Major funders bet big on rural America and ‘everyday democracy’

“In June, the Trust for Civic Life named Sipp Culture one of 20 inaugural grantees in its bid to reinvigorate rural, often high-poverty towns, regions, and tribal areas. A collaborative of 15 grant makers — most of them high-profile national funders — the trust sees small, local groups as instruments of change — modern versions of the organizations that scholars from Alexis de Tocqueville to Robert Putnam have singled out as a distinguishing feature of American democracy.”