Stacy Caldwell is CEO of the Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation (TTCF), a place-rooted organization working to strengthen communities in California’s North Tahoe-Truckee region. Focusing on housing, mental health, and regional resilience, TTCF brings together public, private, and philanthropic partners to take on big, long-term challenges. As part of the Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group (Aspen CSG)’s Rural Development Hubs peer learning cohort, Stacy has been helping to shape and define what it means to be a Hub — and what it takes to build a more equitable and prosperous rural future.We sat down with Stacy to talk about her journey, what makes the Hub model work, and what keeps her motivated in this challenging and rewarding work.

Driving around my hometown of Truckee, California, I reflect on my time at the Aspen Ideas Festival this past week and how I can share the experience with this rural mountain region. My community isn’t much different than Aspen, with breathtaking landscape, a passionate community of outdoor enthusiasts, and unique challenges that threaten our rural towns across the country.

The Aspen Institute Community Strategies Group (CSG) today released Rural Development Hubs: Strengthening America’s Rural Innovation Infrastructure, a groundbreaking report that identifies common traits of regional organizations creating positive change in rural America. The report challenges the narrative that innovation is confined to urban America, and puts forward Hubs as critical models for advancing comprehensive economic development strategies in rural places. Its findings, developed with support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, are based on more than 40 interviews with field-leading Rural Development Hubs across the nation.