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The Case for the Endowment Fund to Revitalize Rural Canada
Registered Charity No. 0990655-59
Fondation Canadienne Pour
La Revitalisation Rurale
The Case
CRRF is part of the new way of doing business: a private Foundation with a mission not suitable for governments and not within the mandates of individual firms in the private sector. CRRF is a unique nationwide Foundation dedicated to resolving issues around business and community performance, together with the environmental, employment and poverty issues facing rural Canadians.
Shareholders of publicly held companies have a clear mutual interest in a healthy fit between their rural operations and the rural economy. Corporate Canada faces tough tradeoffs regarding internal cost structures and commitment to promoting the well being of rural Canadians. Utilities, financial institutions, transportation and communications industries face rural over-capacity problems, thin sluggish rural markets and a political need to maintain standards of service. A strong rural economy would feed the stable growing customer demand needed to enable private companies and urban citizens to benefit fully from their extensive investment in rural infrastructure.
Serious investments in research and education are critical to developing strong strategic activities for full, satisfying participation of rural people in the national and global economies. As governments pull back and economic and social restructuring accelerates with globalization, rural needs become increasingly urgent. Years of dependency and a seemingly endless series of sector and regional rural crises have left rural Canada poorly positioned.
The case for CRRF is not a case for charity. It is a case for mobilizing national resources for a stronger more productive Canadian rural economy. The need for rural revitalization has been made many times over many years.
What is CRRF?
Initiated in 1987, CRRF was formally incorporated in 1991 and in 1992 was registered as a charitable volunteer organization, dedicated to apolitical research and education to benefit rural Canada. CRRF was conceived to bring the resources and creative minds of individuals within private enterprises, communities, governments and universities together to look at the issues, challenges and opportunities inherent in the restructuring of rural Canada.
The CRRF Mission
- Revitalize rural Canada. All Canadians benefit when rural Canada is strong, productive and sustainable. CRRF achieves this mission through education and research for rural leaders, in communities, business and commerce, and in government.
- Build mutually beneficial rural/urban relationships. Improved understanding of the common interest of rural and urban Canadians advances the fortunes of all, and reduces rural dependency.
Core Values
- Respect for common interests: The common interests of investors, researchers, and rural and urban people are to be explored, broadened and deepened, inclusively.
- Innovation: The greatest proportion of the earnings from the Endowment Fund must be used to be the best we can at delivering concrete, evidently useful options and opportunities.
- Accountable: CRRF is open, transparent and accountable.
- Inclusive: The diversity of Canadian talent, interest and communities can find a home in CRRF to advance sound rural outcomes.
Vision
- CRRF believes that fresh solutions through research and continuing education can be found to break the long series of income, environment and employment crises in rural Canada.
- CRRF is committed to Canadian global competitiveness by `trading up' on rural family income, standard of living, environmental and countryside amenities, rural heritage and human safety.
- CRRF believes that alliances and partnerships among rural organizations, professionals, universities, corporate citizens and the urban public are critical to success for rural Canadians.
CRRF meets corporate, rural and government needs
CRRF volunteers have been active, in a reasoned well-documented manner for well over a decade. CRRF has appeared by invitation before two parliamentary committees. Twelve successive annual conferences and a dozen workshops have been held from Nelson British Columbia to St Clement Quebec and Newtown Newfoundland. CRRF researchers regularly participate nationally and internationally, and vice versa. Researchers affiliated with CRRF have published over 150 papers and book chapters since 1991. CRRF has jointly published three books and is in the process with several more.
Critical requirements for rural revitalization:
One: Clarify and understand the fit among technology, global markets and the local economy. The CRRF research suggests that global success does not filter down. So far rural Canada has been generally excluded from wealth generated by the global success of the Canadian economy. Population has declined most for the most globally exposed rural places. The rural informal economy is an important bridging arrangement for both intra and intergenerational adjustments. Investment, pricing, management style and public policy can offset consolidation of grain elevators, commerce, and financial and government services.
Two: Build local capacity for initiative in conceiving and executing `bankable projects'. CRRF research suggests the social capital needed to keep projects bankable varies considerably across rural Canada. The social capacity of rural communities uniformly needs considerable development to substitute the increasingly complex new economy solutions for old economy obsolescence. CRRF is nurturing a learning culture and developing options based on comparative research in 16 lagging and 16 leading sites of its rural observatory.
Three: Fill critical and widening gaps in capacity among governments, the private sector and rural communities to reinvent the needed rural social and economic infrastructure needed for rural revitalization. CRRF experience suggests that peer-based relationships work best for continuing education and research. All partners must feel their needs are addressed before sustainable solutions can be found. A trusted third party, such as CRRF, requires independent core funding and infrastructure to build dependable relationships and to develop evidently useful options for the long run.
Major activities of CRRF:
- The New Rural Economy (NRE) research program is financed by several friends of CRRF and most especially by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada in a third successful competition, with $3 million over four years to 2006.
- An annual Autumn Conference, "rural university" in a rural locality shares knowledge and nurtures the rural learning culture with out-of-the-box ideas to broaden perspectives.
- An annual "think tank" style workshop in rural Canada nurtures the research and long-term vision for transition within the rural economy.
- A rural observatory of 32 sites across rural Canada, 16 leading and 16 lagging, enables problem-solving comparative research, and encourages a local learning culture by giving back to the sites.
- A data archive contains an accessible collection of macro and micro data on rural Canada, together with results of rural research.
How are the Funds to be used?
Execute research projects initiated by the Foundation, including the New Rural Economy (NRE) Program, begun in 1997.
Educate and train university graduate students to meet the future research needs of rural Canadians.
Finance interdisciplinary research projects selected by peer review jointly with rural citizens.
Disseminate results, nurture a rural learning culture, and finance the "think-tank" Workshops and the annual "Rural University" of the Foundation.
Sustain comparative research obligations with international partner foundations and institutes,
Manage the Foundation and the Fund.
Principles for Endowment-raising
"Gift exchange": This principle is the confident anticipation that investment in a mutually beneficial enterprise will generate a rate of return in the form of benefits and satisfaction of rural Canadians, and improved financial performance for investors.
Diversity: Build diversity among investors with the greatest common interest in a vital vibrant rural economy.
Flexibility: Forms of investment may include all types of stable revenue-earning assets. Contributions to the Endowment may be staged over time for a better fit with investors' circumstances and other commitments.
Websites
The CRRF and NRE websites provide access for Canadians to research on options and opportunities for rural Canada. The sites explain the needs and contributions of the Foundation, and make data available to researchers. Rural Canadians, researchers and investors are linked to CRRF's world-wide network.
Additional Information
Contact:L. Peter Apedaile
Tel: 780-636-2836
Email: leonard.apedaile@ualberta.ca
