Community Strategies Group

Since 1985, the Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group (Aspen CSG) has been committed to equitable rural prosperity. We work towards a future where rural communities and Native nations are healthy places where each and every person belongs, lives with dignity, and thrives.

Through our years of work across America, Aspen CSG has cultivated a deep and broad network of the nation’s most innovative and dedicated rural community and economic development practitioners. Aspen CSG serves as a connecting hub, designing and facilitating action-inducing peer learning among national organizations, leaders, and policymakers to collaborate and learn from these rural practitioners.

Aspen CSG advances an asset-based and systems-building approach to community and economic development. The foundational part of this work is the Thrive Rural Framework. This framework is a tool for everyone invested in the prosperity and wellbeing of rural communities and Native nations to take stock, target action, and gauge progress on the essential underlying building blocks for sustainable, equitable rural prosperity.