History

Southern Bancorp is a development bank holding company committed to helping transform rural economies by creating new trends of investment in people, jobs, businesses, and property.  For over 15 years, Southern has operated a family of banks and development companies that work in concert with one another to promote development in rural Arkansas and the Delta region of Arkansas and Mississippi.  With $500 million in assets, 40 locations in rural Arkansas and Mississippi and over 250 employees, Southern Bancorp is the largest and most profitable rural development banking organization in the United States.

Southern has owned a bank subsidiary in Phillips County since 1999.  Phillips County represents a staggering economic development challenge.  It is one of the poorest counties in Arkansas with a poverty rate of 30% and ranks last in the state in virtually every indicator of economic and social well being.  In addition, the county has lost 49% of its population in the past forty years and has a history of racial division and social dissension that makes comprehensive development even more challenging.  By 2003 Southern leadership began to rethink its development strategy as quality of life indicators continued to spiral downward in the county.  The result was a new approach, called the Delta Bridge Project.  Formed in partnership with the Walton Family Foundation, the Delta Bridge Project is a targeted geographic approach that integrates Southern’s comprehensive rural economic development strategy with local, state, regional, and national programs for the Delta, and, crucially, involves real and substantial involvement on the part of residents of these rural communities.  Phillips County became the pilot site for a long-term effort to create a cluster of revitalized communities in the Delta that can support development within a 75 mile radius and, through the conflux of areas of influence, change the region as a whole.

The first steps in the process in Phillips County were to establish a baseline study of the area economy, evaluate past development efforts, asset-map the social, civic and economic infrastructure of the region, and formulate a county-specific developing strategy.  Over 8,000 person-hours were expended in this effort, and the result was a determination that Phillips County maintains sufficient critical mass of community assets and population to achieve real development success both for itself and for the surrounding region within a 75-mile radius.

The next step was to initiate a community strategic planning process.  Southern hired a facilitator and began the difficult work of engaging the community, which has seen many well-intentioned but ultimately unsuccessful revitalization efforts come and go, in yet another round of discussions about the future of their county.  However, Southern’s on-the-ground community development staff was a critical factor in overcoming this inertia and getting a broad cross-section of the community to participate.  Over an 18-month period, 300 residents participated in over 500 meetings to develop the Phillips County Strategic Community Plan (PCSCP), a document that provides a unified vision and a blueprint for community development with 46 strategic goals and nearly 200 action steps.  Since its ratification in January 2005, the PCSCP has received over 80 endorsements from local businesses, academic institutions, non-profits, public organizations, faith based organizations, and civic organizations, plus endorsements from two U.S. representatives, two U.S. senators, and the Governor of Arkansas.  In this way, it has become the official development plan for the county.

The goals in the PCSCP are divided into five categories, which together represent the five pillars of community development in Southern’s model: economic development (subdivided into traditional economic development and tourism), education, leadership, housing, and health care.  Southern has also facilitated the creation of a local infrastructure for implementing the plan, including a Steering Committee, a Local Development Council, and six pillar-specific Goal Teams, which are charged with developing plans for achieving the PCSCP’s goals.  Southern works with community groups to build their capacity for implementing these plans. 

The ratification of the PCSCP brought the Phillips County Delta Bridge Project from a planning stage to an implementation stage, and in just a short time Phillips County has begun to demonstrate the Delta Bridge Project’s tremendous potential.  The breadth of the Project’s goals, the depth of community involvement, and the array of development resources provided by Southern all contribute to a model that is already achieving substantial and lasting results in Phillips County. The Delta Bridge Project has already brought over $23.5 million into Phillips County for projects ranging from a biodiesel feasibility study, a health and wellness center, and a Boys & Girls Club.  A more intangible indicator of progress, but one that is crucial, has been a renewed sense of optimism and civic engagement in Phillips County.