ASPI Community Partnerships

ASPI partners with local, regional, and national organizations, projects, agencies, grassroots groups, and community members. ASPI also offers opportunities for other individuals and organizations to work with ASPI and/or our community partners, including event collaboration, knowledge/resource-sharing, service-learning, and fiscal sponsorship.

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Community Partnerships
ASPI regularly partners with other organizations and communities promoting and practicing sustainable livelihoods and technologies in the region. ASPI also hosts collective community partner meetings with organizations to share our various missions and projects and discuss continuing and/or creating new collaborations. Past, present, and future community partners include (but no limited to):

• Appalachia Proud/Kentucky Proud
• Appalachian Studies Association (ASA)
• Arts Connect Eastern Kentucky (ACEKY)
• Berea College Center for Learning through Service (CELTS)
• Berea College Grow Appalachia
• Berea College Forestry Outreach Center
• Berea College Special Collections & Archives
• Berea College Sustainability & Environmental Studies (SENS)
• Clear Creek Schoolhouse
• Good Foods Charitable Foundation
  
• Laurel County African American Heritage Center
• Lend-a-Hand Center
• Lexington Public Library
• Livelihoods Knowledge Exchange Network (LiKEN)
• Kentucky Arts Council
• Kentucky Folklife Program
• Kentucky Foundation for Women
• Kentucky Historical Society
• Mountain Association
• Oral History Association (OHA)
• Rockcastle Arts Association
• Rockcastle Farmers Market
• Rockcastle County Solid Waste
• Rockcastle Garden Club
• Southeast Kentucky African-American Museum & Cultural Center
• University of Kentucky (UK) Appalachian Center
• UK Community and Economic Development Initiative of Kentucky (CEDIK)
• UK Louie B. Nunn Center for Oral History
• University of Notre Dame Center for Social Concerns
• Waymakers Collective: Appalachian Arts and Culture Assembly
• Western Kentucky University Department of Folk Studies & Anthropology

Mountain Association
SPARK Collaborative
ASPI is a member of the SPARK (Small nonprofit Peers Accelerating Rural (Eastern) Kentucky) Collaborative facilitated by the Mountain Association (MA), which provides valuable professional development resources and workshops for the peer network.

ASPI works regularly with Judy Sizemore who has been involved with ASPI for several years through the SPARK program, an MA strategic planning consultancy, and briefly as a board member. In 2023, Judy also collaborated with ASPI to offer a pilot hybrid (in-person and virtual) version of the Kentucky Community Scholars Program in partnership with the Kentucky Arts Council and the Kentucky Folklife Program. Judy continues working as a consultant with ASPI on grant opportunities, expanding community partnerships, developing accessibility measures, and programming.

Fiscal Sponsorship
Appalachia-Science in the Public Interest (ASPI) offers fiscal sponsorship for projects/programs with missions that align with our work but without their own non-profit status or organizational infrastructure.

Since March 2024, ASPI serves as the fiscal sponsor for "Our Land of Promise" (OLP), which is led by Kentucky Community Scholar Aaron Banther and dedicated to honoring and preserving African American heritage in Berea, Kentucky. Learn more SOON!

ASPI previously served as fiscal sponsor for Arts Connect Eastern Kentucky (ACEKY), a collective of Kentucky artists serving women in jails and recovery centers, which is now part of the Recovering Joy Arts & Nature Center.

To apply for fiscal sponsorship of your organization/group with ASPI, complete this form: Fiscal Sponsorship
(See complete Terms of Agreement before applying.)

Participate in Existing ASPI Programs
Since its founding in the late 1970s, ASPI has regularly hosted service-learning students from the University of Notre Dame Center for Social Concerns and other colleges and universities. ASPI service-learning programming includes a “Farm Day” working on projects at different local homesteads. Dozens of farms and families have hosted service-learning students during alternative breaks with ASPI over the years. If you are interested in the possibility of serving as a "Farm Day" host for service-learning students in the future, please complete this form: https://forms.gle/eMCUKLPTTpJ9fjAN8.