Microgrants

1. REGIONAL MEETUPS: Regional Meetups that connect RUXers across a Rhizome region with other community minded people and organizations.

• Grant Amount: $350 (One per region)

• What You’ll Do: Host a public meetup that uses creative strategies to connect Kentuckians and showcase remarkable places, stories, & people.

2. STORY SUPPERS: Gatherings that invite RUXers from near and far to exchange stories over a storycircle and meal in special places.

• Grant Amount: $700 (One per region)

• What You’ll Do: Host a meal and storycircle for 25-30 people in a place that is important to you/your region. The story circle prompt should examine connection to place. Grantees receive Storycircle training and a toolkit.

Local workshops to advance discourse on a local issue and funding to support civic experiments that address the issue.

Grant Amount: $2500 (4 available)

Who Can Apply: Local teams of 2-3 RUXers who will host a workshop with 10+ local neighbors.

What You’ll Do: Host an Abundant Futures workshop + distribute microgrants for teams to address a local issue by consulting on eachother’s ideas, with $1500 to support the projects that come out of them. Grantees receive Abundant Futures training and toolkit.

A seed grant to support projects led by two or more RUX members, alumni, or partners collaborating across distance and difference.

Grant Amount: $250-$2,000

What You’ll Do: Create & complete a project aligned with one of our themed funding pools. You’ll also attend two skill-building workshops & check-ins.

Applications are open multiple times a year, depending on the program. Our next application period (for Rhizomes & Civic Strength Clubs) will be open October 15 - November 13, 2026.

As of June 2026, all RUX microgrant recipients must enroll in Art of the Rural’s payroll system Gusto to receive their funds. Our staff is on hand to help you with this process

After enrolling, you will be able to select from a Direct Deposit or mailed check for your payout method.

And yes, RUX microgrant awards are taxable income. Please follow all necessary reporting steps and seek advice from an accounting professional.

We are deeply grateful for the funding and partnership of local, regional, and national organizations, foundations, and businesses, which make our microgrant program possible. Microgrants are also supported by RUX Memberships, directly reinvesting monthly or annual donations into our statewide network.

First off, we’re so glad you’re here! Storycircles and Abundant Futures are core parts of the RUX Currency of Connection curriculum.

STORYCIRCLES: RUX uses Storycircles to support openness, listening, and connection as we develop a diverse, nuanced Kentucky story that deeply impacts their experience of belonging and pride of place. Our story circle practice has a specific history: RUX learned how to hold story circles from Roadside Theater, which they in turn learned from John O'Neal of Junebug Productions, the Free Southern Theater, and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). RUX proudly acknowledges this connection to the spirit and practices of the Civil Rights Movement.

ABUNDANT FUTURES: To spur new thinking and collaboration, we assign diverse cross-sector working groups to collaborate on recurring consultancy protocols. Abundant Futures supports deep listening, humility, pitching, critical feedback, and project design. Abundant Futures was developed collaboratively by Kentuckians since our founding in 2014.

As a micrograntee, you will receive training on facilitating both of these parts of the RUX curriculum. In the meantime, learn more about the curriculum and our approach at kyrux.org/our-approach.

At Art of the Rural and the Kentucky Rural-Urban Exchange (RUX), we recognize that AI - including the use of Language Learning Models (LLMs), also referred to as Generative AI - can be a tool that makes grant writing more accessible, especially for those without formal training in this area.

However, we strongly encourage you to forgo AI use, since our work is grounded in lived experience -something AI lacks. This is in addition to the environmental, intellectual, communal, and ethical impacts AI technologies are having on communities across the world, especially rural communities and Black, Indigenous, and People of Color communities. When used instead of human authorship, AI eschews accountability and engenders privacy & safety concerns.

Our application review team is eager to hear your authentic voice, ideas, and connection to Kentucky’s people and places. If you have any questions or would like a more detailed version of this policy, please reach out to us at kentuckyrux@gmail.com.

We are deeply grateful to our partners at the Kentucky Foundation for Women for sharing their AI policy with us.