Policy Exchange: What our Networks Have Helped Small Towns Learn
Building community is complex and our landscapes are rapidly shifting. Even in small towns and rural areas. Maybe more so outside of urban areas, as we face both persistent challenges and emerging opportunities. Yet rural leaders are recognizing we don’t have to navigate this terrain alone.
Last July, we explored some common policy exchange mechanisms—professional networks, awards programs, and statewide roadmaps—as connective tissue of rural development, not a luxury but a necessity (JCShepard.com, July 2025). What’s happened this year? It turns out the machinery kept running, and in several places it moved from promising talk to measurable dollars and durable partnerships. Here is what changed, and why it matters for anyone still deciding whether to invest time in these forums.
Professional Networks Matured as Rural Resources
The networks I profiled didn’t just repeat themselves—they specialized. The Western Planner, long a lifeline for planners in sparsely populated jurisdictions, is rolling out a new format built specifically for rural depth rather than breadth: the Western Matters Rural Summit, a tightly curated one-to-one-and-a-half-day workshop by invitation, designed to “take a deep dive into a specific topic” with speakers chosen to honor Indigenous perspectives and empower local decision-makers. The first convened in Durango, Colorado, in April 2026, near where I used to work in Pagosa Springs in the Four Corners region (Western Planner). In May 2027, they will convene at Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, in the Inland Northwest where I spoke earlier this month. I will be attending the annual Western Planners Conference next month at their annual conference in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, for a presentation on Heritage Tourism in Planning.
The National Rural Economic Developers Association (NREDA), meanwhile, kept its members’ feet on the ground with a biennial regional event in Marysville, Ohio, in June 2026, drawing rural development professionals for hands-on tours of destination-development strategies (Ohio Rural Electric Cooperatives), ahead of its national conference relocating to Salt Lake City this November (NREDA). And the International Economic Development Council (IEDC), whose inaugural Rural Retreat drew roughly 425 practitioners to Great Falls, Montana, last summer, didn’t let that momentum lapse into a one-off. This spring they formally launched a Rural Community of Practice and a members-only rural affinity group which I have joined, building on that single event into year-round networks for exchange (IEDC). They are working on the next Rural Retreat for 2027 in Burlington, Iowa. The pattern across these organizations is the same: networks that treat rural practitioners as a standing constituency, not an annual afterthought.
Awards Kept Doing Their Quiet Work of Sharing Success
The APA Small Town and Rural Planning Division (STaR), which I serve as a board member, presented its 2026 awards at the National Planning Conference in Detroit in April. The event drew about 4,000 planners from across the country and abroad—sessions this year tackled data centers arriving in small towns, preserving mom-and-pop retail, and public-private partnerships for economic development, all squarely rural concerns (APA). This year’s STaR honorees included the Imagine Alamosa County Comprehensive Plan in Colorado, Montpelier’s 2025 City Plan in Vermont, the Village of Rhinebeck’s plan in New York, Lockhart’s Looking Forward Comprehensive Plan in Texas, and Rapid City’s plan in South Dakota (honored as a large-jurisdiction with substantial rural presense), alongside McCall, Idaho’s climate action plan and student work out of UMass and CU-Denver (APA STaR Division). Lockhart’s local paper covered the honor as validation that a mid-sized Texas town’s planning process merits national attention (Post-Register)—exactly the kind of hometown-pride-meets-technical-credibility effect I described a year ago. These plans will now circulate as case studies, the same way our Burwell, Nebraska, planning process did after last year’s awards.
Statewide Roadmaps Turned Into Federal Dollars
The clearest proof that these mechanisms compound came out of Michigan. The Office of Rural Prosperity’s 2026 impact report shows the Roadmap to Rural Prosperity is no longer just a planning document sitting on a shelf—it directly informed a $173,128,201 federal award to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services under the CMS Rural Health Transformation Program for fiscal year 2026, aimed at strengthening rural health partnerships, recruiting rural health professionals, and building technology capacity (Michigan Office of Rural Prosperity). That is a nine-figure federal grant traceable to a state-level listening tour and roadmap process that began with 58 counties and nearly 2,500 survey respondents. It is the strongest evidence yet that inclusive, cross-agency rural strategies aren’t symbolic—they are grant-writing infrastructure. IEDC is launching an effort to better support state-level rural prosperity initiatives across the nation (IEDC April 2026).
A parallel story is unfolding through IEDC’s Economic Recovery Corps, whose fellows wrapped a two-year fellowship this February with a Capstone Showcase in Washington, D.C. To date, ERC fellows have helped unlock $246 million in investment, advanced 32 regional strategies, strengthened disaster resilience in 31 communities, and catalyzed more than 300 cross-sector partnerships connecting rural, Tribal, and urban regions—work presented alongside guests from the Federal Reserve, the Brookings Institution, and the Small Business Administration (IEDC). Like Michigan’s roadmap, ERC is a policy exchange mechanism with a dollar figure attached.
Policy Theory to Ground Truth
The lesson of this past year isn’t that policy exchange works in theory—that was always the easier claim. It’s that the mechanisms which survive and scale are the ones that convert one-time gatherings into standing support systems: a community of practice instead of a single retreat, a recurring regional workshop supplementing the big annual conferences, a roadmap that keeps testing and refining rather than freezing into a static report.
With purposeful intent, we can take abstract policy and apply this exchange and translation of ideas, from next door and across the world. This feeds our next steps toward practical implementation: groundbreaking and the community build resulting in measurable outcomes.
If you led a small town or rural project this year, nominate it for next year’s STaR Awards. Or share your successes with a presentation at the National Planning Conference coming up in Houston next spring; the call for submittals will open in August.
If your state hasn’t built a rural roadmap, Michigan’s is now a proof of concept with federal dollars behind it, not just good intentions. And if you haven’t joined a peer network yet, this year’s evidence suggests the return on that investment is no longer hypothetical—it’s measured in tens of millions of dollars and dozens of replicated plans. Rural leaders don’t need to reinvent what already works elsewhere. They need to keep showing up to learn it.
Online Tools & Networks
- American Planning Association – Small Town & Rural Planning Division (STaR)
Forums, publications, and technical guidance tailored to rural planning needs. (planning.org). - American Planning Association – Awards Program
Each year, APA’s National Planning Awards honor planning efforts and initiatives working to make safer, stronger, and more just communities for all. (www.planning.org/awards) - American Planning Association – National Planning Conference
NPC27 will convene May 15 – May 18, 2027, in Houston, Texas. Call for session proposals opens in August 2026. (www.planning.org/conference) - International Economic Development Council (IEDC)
This membership organization has been modernizing over time to include entrepreneurial and retention/expansion economic development along side industrial recruitment. (www.iedconline.org) - National Rural Economic Developers Association (NREDA)
NREDA serves members who are mostly Electric Cooperative-related; Telephone Cooperative-related; Economic Development Organizations & Associations; Government-related; or consultants. (www.nreda.org) - Western Planner
Since 1979, the Western Planner has connected and educated planners across the broad expanses of the western US and Canada. I’ve been involved in Western Planner since I was in grad school at CU-Denver years ago. (www.westernplanner.org)
Looking for more insights? These resources offer a starting point for anyone working to strengthen policy that works for rural communities—whether you’re a planner, council member, or community leader.
Resources
Rural-Ready Engagement: Practical Tools for Small Town Planners
Watch the full replay: youtube.com/@Engaging-Communities (February 2026)
Community engagement can look very different in small towns and rural communities. This webcast was co-sponsored by the APA Community Engagement Interest Group and the Small Town & Rural Planning Division.
Check out The 12 Planning & Sustainability Books You Need in 2026 and browse through the Small Town & Rural Community guides on our Resources page.
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