Despite challenging financial conditions in 1981-82, the Partnership for Rural Improvement (PRI) continued its traditional emphases on project development, organizational development, interorganizational coordination, and training and education as well as its newer emphases on task forces, community education, internships, community service…

Offering a contribution to additional clarity in the debate about the viability of "rural development" as an explanatory concept and program of action, the paper presents details of a causal model which underlies the approach to rural development taken by a W. K. Kellogg Foundation supported program in eastern Washington called "The…