Listen: Brooke Taylor Shares the Story Behind the Rural Gone Urban Foundation on Your Ag Empire
Brooke Taylor, our founder and board chair, joined Jonathon Haralson on the Your Ag Empire podcast this week for a conversation about legacy, leadership, and the unpretty truth of starting a nonprofit with a toddler on her hip and cancer in her body.
The conversation is honest, and at times, uncomfortable. And completely on brand.
“Hold on to your horses, listeners,” Taylor warned at the start of her conversation with Haralson. “We’re about to go zero to 60 so fast”
Brooke shared how the Rural Gone Urban Foundation started — not as a feel-good project, but as a gut-check. She was in her thirties. Just had a baby. Diagnosed with one of the most aggressive forms of breast cancer on the day her daughter was born. And after walking through chemo, a mastectomy, a handful of other surgeries, and what she thought was a season of “no evidence of disease,” the cancer returned with a vengeance.
“It’s March of 2022. I have a two‑year‑old, a husband. I’m a business owner. And my cancer came back. And it was ticked off. And it was stage four. And stage four is allegedly incurable. And so it showed up in my neck, clavicle, ribs, lungs, spine, and half of my pelvis. And I was given an expiration date.”
The Taylor Family. 2025.
Neck. Clavicle. Spine. Lungs. Ribs. Half her pelvis.
But she had a business to run, a two-year-old to raise, a marriage to nurture, and a calling that wouldn’t let her rest.
Faced with reality, Taylor didn’t shrink. She built.
“Everyone would contribute to a small town scholarship fund at the local bank that might run for 10 years, or I could launch a whole foundation, be in charge of myself and then graduate to heaven and no one can let me down. … We launched a whole foundation in less than 30 days. And the first 24 hours that we were live on the website, we raised like $20,000.”
The Foundation’s programs were born from lived experience:
Scholarships for the B and C students. Because Brooke was told she “wasn’t college material.”
Small business grants for women in the grind. Because she started her business from a barn with one client and a lot of bills.
Love Bombs for women with cancer. Because when you’re in the ring, sometimes you just need someone in your corner.
On the podcast, Taylor talked about how the Foundation deliberately lifts up people who might otherwise be overlooked. “Absolutely. … B’s and C’s get degrees.” Instead of GPA thresholds, her committee looks for “brave and strong, rural, gritty, pull-yourself-up-by-your bootstraps kind of women”
She told the story of a recipient in a trade program who wrote, “I almost gave up. I almost dropped out and almost didn’t see this through. But you guys believing me and calling me and giving this to me, like I finished it, I’m doing it. And I have never been more proud of myself.” For Taylor, the scholarship isn’t just about money — “we want her to know she can.”
Taylor also described the Foundation’s Love Bombs. She explained the program was inspired by her own memory‑making trips with her daughter Elsie during treatment: “We saw the Lion King and she ate lobster mac and cheese and we went to the zoo … Together, we picked out her high school graduation present and her college graduation present and her wedding earrings”
Even the Foundation’s logo carries a story. “What’s cool about bison in general is when a storm is coming across the plains, most animals will run from that storm. But a bison is so badass, turns on its heels, and it marches right frickin’ to it. And by doing so, it’s in the storm a least amount of time where everyone who’s running from it ends up running in it.” Taylor connects that image to first‑generation students, entrepreneurs starting from scratch, and “sitting eyebrowless in the trenches of a cancer diagnosis.”
Brooke Taylor, Damon Taylor, and Elsie Taylor at Wanderlust 2025.
At home, her daughter already understands the mission. “We went to the gala last February and she got all dressed up and she said, ‘I’m a brave and strong woman.’ And I was like, yes, you are.”
Taylor added, “You cannot outrun how much I love you because I created this whole thing for you.”
She closed the interview with a reflection that stopped Haralson cold: “[During] my life, I’ve tried to focus on silver linings, and sometimes they’re what I need to get through a tough season. And if cancer had to enter the chat so that the Foundation could exist, I’m okay with it.”