Join us for the second event in our series of community conversations about developing a policy network in the Sandhills region of North Carolina. This session is focused on the challenges and interests that leaders in Cumberland and Sampson County would want to address with a regional policy network.

• All participants who register and attend will receive a $20 gift card as a token of our appreciation for your valuable time and insight!
• Please feel free to share this with other community leaders who might want to attend and encourage them to register on this page.
• We recommend that you bring something to share about your work or organization if it’s available (business cards, one-pagers, flyers, etc.)!

More details:

MDC is a nonprofit organization and catalyst that accelerates equitable change in the South by working alongside changemakers in local communities to shape a South where all people thrive.

Over the past 6 months, MDC’s Rural Prosperity & Investment team has been reaching out to leaders across the Sandhills region to learn about their policy needs and interests. These conversations are the beginning phase of a project called the Rural Action Network. This project aims to build a base of engaged, active advocates at the local level who are trained and supported to impact regional, state, or federal policy and systems change.

The information collected during this inital phase of the project has been used to create a larger data profile of the region, highlighting areas of opportunity in the policy and advocacy space and lifting up the region’s largest challenges.

As we move to the second phase of this project, we would like to share the data profile with the community and groundtruth the information with those who live and work in the area. We are doing this through focus groups that bring together 1-3 counties at a time throughout the Sandhills region.

During this session, we will bring together community leaders that live and work in Cumberland and Sampson Counties to accomplish the following objectives:

1. Reflect and give feedback on the presented data profile
2. Learn about each other’s work
3. Discuss the development of a policy network that could address the needs and challenges in Sampson & Cumberland Counties and the greater Sandhills region.