The article concerns the issue of the increasing development level of rural areas, which determines division into regions of dynamic growth and competing areas. Mitigating development might be achieved through adequate use of endogenous potential inherent in particular territorial units. This paper undertakes the issue of shaping sustainable socio-economic development of rural areas based on endogenous conditions as well as appropriate targeting of the EU funds to strengthen actions leading to the optimal use of resources. For a comprehensive assessment of funds impact for socio-economic development economic indicators and synthetic indexes were taken into consideration. These were calculated for the socio-economic (endogenous) development in rural areas (by region) and the level of absorption for the measures implemented by the 16 Regional Operational Programmes. Such procedure allowed to specify the relations and interdependencies that occur between these two levels. Results of the analysis were referred to the concept of neo-endogenous development.