Community Strategies Group

The Community Strategies Group (CSG) structures and contributes to focused learning that supports the innovation of organizations and funders working to achieve more widely shared and lasting prosperity in communities.

Program Description

CSG helps organize peer exchange and critical examination opportunities for rural practitioners who undertake groundbreaking initiatives or who face decision making junctures in policy and program review. CSG works to identify and involve key policymakers, technical experts and researchers in these efforts. At various times during its existence, CSG has convened "learning clusters" - small groups of seasoned practitioners who work together to discover common challenges, obstacles and opportunities, and then devise a learning and action agenda to meet their needs. CSG has provided financial and resource support to advance selected cluster initiatives and to ensure that insights are shared with the wider audience of relevant policymakers and professionals. CSG has funded a limited number of rural development projects as field tests of new ideas generated by the learning clusters. CSG also supports the development of policy guides, manuals, videos, small group exercises and other interactive tools to stimulate thinking in the broad field of rural economic development, and to help newcomers quickly develop an informed understanding of the goals, strategies and models that determine rural progress.

For more information on CSG, contact:

Community Strategies Group
The Aspen Institute
One Dupont Circle, Suite 700
Washington, DC 20036
202.736.5800 (phone)
202.293.0525 (fax)
Email: info@aspeninst.org