SRBWI organizes, trains and nurtures women in 77 impoverished rural counties in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia to incubate businesses, build networks of leaders and advocate for public policies that help families and communities. Its Young Women's Leadership Program brings young women and their mentors to a five-day leadership training and career development institute each summer on the campus of Tougaloo College, a historically Black college near Jackson, Mississippi. SRBWI's Commissions on Human Rights, led by black women mayors in six towns in Mississippi, Alabama and Georgia, receive training in public policy advocacy to change the debilitating conditions in their communities that trap them and their children in poverty. SRBWI's approach to lifting women out of poverty is Asset and Economic Development building skills, cooperative networks, and small local and regional businesses rather than relying on traditional economic development practices, such as attracting industry, that have left many rural women behind.