The Countdown Begins:
56 Days Until We Meet on Appalachia's Front Porch!
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April will be here before we know it, and we can’t wait to welcome you to AFN’s Annual Gathering in Ashland, Kentucky (April 13 - 15). Here’s your pre-Gathering checklist to make sure you’re all set:
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- Grab your ticket for AFN's Annual Gathering!
- Book your travel (plane ticket, road trip, or railride - your choice!)
- Reserve your room at the Delta Hotel in Ashland! With no availability remaining for Sunday evening, beds are going quickly! You can also find room blocks at the alternative hotels below.
- Share your registration on LinkedIn!
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Rural News Fund Action Team:
Major Announcement!
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Welcome, New Steering Committee Leaders!
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It is with great excitement that the Appalachia Funders Network welcomes Ashley Ahlers, Annie Forrest, Baylen Campbell, and Heather Parlier to its Steering Committee!
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Watch the recording of our rollout or explore our refreshed programs webpage for more info.
Ready to get involved? Sign up today for one of our upcoming programs or submit your ideas for future offerings.
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→ Communities of Practice: Ongoing, member-only, and practice-based peer-learning circles.
Existing or upcoming communities of practice are:
- Cappalachia | May 13th, 11:00 AM EST
- Arts & Culture | March 17th, 2:00 PM EST
- CEO’s Circle | May 11th, 2 :00PM EST
- Communications | January 19th, 1:00PM EST
- Workforce Enabler Funders | Summer 2026
- Funders of Infrastructure and Civic Support | Summer 2026
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→Learning Journeys: Time-bound, cohort-based learning experiences on a focused topic.
Existing or upcoming learning journeys are:
- The Art of Everyday Civics | Every last Wednesday of the month at 1 PM - Next Session is on 2/25
- Blended Capital for Program Staff | Kickoff on April 13th Pre-Convening @ AFN's Annual Gathering
- Funding for the Moment We’re In | In Development
- Appalachia 101 | In Development
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→Action Teams: Collaborative, action oriented formations focused on producing concrete outcomes (like a playbook, new fund, or solutions to regional challenges).
Existing or upcoming action teams are:
- Rural News Fund | ongoing
- Appalachian Helene Fund | ongoing
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Confluence Philanthropy and Appalachia Funders Network invite you to the Welcome Learning Intensive!
When? Monday, March 2 from12:00 PM - 5:00 PM
Where? The Omni Grove Park Inn & Spa, Asheville, NC
The Welcome Intensive is a workshop to help asset owners new to values-aligned investing familiarize themselves with key concepts and strategies. Topics covered include fiduciary duty, engaging investments advisors, and more.
To register, contact register@confluencephilanthropy.org. AFN members receive a $50 discount!
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AFN is organizing a delegation to Foundations on the Hill (FOTH), hosted annually by United Philanthropy Forum, Council on Foundations, and Independent Sector, from March 16-19, and registration is open now.
If you'd like to get involved, simply register for the event and we'll get connected. If you'd like to support the coordination of AFN's delegation as a Captain alongside Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky's Kristin Walker Collins and Just Transition Fund's Rachael Young, email us!
AFN is partnering with Philanthropy Southeast to bring you access to their prep webinar on March 5th. Register here.
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Join us on the first Friday of the month for our network-wide Hurricane Helene Response Call. This is a space for sharing updates, ideas, and organizing around Helene Recovery and Community Resilience.
Use the button below to register and add the call to your calendar. We look forward to seeing you there!
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Funding Rural, Don't Run from the Mess
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Executive Director, Charlie Brown, speaks on the Funding Rural podcast about the Trust for Civic Life’s role in funding civic engagement. And more than just voting and city council meetings. They are supporting everyday democracy, and it starts with community. Learn more here.
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REDF, Coalfield Development, and the Appalachian Growth Fund to Host Free Workforce Training!
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Join Coalfield Development, REDF, and AGF for a training focused on growing your workforce, reducing hiring costs, and accessing new funding through government partnerships. Built for small businesses, nonprofits, and employers looking to grow their workforce, reduce hiring and training costs, and access federal and local funding opportunities. Register and share the opportunity here!
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Locus has received a $75M New Markets Tax Credits Allocation!
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Locus has received a $75 million New Markets Tax Credits (NMTC) allocation from the latest round of awards announced by U.S. Department of the Treasury at the end of December. Of the total $10 billion allocation, a record $4.6 billion was awarded to CDFIs.
This new round of allocations to CDFIs includes a 20% increase in funding for rural and non-metro areas. It also brings new eligibility criteria that targets investment in communities experiencing poverty rates greater than 40%, specifically supporting rural hospitals, small businesses, domestic manufacturing capacity, and job creation. Read more here.
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Self-Help Awarded $75M in Federal New Market Tax Credits
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Self-Help has been awarded a $75 million New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) allocation from the US Department of the Treasury's Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFI) Fund, which is designed to spur investment and economic growth in low-wealth and rural communities nationwide.
"New Markets Tax Credits are one of the most efficient economic development tools for low-wealth communities ever enacted generating over $77 billion in qualified equity investment and $143 billion in total development financing to support 8,900 business and community facilities across the U.S. and creating more than 1.2 million jobs," says Sarah Brennan, Structured Finance Sector Leader at Self-Help. "With this most recent award, Self-Help is thrilled to continue to invest in high-impact projects that not only transform lives at the individual level, but re-shape entire communities."
Read more here.
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Self-Help Awarded $75M in Federal New Market Tax Credits
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The Reinvestment Fund has been awarded a $75 million New Markets Tax Credit (NMTC) allocation by the U.S. Treasury Department’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund, under its CY2024-2025 $10 billion, double round.
Read more here.
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Truist has launched their Truist Community Catalyst Initiative (TCCI) request for information.
Our Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) team built this innovative funding opportunity to inspire and build better lives and communities across our bank’s footprint. Truist is looking to partner with nonprofits to help them expand their existing services or create new programs that address critical community development needs, particularly in the areas of affordable housing, community services, economic development or revitalization. Learn more here.
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This opportunity offers flexible funding support for up to two years that organizations can use to maintain core operations, infrastructure and stability as they continue to recover and rebuild following Hurricane Helene.
It’s open to 501(c)(3) nonprofit public charities with annual operating budgets of at least $200,000 that serve the Qualla Boundary and/or 18 counties of Western North Carolina, and are strategically aligned with Dogwood’s priorities of housing, education, economic opportunity and/or health & wellness.
Access the opportunity here. Applications are due 2/17.
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Kentucky Foundation for Women
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KFW recognizes the need for quick turn-around funds to support career advancement opportunities for Kentucky feminist artists that may come up outside of our regular grant programs. The KFW Artist Career Development Mini-Grant (ACD) provides up to $500 to support activities that further a KFW artist’s career, broaden the audience or impact of their work, and strengthen artist networks.
Read more about the opportunity here.
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Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
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The RWJF (Robert Wood Johnson Foundation) is offering grants of $50,000 to nonprofit organizations working on local data projects that address inequities in their communities.
The Local Data for Equitable Communities program funds projects focused on built environment, climate and environment, community safety, healthy food access, housing, or transportation. Up to 30 grants will be awarded with a nine-month period of performance.
This could be valuable for nonprofits working on place-based initiatives. Applications are due March 3, 2026, at 3:00 p.m. ET. Read more here.
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If you have news, an opportunity, grant, or webinar you would like for AFN to share in its next newsletter, please submit it here!
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Lately, we have been sitting with the question of what success really looks like when investing in Appalachia. How is investing in rural places different from investing in urban markets? At Opportunity Appalachia’s Investor Convening in Asheville last August, Invest Appalachia’s CEO asked the question: what does risk actually look like in this region? Is it real or is it perceived? Is it replicability, scalability, uniformity? Or is it something harder to measure, honoring place, local ownership, and individuality?
Those questions matter because, too often, rural projects are evaluated by metrics built for somewhere else. Investing in rural can seem complicated and expensive. But perhaps what it really requires is investors who are willing to see the value of place-based work, listen to local voices, and help restore pride in the people and historic buildings that have shaped community identity. Simply put, rural investment requires patient, community-aligned capital.
This month’s Opportunity Appalachia project shows that success doesn’t have to be flashy and scalable, it can be rooted in place and locally owned. We’re heading to Bluefield, West Virginia, where two long-vacant former Green Book hotels, the Hotel Thelma and the Travelers Hotel, are getting a new lease on life through closely connected redevelopment efforts. This month, that accelerates with a groundbreaking celebration at the Hotel Thelma!
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Together, the adaptive reuse projects represent a $6.5 investment in Bluefield’s future. The Hotel Thelma has successfully raised its capital stack and will begin construction soon, and the Travelers Hotel continues to advance its capital raise. Once complete, the two buildings will create 21 affordable apartments, a restaurant, and retail space, generating 40 temporary construction jobs and 10 permanent jobs. And it takes on the old chicken-and-egg debate: which comes first, housing or jobs? In Bluefield, the answer is both.
The Hotel Thelma, located in Bluefield’s historically Black East End neighborhood, will become 10 affordable apartments for seniors, alongside a restaurant space that will feature exhibits honoring the history of Black entrepreneurship in the community. The Travelers Hotel downtown will be renovated into 11 affordable apartments serving working residents, veterans, and seniors, with a retail bay located in the former lobby, also paying tribute to the legacy of businesses that once thrived there.
This project serves both a very real need while also betting on the city’s future. A recent housing study found that professionally managed apartments in Bluefield operate at vacancy rates below 1%. The city’s planning commission has identified rental housing as a priority for economic growth. If workers can’t find housing, employers can’t succeed.
Both properties have been vacant since the 1990s. The Hotel Thelma is significant to African American cultural heritage at the local, regional, and national levels as a rare surviving, Black-owned safe haven from the Jim Crow era and a cornerstone of Bluefield’s historically Black commercial and social life. Located in the Bluefield Green Book Historic District (listed on the National Register for Historic Places under Criterion A for Black Ethnic Heritage, Social History, and Transportation), Hotel Thelma was one of five Bluefield businesses listed in the Negro Motorist Green Book. Included in the Green Book from 1950–1961, the Hotel Thelma is tied to the nationwide network of places that helped Black Americans travel with greater safety and dignity when discrimination restricted access to lodging, meals, and services.
Their restoration shows that places, and the history they hold, are worth investing in.
Led by the Bluefield Arts and Revitalization Corporation (BARC), the project builds on a strong track record of historic preservation and downtown revitalization. Financing includes Affordable Housing Program grants from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Pittsburgh, state and federal historic tax credits, and additional grants from CDFIs and state partners.
Investing in Appalachia doesn’t have to mean chasing the next big thing. Sometimes it looks like reopening the doors that should never have closed and doing it in a way that preserves and strengthens local ownership, dignity, and culture.
Members in AFN’s network, like Invest Appalachia and Appalachian Community Capital are helping to reopen those doors - aligning capital with community vision in ways that are catalytic, not extractive. That’s what success in investing looks like in Appalachia.
Quote from Daniel Wallace, President & CEO of Appalachian Community Capital:
"Projects like the Hotel Thelma and the Travelers Hotel remind us that investment successes in Appalachia are measured in real community outcomes: affordable homes for seniors, new gathering spaces for Bluefield residents and visitors, and the celebration of local African American history. Opportunity Appalachia is proud to have supported some of the pre-development steps that led the projects to where they are today."
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Other News That Caught Our Eye
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- WV Mine Wars | Solidarity: A community mural honoring Mine War Figures
- FaquierNow | Lawsuit filed to protect rare Appalachian Salamander found in Virginia, neighboring states
- WV Public Broadcasting | Understanding Flooding in Appalachia
- GEO | Toward Meaningful, Valuable, Equitable Governance
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