The Rural Regenerator Fellowship is a two-year fellowship that brings together rural artists, creatives, and culture bearers to deepen their relationships, grow their work, and support rural exchange and solidarity across the Upper Midwest.
Rural artists are leading critical work in their communities by fostering social connectedness, encouraging economic vitality, and addressing local needs. However, rural artists are frequently doing this work without adequate resources, or opportunities to share ideas and build solidarity with other rural artists. Springboard for the Arts’ Rural Regenerator Fellowship fills this need to support and sustain existing creative leadership in rural places across the Upper Midwest, and build long lasting networks of support and exchange.
The Fellowship provides rural artists, creatives and culture bearers with a $10,000 unrestricted stipend, two in-person retreats, support for Fellow exchanges, and participation in Springboard’s annual Rural Futures Summit. The Fellowship is designed to bring rural artists into community with each other to cultivate a network of geographic exchange and solidarity.
Since its launch in 2021, 44 Fellows from across the Upper Midwest have come together to support each other’s work, and share ideas and learning.
The Fellowship is not currently accepting applications.
Header Image Credit: Rural regenerator fellows creating a collaborating art project. Photo by Neh-Dah-Ness Greene.
While no definition is perfect, we generally follow the USDA’s definition of rural, which is a town or tribal community of fewer than 50,000 people that is ALSO at least 40 miles from a metro area*. However, this definition, like so many others, is imperfect and there is always nuance in how communities self-identify.
* metro is generally defined as a city or combo of nearby cities that is 100,000 people or more.
The Rural Regenerator Fellowship is currently focused on the Upper Midwest, which includes Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Wisconsin, Illinois, Michigan, and the Native Nations that share these geographies.
No, the Rural Regenerator Fellowship is not currently accepting applications.
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