The following resources might be helpful to school districts and the community partners who work with them.

USDA Rural Development Innovation Center Launches Interactive Webpage to Share Best Practices for Rural Economic Development Assistant to the Secretary for Rural Development Anne Hazlett today unveiled a new interactive webpage to identify best practices for building rural prosperity. “Rural communities need forward-thinking strategies to build strong, resilient futures,” Hazlett said. “USDA’s Rural Development Innovation Center is focused on identifying unique opportunities, pioneering new, creative solutions to tough challenges, and making Rural Development’s programs easier to understand, use and access.”

Trauma-Informed Community Building and Engagement  Residents in public housing and other low-income or marginalized communities live with the daily stressors of violence and concentrated poverty, which stem from historic and structural conditions of racism, disenfranchisement, and isolation. Part of this trauma is the result of an extensive history of broken promises made by those intervening in marginalized communities. It is essential for community-building and engagement efforts to be realistic and transparent about new opportunities and to be truthful about what they are offering. This requires stakeholders to acknowledge these communitylevel traumas. Collaboration that addresses these traumas and offers opportunities for healing can generate viable and sustainable community change through improved policies, programs, and institutional practices. This document is a guide for those seeking innovative, effective, and responsible approaches to supporting residents of low-income housing communities.

MBK Community Challenge Competition Request for Proposals  My Brother’s Keeper Alliance (MBK Alliance), an initiative of the Obama Foundation, is now accepting applications for its first MBK Community Challenge Competition. MBK Alliance will be investing more than $5 million nationwide across 12 communities into high-performing nonprofit organizations, affiliated with an MBK Community, with demonstrated experience serving as a “backbone” organization in a “collective impact” model.  The deadline for application submission is 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Thursday, May 24, 2018.