Bridging Network
RUX Community Conversation at Riney Farms in Owensboro, Daviess County, July 2023
Connecting institutional & civic leaders across Kentucky to work across differences
In partnership with the Greater Clark Foundation, Estill Development Alliance, and CivicLex, the RUX Bridging Network launched to build relationships and shared commitment among Kentucky institutional and civic leaders.
The network leverages the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange (RUX)’s partnership and alumni network, which spans more than half of Kentucky’s counties. We aim to connect Kentucky institutional and civic leaders who are committed to working across differences, and we know this work benefits the social, physical, and economic health of their communities.
Read the field scan!
Bridging Network: Visionaries of Civic Innovation (2024) identifies inspiring civic health work happening across Kentucky. As part of the Bridging Network, three Civic Innovation Fellows — RayeGina Edens, Helena Sands, and Zack Milford — interviewed these innovators for an in-depth look at the work they do to develop their communities.
With support from the Greater Clark Foundation, the Bridging Network was piloted in spring 2024 and gathered a consortium over a series of conversations to:
connect Kentucky’s civic champions across the public, private, and third sectors,
define what bridge work looks like in our context,
explore and map how and where Kentuckians are leading these efforts locally,
and share funding and research opportunities for this kind of work.
Beginning with a small network of individual leaders RUX has partnered with in the past, we worked together to publish learnings that surfaced in this process and pilot year, and continue to leverage those findings to build capacity for Kentucky institutions to advance these ideals.