in the $11 million Leadership Development Program (LDP) supported by the Ford Foundation to develop new leadership in rural America. To operate LDP a decentralized organization with offices in Maine,…

After preliminary problem identification, mailed questionnaires were sent in April 1981 to citizens (2,000 households) and 735 public officials in eastern Washington to identify and assign priority to five or more rural issues common to the Partnership for Rural Improvement (PRI) geographic region for purposes of forming regional task forces.…

Rural areas in both developed and developing countries are being increasingly marginalized through structural changes. Furthermore, the disinvestment in state-provided supports and services means that rural people are left to their own devices to cope with these changes. Numerous authors argue that the most effective way of dealing with these…