Rural America is getting a bailout, but not from Trump-billionaires are riding to the rescue | Fortune

"Rural America is getting a bailout. Billionaires are increasingly stepping in to plug gaps in services, education, and opportunity that many small towns say have been ignored for years. While Washington remains gridlocked over how to revive areas left behind by industrial and demographic change, a growing class of wealthy donors is quietly reshaping the economic future of the countryside with nine-figure checks and thousands of acres of land."

"Minnesota billionaire Glen Taylor, who built Taylor Corp. into a printing empire and became his state's wealthiest resident, is now redirecting a significant slice of his fortune back to the rural communities that raised him. The 84-year-old former dairy farm kid from outside Comfrey, Minnesota ( pop. 376 as of 2024), is transferring farmland and securities worth roughly $100 million into the Taylor Family Farms Foundation, with a specific mandate to support rural areas in Minnesota and Iowa."

"Rather than offering a one-time cash infusion, Taylor's gift is structured to generate income for years, building on a 2023 transfer of about $173 million in farmland that already funds grants through regional nonprofit partners. Taylor said the move is rooted in his own upbringing in southern Minnesota, where he worked on farms and raised chickens, and in a desire to "make a positive impact on the lives of others in a region that I love so much," Taylor said in a statement to the Observer."

Billionaires are increasingly directing major philanthropic resources to small towns and rural regions, filling service, education, and opportunity gaps as federal solutions stall. Glen Taylor is transferring roughly $100 million in farmland and securities to the Taylor Family Farms Foundation to support communities in Minnesota and Iowa, building on a prior $173 million farmland transfer that funds regional nonprofit grants. The gifts are structured to generate ongoing income rather than one-time payouts and are rooted in donors' rural upbringings. Other wealthy donors are similarly targeting rural education and economic needs to reshape local futures.

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