Over a ten year period from 2001-2011, the National Rural Funders Collaborative (NRFC) invested more than $7 million in direct grants and leveraged an additional $75 million in private and public resources for a number of diverse projects aimed at combating rural poverty in the US through the intersections of race, class, and power. Projects included ones focused on local food consumption and production as a strategy for building a sustainable regional economy. NRFC's work also centered on shifting rural policy and this report includes challenges and lessons learned from these sustained efforts. They were intentional about learning from this work, assessing the impact five years in and narrowing the focus of their grantmaking based on what they learned. This report offers insights into the work that was done, what persistent poverty looked like on the ground, and what made for effective strategies for reducing it.