Grow It

A family can earn a good living, handle its finances wisely, and still be one blown tire or an emergency room visit away from financial crisis. Research repeatedly shows: Families achieve financial stability when they begin accumulating assets in savings, homeownership, higher education and retirement accounts. As families Earn It and Keep It, they achieve short-term gains. As families Grow It, they convert these short-term gains into something even more valuable—long-term economic success.

Lasting Outcome

When Rural Family Economic Success happens, it’s easy to see tangible signs in a community.  Here’s what it looks like when families are able to Grow what they keep into assets:

Working families accumulate and maintain assets that gain value and advance family and community prosperity over time.

This means that family members are saving, advancing their education, buying homes and acquiring other assets that improve their financial prospects over generations; they are caring for and maintaining those assets; and that civic engagement and local investment increases the value of family and community assets over time.

Goals

The RuFES approach includes 10 Grow It goals that, if met, contribute to sustained family economic success.  Follow the links below to find common sense reasons for why a goal is important, fast facts that back up the importance of the goal, and action ideas that rural communities are using to help families plant their feet firmly on the Grow It road toward family economic success.  

Build Family Prospects: Accumulating Family and Community Assets

• Goal 1: Family members establish a financial cushion by regularly building their savings over time.
• Goal 2: Families find, finance at competitive rates, and purchase quality homes in their communities.
• Goal 3: Families build retirement-restricted financial assets.
• Goal 4: Families maintain and retain the value of any owned or inherited land and property.
• Goal 5: Children of working families get high quality pre-K-to-12 schooling, and attain higher education levels that improve their family’s economic status.

Build Community Prospects: Increasing the Value of Family Assets in the Community

• Goal 6: Family members increasingly participate in community activities and hold leadership roles.
• Goal 7: Family-owned housing stock increases in value throughout the community.
• Goal 8: Family purchasing power, productivity and entrepreneurship strengthens local businesses.
• Goal 9: Families contribute to charitable causes and endowments that benefit the community and its people.
• Goal 10: Families and young people want – and are able – to stay, return to, or move to the community.