Rural Community Development Corporation of California

Supporting Disadvantaged Rural Communities

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About Thomas Brandeberry

 

Thomas Brandeberry
President & CEO
Rural Community Development Corporation of California (RCDCC)

A retired state Section Chief, Tom Brandeberry formed RCDCC to fill a gap in the needs of California’s disadvantaged rural communities. His experience comes from working at the Department of Housing and Community Development for over ten years, with seven of those years as a Section Chief for several federal Housing and Urban Development (HUD), programs, including:

  • HOME Investment Partnership Program (HOME)
  • Community Development Block Grant (CDBG) Program
  • Neighborhood Stabilization Program (NSP)
  • Disaster Recovery Initiative (DRI) Program

In managing these programs, Tom developed new programs, created and revised multiple Notices of Funding Availability (NOFA’s), program guidelines, manuals and training materials (internal and external), and developed workshops and annual and bi-annual conferences.  In addition, he worked directly with HUD in developing policy statements, completed reorganizations, and provided direct technical assistance to California’s many disadvantaged rural communities.

These State of California programs focused solely on rural California, especially disadvantaged communities. Tom has seen the struggles and impediments of rural governance. With the state government primarily focused on urban and metropolitan areas of California, rural communities are expected to manage the same challenges as urban areas with inevitable gaps in capacities. This shortage of local capacity, attributable to limited human resources or other direct capacity to get services into these sometime remote areas, leaves many rural, disadvantaged communities with few options to grow and become sustainable communities.  In addition, personnel frequently struggle to obtain up-to-date knowledge of best practices with communities hard pressed to send staff to trainings or workshops to build knowledge and collaborative experience.

With Tom’s background with the state and the services of RCDCC, it is his hope that some of this missing capacity can be filled by RCDCC or developed locally with RCDCC’s support.

The following is a letter from the Fair Political Practice Commission (FPPC) addressing the legal question of whether Tom Brandeberry may have contract with HCD, and particularly the CDBG Program: Legal_Advice

Rural Community Development

Community Development   is a process whereby diverse and representative groups of community members come together to take collective action and generate solutions (plans) for common problems; building livable, sustainable communities in the process.

Rural Community Development   is the above, with an understanding that many rural communities lack the resources and capacity to manage this process without assistance, training, resources, and technical assistance.

Why
Aside from the most important reason (it’s needed), if not for our rural communities who would manage our forests? Who would protect our waterways? Who would put the food on our plates? Who would provide those services travelers expect as they drive the many freeways?

California’s rural communities have, as we all know, very limited resources. The more donations we receive the less community funding we will need. Thank you.

PLEASE DONATE

RCDCC is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization. Our ID is 82-1325014
IRS Non Profit Determination Letter (pdf)