This community-based participatory research project will examine how faith communities within Lutheran Services America's Rural Aging Action Network (RAAN) reduce social isolation and improve collective well-being. RAAN is an innovative community-led model currently serving older adults across eight rural and frontier communities in Minnesota, Montana, North Dakota, and South Dakota with funding from Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies. RAAN has successfully reached over 1,000 older adults by mobilizing 482 community partners and leveraging 1,238 community assets—demonstrating the model's effectiveness and scalability. With 300 Lutheran nonprofits across 46 states, and a longstanding commitment to rural communities, LSA holds unparalleled access to the very faith-based networks that can illuminate new solutions to gaps in services and social isolation.
The research will employ mixed methods—quantitative measures of social connectedness combined with qualitative exploration—to answer: "To what extent do faith communities and their collaborative partnerships contribute to advancing collective well-being in the RAAN community mobilization model?" This addresses a critical knowledge gap: while rural communities rely on faith communities as essential social infrastructure, rigorous scientific investigation of their impact on collective well-being remains severely under-studied, especially in rural areas. This project will establish an evidence base that enables rural communities nationwide to strengthen aging support systems and provides replicable models for integrating faith communities into aging services.
In this project, "faith communities" refers specifically to local congregations and their leaders—distinct from Lutheran social ministry organizations (the LSA network nonprofits providing community-based services). Our research examines congregations' unique contributions as faith-based actors within RAAN, not social service operations.
