Rural America is getting relief.
Billionaires are increasingly stepping in to fill gaps in services, education and opportunity that many small towns say have been ignored for years. While Washington remains deadlocked over how to revitalize regions left behind by industrial and demographic changes, a growing number of wealthy donors are quietly reshaping rural economic futures with nine-figure checks and thousands of acres of land.
minnesota billionaire Glenn Taylorwho built Taylor & Company into a printing empire and became the printing empire in his state richest residentsNow, he is plowing a significant portion of his fortune back into the rural community that raised him. The 84-year-old ex dairy farm kids From outside of Comvery, Minnesota (pop music. Chapter 376 Through 2024), approximately $100 million worth of farmland and securities are being transferred to the Taylor Family Farm Foundation, whose specific mission is to support rural areas in Minnesota and Iowa.
Rather than providing a one-time cash infusion, Taylor’s gift is intended to generate multi-year revenue based on the transfer of approximately $173 million in farmland in 2023 that has already been funded through regional nonprofit partners for grants. Taylor said the move stems from his own experience growing up in southern Minnesota, where he worked on a farm and raised chickens, and a desire to “positively impact the lives of other people in an area that I love so much.” declare to observer.
billionaire country wave
Taylor is part of a broader pattern in which ultra-wealthy donors focus explicitly on small-town and rural America rather than the big-city universities and museums that have long dominated philanthropy. Byron Trott, an investment banker who grew up in Union City, Missouri US$150 million committed Universities network to increase access to rural students, a move that has helped drive a 20% increase in applications.
philanthropist Mackenzie Scott Likewise, she turned her attention to rural education, donating $36 million to North Carolina institutions such as Robeson Community College and Bladen Community College to increase opportunity in some of the country’s poorest counties. Taken together, the gifts signal a recognition among billionaires that the country’s economic and political fault lines increasingly run between booming metropolitan areas and struggling rural areas, and that private money can flow faster than federal policy.
politics, power and dependence
The billionaire’s surge in attention comes as rural voters remain a core political base for Trump, whose “forgotten men and women” rhetoric provided impetus for his return to the White House but have yet to translate into a sweeping federal revival plan for small-town America. In this vacuum, philanthropists like Taylor, Trotter, and Scott are effectively setting their own rural policy agenda through foundations and grants, deciding which towns get ambulances, which fire departments get radios, and which students get a chance to go to college.
The Trump administration has announced $12 billion bailout For farmers who suffered under his tariff regime, especially soybeans. At one point in 2025, after Trump and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessant announced support for Argentina’s like-minded ally Javier Mire, China cut U.S. soybean purchases to zero and began buying from Argentina. After the Trump-Xi meeting, China resumed soybean purchases, and recently Argentina also resumed soybean purchases. Repay the entire $20 billion credit line. Kentucky soybean grower Caleb Ragland tell the ap.p. In early January, Trump’s aid to farmers was a “Band-Aid on a deep wound. We need market competition and opportunity to make our future brighter.”
For this story, wealth Journalists use generative AI as a research tool. Editors verified information for accuracy before publishing.