Stewarding the Future of Our Communities profiles citizen engagement experiences of five rural communities across five States.   Its overarching theme:  Successful stewardship ultimately depends on the cultivation and promotion of community-wide, cross-sector collaboration to achieve its goals.

The report suggests that, In an era of increasing challenge to the integrity and viability of small towns, it is community collaboration – residents working together to articulate and achieve their community’s core values and long-range visions – that offers the greatest hope for stewarding community engagement and planning over time.  It then identifies five approaches that rural communities and small cities (in fact cities of all sizes) must employ to shape successful futures. 

• Honoring local values:  uncovering and weaving into strategies the locally held values that connect communities and regions
• Sustaining citizen engagement:  bringing citizens to the table early in the planning stages and developing strategies to maintain their involvement are essential
• Achieving visions and plans: continually communicating with citizens about progress toward goals is vital for current and future endeavours in communities
• Holding leaders accountable:  building community stewarding strategies into government, business and community priorities will ensure movement forward and success
• Responding to a changing world:  being aware of the strategic and emergent shifts that are occurring across the community, state or country