Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange

Kentucky

Since 2015, I have been a founding Steering Committee member for the nationally-lauded Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange.

I have helped grow Kentucky RUX into the national best practice for creative leadership programs. I provide key strategic guidance, serve in fundraising capacities, and have led several projects, including research into our model through the National Endowment for the Arts and our expansion work in Minnesota.

You can download the case studies I co-authored with my dear friend and colleague Ivy Brashear using this link.

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What is the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange?

The Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange is a creative leadership program designed to build confidence, grow social capital, and bridge divides to unite Kentuckians.

Every year, the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange (RUX) brings 75 Kentuckians together for a transformative leadership program rooted in Kentucky culture. Participants square dance with folks in recovery at a treatment facility in Appalachia, share traditional Bosnian coffee with immigrants and refugees in Southern Kentucky mosques, and listen to young veterans share their military service experience while staying on an army base in the Western Kentucky coalfields. From the mountains to the cities, RUX is uplifting local cultures to help people make meaningful connections and tell stories that are as exciting, diverse, and complex as Kentucky itself.

After only six years, RUX has been celebrated by the Wall Street Journal, Christian Science Monitor, NPR’s 1A, the Atlantic’s CityLab, Huffington Post, Stateline, and NonProfit Quarterly. We’ve been featured at the Kennedy Center’s Arts Summit and the National Rural Assembly, and in studies by the National Governors Association and Americans for the Arts. RUX is supported by the National Endowment for the Arts and is replicating its unique model in Minnesota with support from the McKnight Foundation. As RUX continues to gain national recognition, Kentucky has the opportunity to lead the conversation on rural-urban interdependence.