Online portal seeks to decrease rural health "phlanthropy gap"

A federal agency and national association have commissioned a toolkit to help groups raise more money for rural health-related projects. The creators hope a rising tide in funding will lift all boats.A new online “learning portal” seeks to help rural organizations raise more funding from philanthropies, which tend to favor urban projects and organizations over rural ones, a federal study shows. “There’s been a great interest in philanthropic investments in rural communities,” said Alana Knudson, one of the portal’s contributors. Knudson is co-director of the Walsh Center for Rural Health Analysis at the non-partisan research organization NORC at the University of Chicago.  The online toolkit was developed through the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) in partnership with the National Rural Health Association (NRHA), who have convened an annual philanthropy meeting for the last five years