To support congregations as they seek to better engage their community, the Town Square Collaborative is proud to work with our programmatic partners. These non-profit partners will collaborate with congregations directly, offering expertise, support and guidance in specific areas to help congregations better serve their neighbors. These partners bring years of practical knowledge in their fields to rural congregations, and are dedicated to authentic collaboration. Partners are engaged by congregations through participation in the annual Rural Ideas Conference. Work with programmatic partners is free of charge, and programs are designed to be financially sustainable for congregations.
Harvesting Hope is a statewide initiative designed to strengthen the capacity of congregations in rural and underserved communities to serve as leaders in improving access to fresh, nutritious food. By centering wellness and resilience, the initiative supports a sustainable approach to community health across Arkansas.
Key components of the work include:
- Equipping congregations with tools and resources to implement and sustain community-level work
- Coordinating mobile market services through a partnership with Well Fed Arkansas
- Facilitating town halls and community forums to elevate local voices and drive engagement
- Delivering wellness education and chronic disease prevention strategies
- Designing a responsive service delivery model that reflects the realities of rural and low-income populations
- Measuring impact of congregational support and capacity building through data targeting community engagement, growth in service delivery, and programmatic outcomes
At its core, Harvesting Hope is about investing in people, places, and partnerships with Arkansas congregations to cultivate lasting change from the ground up.
In many Arkansas towns, churches stand as the oldest continuously operating institutions—serving not only as places of worship but also as anchors of public service and community support. The Winthrop Rockefeller Institute’s Civic Arkansan Credential is designed to harness the unique influence of churches, both large and small, by encouraging congregations to reflect on how their shared values shape their role in the broader community. Through values exploration and education on how to engage in civil conversations across differences, this initiative invites faith communities to think expansively about the impact they can have when values guide their civic engagement. Whether that means voting, volunteering, participating in local meetings, or even bridging political divides to strengthen civic health in local communities.
At Innovative Poverty Solutions, we help groups develop and implement community-driven, innovative solutions for poverty reduction. We focus on building community across income lines and utilizing the power of social capital for community change. Social capital is the network of relationships and connections people have that provide access to resources, opportunities, and support. In short, it’s not always what you know, but who you know that matters.
We believe that social capital is the most valuable yet underutilized resource we have in the work to reduce poverty, and churches are one of the best places to build and steward social capital for the good of others.
We provide the training and resources to help you better understand poverty in your local context, convene people together in spaces of dialogue, reimagine what ideas and solutions could be possible, and then help move groups to action.
The tools and support we offer include:
- “Poverty IQ” training:
- An immersive, experiential, and actionable approach to learning about the complexity of poverty and how to begin the work of reducing it.
- An immersive, experiential, and actionable approach to learning about the complexity of poverty and how to begin the work of reducing it.
- Community Dialogue and CoCreate Sessions:
- Small events that facilitate healthy and productive discussion and collaboration to identify specific community barriers to reducing poverty, explore potential solutions, and opportunities to take action.
- Small events that facilitate healthy and productive discussion and collaboration to identify specific community barriers to reducing poverty, explore potential solutions, and opportunities to take action.
- Coaching and Consulting toward implementation:
- As a follow up from training and community collaboration, coaching and support is offered on effectively implementing and integrating new initiatives.
Communities Unlimited connects rural Americans to solutions that sustain healthy businesses, healthy communities, and healthy lives. We believe that access to opportunities should not depend on where you live, how much you have in the bank, or what you look like.