GRO- Growing Rural Oregon

e2 Feature

Entrepreneurship has been a central driving force in America’s Pacific Northwest. The Ford Family created a remarkable entrepreneurial success with their forestry business rooted in rural Oregon and one county in Northern California. In the 1950s, this family created the Ford Family Foundation (https://www.tfff.org/), a powerful agent for good in this part of the Pacific Northwest. The Foundation has now launched GRO or Growing Rural Oregon (https://growingruraloregon.org/). This September e2 is featuring our podcast with Foundation President Anne Kubisch and GRO founder Kathleen Flanagan. As a bonus, we are sharing our GRO Story.

Check out our new episode

Other e2 News

At e2 our mission is helping organizations like The Ford Family Foundation empower rural entrepreneurial ecosystem building throughout North America. We have a growing collection of podcasts and stories focusing on specific rural entrepreneurial ecosystem building in various parts of this vast expanse including:

· Rural Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Building – Four Decades of Learning

· NetWork Kansas and its Entrepreneurial Communities Program

· Lessons from Northwest Missouri

· Lessons from Central Appalachia

· Oregon’s Klamath IDEA

· Minnesota’s REV or Rural Entrepreneurial Venture Initiative

· Nebraska’s E3 or Energizing Entrepreneurial Ecosystems Initiative

· Ord, Nebraska

· Oregon’s GRO or Growing Rural Oregon

News Shorts

Nebraska Community Foundation – Making a Difference in the Heartland. The Nebraska Community Foundation (NCF for short) is a remarkable rural development collaboration. It is a partnership between NCF and its hundreds 253 affiliate communities and organizations serving 275 rural communities in Nebraska. Check out their June 2022 progress report.

NCF is the lead partner in E3 Energizing Entrepreneurial Ecosystems featured in our August Newsletter.

Chris Gibbons and Economic Gardening. Chris Gibbons, the founder of Economic Gardening continues to learn, innovate and share. Recently Chris and Economic Gardening have shared some well-articulated and field-tested Marketing Principles.

Minnesota REV Continues to Grow. In the not too distance future, the Initiative Foundation of Southern Minnesota’s REV (Rural Entrepreneurial Venture) Initiative will be celebrating many years of success work. REV is growing and has launched its second rural community cohort. To learn more about REV and other Foundation economic development initiatives check out, https://smifoundation.org/programs/economic-development-2/.