Regional Rural Poll

Program Summary:
“Citizen input is critical if policy makers are to govern well and to empower the public.  Yet rural Hoosiers have never before been surveyed on how they feel about their communities.  Consequently, policy makers and others are often left flying blind when it comes to rural Indiana.”  During a press conference on November 13th (that featured Lieutenant Governor Becky Skillman and USDA Under Secretary Thomas Dorr) this dynamic regional poll was introduced to rural community leaders attending the first Indiana Rural Summit (another PCRD project).  In partnership with the Purdue Social Research Institute 2,314 rural Hosiers were interviewed about the issues their communities face, strategies for improvement, and ways to pay for those strategies.

Partnerships:
In order to implement this project a number of both internal (to Purdue University) and external partnerships have been established with:

• the Purdue Social Research Institute where Purdue undergraduate and graduate students participated in collecting survey information from over 2,314 rural residents;
• the Indiana Office of Community and Rural Affairs and the Indiana USDA-Rural Development Office.

Program Impacts:
While the Regional Rural Poll was only publicly released in November, the collected data has been utilized in a number of state and federal reports including:

• Lt. Governor Becky Skillman’s “Rural Indiana Strategy for Excellence (RISE) 2020 Report”;
• Indiana’s statewide comprehensive plan relative to the utilization of Community Development Block Grant federal dollars.
• PCRD is providing leadership regarding the launching of a national network consisting of some 20 universities and centers interested in rural polls.  This national network is now exploring the possibility of pooling resources to launch a national rural poll that would be used by national policy makers, governmental agencies and related NGOs.