by Dan Smith, President & CEO, The Vermont Community Foundation
In Vermont, we take pride in being resilient. We show up for one another in hard moments. We rebuild after floods. We check on neighbors during long winters. That neighborliness is one of the defining strengths of this place.
But resilience is not enough.
Declining discourse and the erosion of understanding for our neighbors threatens our sense of community. With it goes our ability to navigate disagreement and solve problems. What is driving it? Part of it comes from where we get information and being told that we shouldn’t trust people we think we disagree with. But it also comes from frustration over the lack of progress on issues where people clearly agree. Addressing these hurdles—how to build understanding and how to better position civic institutions to deliver—are central to Vermont’s civic vitality.
In rural communities nationwide, the ground has shifted. This isn’t news. Housing is out of reach for young families. Employers struggle to find workers. Small towns are losing the people and businesses that anchor daily life. Meanwhile, new technology, climate disruption, and a rapidly evolving economy are reshaping the nature of opportunity.
Layered over this is something hard to measure but incredibly consequential: a growing sense of disconnection. Americans report loneliness, declining trust in institutions, less understanding for those we disagree with, and deep anxiety about the future. In Vermont they feed isolation, frustration, and doubts about whether young people have a future in the place they consider home. These trends put our potential to thrive at risk.
Vermont communities still hold an incredibly scarce resource: a deep, lived culture of community. Who shows up when something goes wrong? Your neighbor. That sense of connection—of belonging to a place and to one another—is not just a sentiment. When we thrive, that sense of connection is why.
The question we face is whether to actively sustain that strength—or simply assume it will take care of itself.
Communities don’t thrive by accident or right. When you look at rural places that are growing and adapting successfully, there are clear common intentions: diversifying economies, homes to buy, strong social ties, access to education and careers, vibrant cultural life, access to the outdoors, and civic institutions that people trust and engage in.
Present in Vermont? Somewhat. Our economy remains too concentrated in too few sectors. Too many young people only see opportunity through exodus. Costs of living slam the door on families who would stay here. And our civic culture is under strain.
If we want a future in which our communities thrive, it will take a kind of time and focus to which we are unaccustomed.
It starts with reframing how we think about progress. Too often, we focus on discrete challenges in isolation—housing, workforce, economic development, education, climate. But people don’t live in programs. They live in places. The real work is not just managing problems. It’s creating the conditions that allow communities to thrive. Those conditions are interconnected. Progress on each is better than perfecting one while the others go unaddressed.
A family’s ability to stay in Vermont depends on whether they can afford a home, find meaningful work, and feel connected to their community. Whether it makes sense to keep a school open depends on how many homes are built and how many families with children choose to live in a district. A town’s vitality depends not just on its economy, but on whether people gather, participate, and believe their voice matters.
Pockets of progress aren’t as meaningful. It isn’t about government or education or business or philanthropy and what each might accomplish alone. It is about a broader sense of shared responsibility—and deepening the ways we work together.
We’ve seen what’s possible when it happens: rebuilding after devastating floods, expanding access to opportunity through the Free Degree Promise, confronting loneliness and isolation, creating public-private partnerships that are revitalizing downtowns and villages. It is about launching startups and shepherding generational transitions in our legacy employers. These efforts show potential not because there is any single answer, but because a bunch of folks come together to put resources to work for objectives larger than their own.
The lessons are clear: working together with focus over time creates the potential for Vermont to go beyond resilience. We can thrive.
Vermont’s future will not look like it’s past. We won’t get to dictate the nature of change. The economic and technological landscape is evolving too substantially for that. But the values that have defined Vermont—mutual regard and a strong sense of place—are not outdated. Cohesion is not a byproduct of community, but central to it.
The challenge is to set higher expectations. That means being open to compromise and common ground. It means more homes and an economy that allows young families to build lives here—quickly. It means modernizing government to deliver more effectively.
At a time when so much of the country feels divided and riddled with uncertainty, we have an opportunity to travel a different road. Not because we are immune to challenge or change, but because, so far, we remain close enough to each other and our communities to navigate them. It won’t be smooth, but in Vermont, the bumpiest roads lead to the most beautiful places.
The Vermont Community Foundation was established in 1986 as an enduring source of philanthropic support for Vermont communities. A family of more than 1,000 funds, foundations, and supporting organizations, the Foundation makes it easy for the people who care about Vermont to find and fund the causes they love. The Community Foundation and its partners put nearly $80 million annually to work in Vermont communities and beyond. The heart of its work is closing the opportunity gap—the divide that leaves too many Vermonters struggling to get ahead, no matter how hard they work. The Community Foundation envisions Vermont at its best—where everyone can build a bright, secure future. Visit vermontcf.org or call 802-388-3355 for more information. Give where your heart lives.
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