In the latest episode of the Reimagine Rural podcast, Tony Pipa, Senior Fellow at Brookings’ Center for Sustainable Development, documents the revitalization underway in Hazard, Kentucky, a rural town experiencing downtown renewal and a civic renaissance as it navigates the loss of the coal industry and the impact of the opioid epidemic. In this conversation with Ryan Eller, executive director of the Appalachia Funders Network, they explore the powerful ways that narratives—both positive and negative—can shape a community’s identity and future, and the role philanthropy and policy can play in enabling sustainability and prosperity and building community resilience in Appalachia.

This conversation has been lightly edited for clarity and brevity.

Tony Pipa (TP): To begin, can you tell us about the Appalachia Funders Network?

Ryan Eller (RE): The Appalachia Funders Network (AFN) is a six-state network across Central Appalachia helping to organize funders of all kinds, including community development finance institutions (CDFIs), traditional financial institutions, local community foundations like the Foundation for Appalachian Kentucky (which is where our office is housed), and other national philanthropic organizations that invest in the region. We are committed to a transition from the coal economy into something in which everybody can thrive.

TP: What’s your personal history as it relates to Appalachia?

RE: I’m based in Kentucky, but I was born in Western North Carolina and have family all across the Central Appalachian Mountains. I go back more than 10 generations in Central Appalachia. My white ancestors were actually the first settlers of Western North Carolina, and my indigenous ancestors go back in East Kentucky and Tennessee, and what’s now the Qualla Boundary with the Eastern Band of Cherokee. In many ways, my ancestors have been in this region for about 1500 years.

My father wrote one of the first histories of Appalachia, “Miners, Mill Hands, and Mountaineers.” We’ve been building community resilience in Appalachia and thinking and caring for this place and these people for quite some time.

Read the full article about building Appalachian resilience by Anthony F. Pipa and Ryan Eller at Brookings.