The Why Arkansas? Funders Tour

February 15-17, 2012

Thank you to the participants, sponsors, speakers, and nonprofit partners that helped make the Why Arkansas? Funders Tour possible. The tour explored the question – “Why Arkansas?” – through visits to places, discussions with local people, and stories told on a journey across Arkansas. Participants discovered the answer that Arkansas is a place ripe for reform and ready for investment.

The tour included discussions of how funders, cornerstone organizations, and large coalitions in Arkansas are successfully advancing education reform, community building, civic engagement, and poverty reduction in the state. In addition, participants learned that the lessons and strategies developed in Arkansas have implications for the South, the Midwest, and the nation. Find out more about the tour and the state:

• Tour Program
• Registered Tour Participants
• Why is Arkansas a Place of Change?: Five Factors that Make Arkansas a Leader in Policy Change
• Ripe for Reform: Arkansas as a Model for Social Change 
• Aspire Arkansas Community Indicators Report
• Video: Clinton School of Public Service Public Program

Complete a feedback survey to share your input from the tour.

During the tour, we listened to the feedback given and are committed to:

• Document Progress – Share stories of Arkansas’s policy progress on issues such as pre-K, and create case studies that show other states what success looks like in communities such as Gould and Helena-West Helena.

• Continue the Conversation – Bring the Tour to national funders through a New York based session, national webinars, and by partnering with affinity groups such as the Southern Organizing Working Group and Grantmakers for Education.

• Shape the Message – Frame the conversation around Arkansas so that the state is seen as a viable entry point into investment in the South, and share the Poverty Taskforce Report with national funders as an example of a road map for investment.

We welcome further thoughts and will update this webpage as new and relevant information becomes available. Until then, thank you again for being part of the Why Arkansas? Funders Tour.

Sponsors for the tour include:

• Annie E. Casey Foundation
• Arkansas Community Foundation
• Charles A. Frueauff Foundation
• Clinton School of Public Service - Center on Community Philanthropy
• Endeavor Foundation
• Kresge Foundation
• Marguerite Casey Foundation
• Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation
• The Needmor Fund
• Neighborhood Funders Group
• Schott Foundation for Public Education
• Walton Family Foundation
• William J. Clinton Foundation
• Winthrop Rockefeller Foundation
• W.K. Kellogg Foundation

Questions? Please contact:

Regan Gruber Moffitt
rmoffitt@wrfoundation.org
501-376-6854