This blog post condenses community conversations on narrowing the digital divide into five essentials for running successful digital navigator programs.

Closing the Digital Skill Divide finds strong demand for digital skills across every industry (dispelling misconceptions that demand exists primarily in the tech sector) and in almost every occupation, including entry-level and frontline positions.

The Federal Communications Commission’s updated broadband location dataset, known as the Broadband Serviceable Location Fabric, will now serve as the official reference point for verifying deployment obligations under various programs.

“Children will go hungry. And they don’t have to,” says Dr. Jeremy Everett, Executive Director of the Baylor Collaborative on Hunger & Poverty.

Texas must increase its investment in water, wastewater and transit systems infrastructure, the country's foremost society of civil engineers urged state lawmakers Tuesday when it announced Texas received a "C" grade on its 2025 report card.

As states begin rolling out the federal program to expand high-speed broadband access, national policymakers need to keep the momentum going after three years of state-led outreach and planning with internet service providers (ISPs) and communities.

Community Foundation of Abilene has partnered with Angela Seaworth to present the Nonprofit Leadership Academy of West-Central Texas (NLA). NLA provides participants with expanded tools, knowledge, and connections to enhance their organization’s impact and sustainability.

Texas Mutual, the newest member of Texas Rural Funders, has awarded more than $4.5 million to 66 nonprofit organizations across the state to help fortify businesses and strengthen the state’s economy.

Whether a community is designated as “rural” could mean the difference between access to grant funding and lack of it. Unfortunately, many definitions of rural currently used by different federal agencies only add to the confusion.

From mountains and canyons to forests and swamps, the vast scale of Texas provides so many natural wonders. Across the Lone Star State, there are 85 state parks, natural areas and historic sites currently operated by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Check out an interactive table to find out which are the least visited, and plan a trip!

Community colleges are an important part of the higher education landscape, offering unique educational and training opportunities to workers at all stages of their careers. This article tells the story.

Substituting a pickup for a pack horse, one woman is carrying on a tradition of delivering books to out-of-the-way places, this time in the wake of Hurricane Helene.

While many Opportunity Youth and Young Adults have experienced systems involvement, unstable living conditions, and trauma, their experiences with disconnection are far from uniform. View their stories.

As 2025 is beginning, take a final look at some of last year’s best rural movies, music, and TV shows.

The state’s 988 suicide had the nation’s fifth highest rate of abandoned calls in August, the latest data available, amid a multi-million funding deficit that could worsen as federal dollars expire this year.

Sometimes officials ask, “What should we do first?” or “What are the 10 things we should do?” Becky McCray offers ten steps.

The Rio Grande Valley Broadband Coalition is a group of organizers and partners whose mission is to build digital equity and access in the region and close the gap on the digital divide. The coalition met on December 3 in San Juan, Texas, to discuss the Texas Broadband Development Office’s quick turnaround challenge through the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program.

Smarthistory’s free, award-winning digital content unlocks the expertise of hundreds of leading scholars, making the history of art accessible and engaging to more people, in more places, than any other publisher.

Fiber-optic cables may just be glass in the ground if people cannot subscribe to and use high-speed internet access. The human infrastructure of broadband is the necessary social and relational complement to the work of building physical infrastructure.

To understand where we are and what it will take to achieve true digital equity for rural communities and Native nations, the Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group spoke with some of the practitioners working on the ground to deploy broadband and make sure communities can use it to advance equitable rural prosperity.

A public library in Ohio is making waves by supporting local entrepreneurs, small businesses, and nonprofits through free resources and services, fostering innovation and economic growth in the community

The biggest pharmacy benefit managers are profiting by systematically underpaying independent drugstores, creating “pharmacy deserts” across the country.

Texas Rural Funders presented as part of this series of lightning talks at the Future of Texas Rural Symposium, where speakers discussed how rural Texas towns can seek out grants and philanthropy to improve their communities.

The Texas Association of Counties hosts a podcast for Texas Counties that's full of news, information, and resources. The wide variety of topics is both useful and interesting. A few recent examples explore: Youth Leadership, Elections, Urban-Rural Partnership, and more

A budding success story in East Texas offers lessons for other underserved rural regions, philanthropies interested in rural revitalization, and CDFIs pursuing pathways to better engage and serve rural communities.

Residents of Texoma will soon have access to more mental health programs.

When disaster strikes, Polk County Judge Sydney Murphy takes command of her county’s emergency communication channels, including a text service and Facebook page.

With growing reliance and investment in broadband, the industry has become the latest skilled trade providing crucial support for our societies.

Texas embraced a new, performance-based funding model for community colleges. A year later, campus leaders believe they are starting to see the rewards.

Crescent Regional has installed its first "Holobox," a 3D, life-sized, holographic display that allows doctors to teleport to the hospital for real-time consults.

Broadband provider FiberLight announced high speed internet for 59 school districts in the Texas Panhandle funded by the Federal Communications Commission’s E-Rate program, which provides affordable internet access to school districts and libraries.

Texas announced a $3.03 billion investment in water and wastewater projects located throughout the state. The projects are being funded through the Texas Water Development Board’s Clean Water State Revolving Fund and State Water Implementation Fund for Texas.

A new traveling exhibit from the Smithsonian, "Crossroads: Change in Rural America," will soon roll through seven rural Lone Star communities starting in August.

A national study found young children are faring worse academically than their peers before the pandemic. The problem’s scope in Texas is unclear.

Broadband providers and banking groups are continuing to ask that the Federal Communications Commission ditch the bank rating system it has relied on for its subsidy program’s financing requirements.

The Texas Power Podcast aims to serve an audience of energy professionals, policymakers, and academics, but will also be accessible to a general audience by explaining key topics and acronyms

News and reports about clean energy, land conservation, subsurface energy, sustainability education, water, and the Mitchell Foundation's programmatic partnerships in Galveston.

A collection of case studies from across the U.S. focused on how communities are adapting to energy and climate challenges.

The USDA estimates the families of 3.8 million children could have received $120 per child to cover summer lunches if the state participated in the new $2.5 billion program launching this summer. Texas is one of 15 states opting out.

The gap is widening between real-estate appraisals and construction costs, holding entreprenuers back.

Bringing fiber infrastructure to rural areas is expensive and time consuming. Wise County, Texas, found a way to deliver high-speed Internet access without wires.

While rural areas do better at training and retaining a primary care workforce, the growing demand for healthcare still outpaces the supply of doctors.

Teens Teach Tech, powered by AT&T, provides a platform for tech-savvy teenagers to offer digital skills training in their communities as a service project or to earn financial incentives. By forming a team with two or more teens, you as a mentor, are pivotal in facilitating valuable digital skills, training sessions, and fostering a culture of continuous learning in your community.

The Texas Demographic Conference is an annual meeting providing updates of demographic and socioeconomic data available for Texans. Watch the highlights!

This report from the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce demonstrates that in half of the nation’s labor markets, at least 50% of all middle-skills credentials would need to be granted in different fields of study to meet projected labor demand through 2031.

Learn about the work of HUD in the rural context, including the programming and funds helping to ensure that housing and community development needs are met.

The narrative of US climate impact and action often focuses on the nation’s cities and crowded coasts. However, in the vast expanse of rural and small-town America, there is a story that has been largely untold, one of significant emissions reduction potential shadowed by systematic underinvestment.

Rising temperatures intensify drought and increase costs for the heavily subsidized crop insurance program.

Many states, including Texas, have recently created initiatives that prioritize short-term credentials—postsecondary programs that take fewer than two years to complete. These initiatives are often designed as an alternative to college and targeted to students who do not have a four-year degree.

Kelty Garbee, Executive Director of Texas Rural Funders, spoke with The Texas Tribune about the Affordable Connectivity Program.

Texas Rural Funders spoke with the Public News Service Radio about our Grants Hub, which offers federal and state grant opportunities, along with grant writers who can be hired to assist rural governments or organizations with applications.

Funding Rural is a podcast about how philanthropy can better serve rural communities and spark systemic change.

The Trellis Foundation's third biennial postsecondary policy summit in Austin, TX, on April 19, 2024, delved into mental health and wellbeing as a strategy for student success.

This new hub from the BDO provides in-depth information about the digital divide and digital opportunity in Texas.

This new report from the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas examines how the Texas economy is changing and, with it, the state’s need for education and training.

Marfa students are immersing themselves in the world of vertical farming, blending classroom instruction with firsthand experiences on village farms.

 Wildfires are perhaps the most dreaded natural disaster in the Panhandle. Since 2006, when Amarillo Area Foundation opened the Panhandle Disaster Relief Fund (PDRF), residents have experienced the accumulated loss of millions of dollars in homes, businesses, out-buildings, vehicles, livestock, grazing land, and fencing.

As states get closer to accepting applications for $42.5 billion in BEAD rural broadband funding, more defaults in the previous RDOF rural broadband funding program could be coming.

Libraries for Health, an initiative designed and funded by Texas Rural Funder St. David's Foundation and in partnership with Via Hope and RAND, seeks to reimagine the delivery of mental health services by building upon a community anchor - a local public library - that is already in place.

For decades, millions of Americans have been forced to go without internet or pay for subpar service, which thwarts opportunities to participate and thrive in today’s society, especially for Black communities in the rural South.

More than 90% of Texas’ 32 border counties don’t have enough primary care services, sites or providers to meet local medical needs, according to federal data.

Rural recreation counties added to their pre-pandemic employment numbers, but other rural economies struggled to recover.

The International Economic Development Council (IEDC) has announced its inaugural cohort of 65 fellows and host communities, including two in East Texas. 

Thrive, not just survive, animates development work in East Texas, where a local family foundation, T.L.L. Temple, and a community development financial institution, Communities Unlimited, are teaming to develop bottom-up structural solutions to building rural capacity.

The legislation behind the historic investment directs state agencies to send money to the state’s smaller, cash-strapped towns that have difficulty paying for upgrades. Federal money is also expected to flow to regions that need broadband.

This article highlights 5 questions for family foundations to consider while crafting a strategic plan, and features TRF Member, Hogg Foundation.

On November 7, Texas voters weighed in and voted YES on Prop 8!

We asked and NTIA responded with alternatives to the BEAD Letter of Credit requirement!

The East Texas town has maintained a reliable bus route since 2016, providing a model for rural areas with limited transportation.

This initiative aims to address the critical One Health Crisis in rural areas of Texas and create a sustainable solution through education and community development.

In 2022, No Kid Hungry invested over $1.8 million in grant funds to 53 school districts and community groups across the state. During this period, grantees we supported provided over 90 million meals to Texas kids and families. 

This amateur documentary from the Texas Archive of the Moving Image, made by Ouida Whitaker Dean in 1976, focuses on women in agriculture in the rural East Texas town of Timpson, as well as in America at large.

The rural/urban divide is too simplistic to apply to real lives, says a researcher who studies political and social divisions.

Diminishing springs and aquifers due to heat, drought and high for demand water highlight the urgency for Central Texas conservation districts to prioritize climate-focused management, potentially involving reduced pumping for sustainability.

The Pottsboro Library and TekWav are pleased to announce a partnership to bring internet service to the patrons of the library through the Emergency Connectivity Fund (ECF) program.

The Meadows Mental Health Policy Institute is leading a 12-month learning experience that equips districts to effectively develop and implement evidence-based school mental health programs. This opportunity is free of cost thanks to the support of the Texas Pioneer Foundation.

The Southwest Regional Advisory Committee for the U.S. Department of Education will provide input on federal technical assistance priorities will be reviewing public comments along with other data and resources as part of a needs-sensing process, and they want to hear from you!

As part of their series on funders who support rural communities, Inside Philanthropy featured five place-based funders supporting rural communities in Texas, including five Texas Rural Funders!

In an extraordinary slice of luck, a small area of the Lone Star State will witness October's annular solar eclipse and April's total solar eclipse. Most of the places where the eclipses will be visible are rural communities!

Texas Rural Funders invited rural communities to attend this session showcasing free resources that promote cultural and economic development

Community devel­opment financial institutions, or CDFIs, are mission-driven nonprof­its and for-profits that deliver a range of financial products, services, and education to underserved individuals and communities.

Episcopal Health Foundation, examines hospital responses of a national survey from the American Hospital Association.

For community colleges to reach their full potential as drivers of prosperity and equity, states must create strong, stable, coherent finance systems that enable and incentivize colleges to better meet pressing state interests and student needs.

It remains a priority to strengthen the capacity of rural communities to compete for federal funds and build the mechanisms and technical expertise they require to secure and manage federal awards.

On the eve of a historic investment in connecting the Lone Star State, advocates worry maps that will help establish which communities get funding have bad information.

Thousands of low-income, Latino residents in Texas still do not have safe drinking water. In one El Paso colonia, some residents are using solar distillation to generate water from the air.

Episcopal Health Foundation partnered with the Texas Association of Health Plans and the Texas Association of Community Health Plans to conduct the first ever Texas survey to capture Medicaid health plans activities to address non-medical drivers of health care.

As part of the $42.5 billion Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment Program, the NTIA announced Texas’ $3.3 billion allocation.

Uvalde CISD enters the final stretch of the Uvalde Moving Forward campaign to fund the design and construction of Uvalde's new elementary school, with updates to share.

More than ever, people are visiting and moving to places with inspiring natural amenities. Yet rapidly growing outdoor recreation economies can also come with serious drawbacks.

The San Miguel coal mine and power plant operation in South Texas has the dirtiest groundwater in the entire U.S., according to research. Now this company wants to expand the mine even more, and this time they want to drive ash across an essential source of drinking water for many South Texans – the San Miguel Creek, which is one of just two tributaries to Choke Canyon Reservoir.

Through a Listening Tour and Focus Group meetings, this 2018 report examines broadband access identified in rural Texas and prioritizes recomendations to empower Rural Texas.

To bridge gap between funders and community uptake, Connected Nation developed this 2018 Texas Broadband Funding Guide highlighting public and private programs across the state.

Governor Greg Abbott has named Richard “Rick” Rhodes, TRF's Rural Engagement Coordinator chair of the Texas Workforce Investment Council.

A partnership between the Center Economic Development Corporation and Etex Telephone Cooperative has resulted in multiyear project to build a new state-of-the-art network to develop critical connections to the City of Center in Shelby County.

An estimated 500,000 people live in thousands of colonias along the Texas-Mexico border. Largely built between the 1950s and 1980s, these communities have been promised water — but it has never come.

Freshwater resources in Texas are facing unprecedented pressures. Increasing competition between water users, coupled with increasingly variable supplies, is giving rise to water scarcity across the state.

The Texas Border Small Business Broadband Fund will invest in high-speed connectivity, digital transformation, and skills development for businesses in Hidalgo and Cameron counties

Book analyzing the promise and the failure of national rural broadband policy in the United States and proposes a new national broadband plan.

Book examining how large corporations that control cable and internet access in the United States use their tremendous lobbying power to tilt the playing field against competition, holding back the infrastructure improvements necessary for the country to move forward.

Podcast about rural education, business, and health with a mission to increase awareness and expand dialogue on the most important issues facing rural stakeholders.

Video featuring rural teachers talking about what being a rural teaching means to them. Created by the National Rural Education Association and Rural Schools Collaborative.

Opening remarks from the 2022 Investing in Rural America Conference highlighting important ways to build rural capacity, including: helping communities write grants, creating pools of match funding, and building local capacity.

2011 was the driest year on record for Texas, causing an estimated cost of $7.62 billion in crop and livestock losses. A dry and hot June has many sounding alarm bells about 2022.

News story about the Rural Economic Assistance League providing free transportation for rural communities to and from college campuses in the Coastal Bend region.