Whitney Kimball Coe is director of National Programs for the Center for Rural Strategies. She began working with the Center as a consultant to the Community Philanthropy Initiative and now focuses on national strategies for strengthening and amplifying the work of rural advocates and stakeholders. Coe also directs the work of the National Rural Assembly, an event which brings together rural leaders and advocates from every region with national public- interest organizations, funders, and policymakers in ways that inform public policy and private investment in rural people and places.  In 2017, she was a featured speaker at the inaugural summit of the Obama Foundation and a guest on the radio program "On Being" with Krista Tippett. Her focus on building civic courage in communities is directly tied to a practice of participation in her hometown of Athens, Tennessee, where she lives with her husband Matt and daughters, Lucy and Susannah. Coe has a MA in Appalachian studies from Appalachian State University in North Carolina and an undergraduate degree in religion and philosophy from Queens University of Charlotte.