On October 24th, 2023, a group of rural economy experts met to discuss ground-up economic development, the industries incentivizing losing options, and the opportunities to advance real economic solutions.
Featured Quotes and Key Takeaways
- “We have 20 percent fewer women with children under six in the workforce than the national average. And it’s mainly because of the child care question,”
- Rural economic development requires investing in people, not just things.
- Funding structures incentivize bad ideas, like building unneeded jails – “local economic leaders and people … thought that a bigger jail might mean more economic development … those analyses have often proved false. And there’s plenty of state and local and federal policies to blame on those things.”
What Do You Think?
Please share what resonated or what is missing from the conversation here!
Expert Bios
Anne McSweeney
Anne McSweeney is the Director of National Initiatives for First Children’s Finance. She leads strategic consultation and systems change efforts to strengthen and stabilize child care businesses. Recent projects include leading the Minnesota Department of Human Services Cost of Care Study, advising state early childhood leaders in Oregon in designing coordinated supports for child care businesses, and evaluating how access to capital barriers impact child care access, quality, and affordability in Nebraska. Prior to joining FCF, Anne led child care initiatives at the ICA Group, a nonprofit business consulting firm focused on developing worker cooperatives and social enterprises in the care sector. In this role, she led cooperative development initiatives in partnership with child care businesses in Philadelphia, Chicago, Detroit, and rural Mississippi. Anne earned a Master’s in Public Policy and Administration at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and her Bachelor’s at Wesleyan University.
Dr. Jacob Kang-Brown
Dr. Jacob Kang-Brown is socio-legal researcher and senior research fellow with Vera’s Jails Team, exploring the use of incarceration across the United States. At Vera, Jacob has conducted research on school discipline, status offense reform, policing and crime rates, hate crime, language access, jail and prison populations, charging and sentencing practices, electronic monitoring, and solitary confinement in prisons.
Before working at Vera, Jacob worked for the County of Los Angeles Commission on Human Relations. His writing has appeared in the Lancet Public Health, the New York Review of Books, Contexts, SSM-Population Health, the Atlantic, Dissent, USA Today, and American Jails magazine.
Jacob holds a BA in sociology with an emphasis in urban studies from Wheaton College, as well as an MA in social ecology and a PhD in criminology, law, and society with an emphasis in critical theory from the University of California, Irvine.
Karen Affeld
Karen Affeld has more than 25 years of experience in rural development, fundraising, and non-profit administration in natural resource-based communities. Having worked in the public, private, and non-profit sectors, she brings a diverse skill set to projects where common ground can be difficult to identify. She specializes in collaborative, multi-stakeholder projects and rural economic and community development. When not meeting with partners or writing grant proposals, she enjoys spending time with her horses and dogs and exploring the Olympic Peninsula. She holds Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees from Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge.
