This book examines cases of rural community development initiatives in the United States, Canada, and Europe, identified during a study of multicommunity collaboration projects. Section 1 includes 36 community development ideas operating at provincial, regional, and local levels. Included are ideas such as bank community development corporations, educational shadowing programs, community equity funds, community development resource centers, community or regional festivals, and a community business directory. The second section includes community development guidelines related to rural community survival, coping with change in small towns, recruiting new leaders, community self-renewal, linkage strategies in community economic development efforts, characteristics of an effective team, stages in local economic development, and measuring prosperity according to inflow and outflow of monies. The third and fourth sections describe 41 programs and 26 development institutes and centers that focus on information, formal education, and leadership development; networking and coordination; community development contests; community economic development; community and rural development; policy development; cooperative development; and community development funding schemes. The last section of the book profiles newsletters devoted to information on rural economic development. Appendices include definitions of terms and a bibliography of over 70 selected readings on developmental and related concepts. (LP)