The Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond (aka Richmond Fed, Fifth District of the Federal Reserve) contributes to the strengthening of the Northern Neck and other rural parts of the region made up of Maryland; Washington, DC; Virginia; North Carolina; South Carolina; and most of West Virginia. In addition to its work on monetary policy and financial institution stability, the Richmond Fed provides data, analysis, and coordination in three areas: Small Town and Rural Initiative, Regional Data and Analysis, and Community Development and Engagement.
Notable efforts are economic research and the focus on rural. Economic research is designed to inform the public and those who make decisions. Barriers to Rural Investment may state the obvious, but the orderliness and analyis are worth reading, sharing, and saving. Author Jen Giovannitti, president of the Claude Worthington Benedum Foundation and a member of the Richmond Fed’s Rural Investment Collaborative Capital Development Workgroup, offers creative solutions, including the Richmond Fed’s efforts to skill up rural stakeholders.
The Philanthropy Gap in Rural America describes how the Town of Warsaw in Richmond County used outside funding to manifest their deliberate revitalization. The newsletter story reminds me of the Revisionist History podcast My Little Hundred Million.
In the early ’90s, Hank Rowan gave $100 million to a university in New Jersey, an act of extraordinary generosity that helped launch the greatest explosion in educational philanthropy since the days of Andrew Carnegie and the Rockefellers. But Rowan gave his money to Glassboro State University, a tiny, almost bankrupt school in South Jersey, while almost all of the philanthropists who followed his lead made their donations to elite schools such as Harvard and Yale. Why did no one follow Rowan’s example?
This leads seamlessly ― at least in my head ― to the Richmond Fed’s Rural Investment Collaborative (TM), the operationalization of the Fed’s understanding of rural, that “nearly one-quarter of our District's population lives in small towns and rural areas — and many more of us are connected to small towns through our family and friends.” (Source)
Work in this area connects key community stakeholders with funders, facilitates sharing and support, and helps localities “develop project proposals and make access to funding easier.” The collaborative uses the cohort model and in 2025, two Northern Neck localities are represented: John Bateman (Economic Development Director and Assistant County Administrator, County of Lancaster) and Kirsten Self (Vice President, Warsaw Richmond County Chamber, Richmond County, Virginia). (Source: 2025 Community Investment Training Cohort (PDF))