Photo courtesy of IEDC

Guest post by Deb Brown

What attendees learned from attending the Idea Friendly Session by SaveYour.Town at the International Economic Development Council Conference — Big Ideas you can copy in your town 

Becky McCray and I were excited to lead an interactive Idea Friendly workshop at the International Economic Development Council Conference in Dallas in September of 2023.

The Idea Friendly Method is:

• You gather your crowd with a big idea. 
• You turn that crowd into a capable network through building connections.
• You and the crowd accomplish the big idea through small steps.

What Happened in the Idea Friendly Workshop

Attendees developed their own Idea Friendly Projects after learning what Idea Friendly is and how to use it effectively in rural communities. 

Engaging the audience, we asked what their rural challenges were. Not surprisingly, they aligned with the top 5 rural challenges on our Survey of Rural Challenges results: 

1. Shortage of good housing
2. Downtown is dead
3. Not enough volunteers
4. Losing Young People
5. Lack of Childcare

The attendees broke off into groups and chose a challenge to work on together. Each table had a flipchart sheet and the group worked the challenge through the Idea Friendly Method. The different groups presented their results to the entire room.

Photo courtesy of IEDC

What the Big Ideas were: 

Challenge: Housing

Big Idea: Offsetting public infrastructure to incentivize private development 

This idea brought to light the number of people who wanted help with a 12 unit housing development. The first small step they would take is to work with the economic development organization to find ways to bring the interested parties together for a conversation. 

Challenge: Not enough volunteers

Big Idea: Volunteer engagement and involving the whole community 

Their ideas included helping to promote all the possibilities for volunteering and creating a guide to managing volunteers ensuring any required government protocols are well explained. They created a brilliant tagline: making volunteering painless. 

One attendee said to me, “Friend, I’m just a redneck from Alabama and I never get to meet people from other places. This was awesome!” Attendees came from the continental United States, Puerto Rico, Bermuda, Saipan, and Canada.

Challenge: Losing our young people

Big Idea: Helping youth boomerang back 

This group was excited about working with different organizations and people to create a strong publicity campaign. This big idea uses storytelling and sharing the small wins with some catchy promotional pieces. “Wish you were here”, “While you were gone”, and “We’ve grown up” are some of the hooks to use in promoting the community to their audience of young people. 

Big Idea: Downtown is dead

These folks took their big idea to fill the downtown and built out a list of who else wanted to work with them, and then built possible connections that could help get it done. They realized they were not alone and had others in their towns that wanted to help. 

Challenge: Lack of childcare

Big Idea: Create a downtown childcare facility 

After identifying a long list of people and organizations that would want to join this project, the group came up with the idea of playground “playdate” to bring them all together for productive discussion. They were excited to see how a new downtown childcare facility could not only improve the availability of childcare, but also spur downtown revitalization and contribute to positive placemaking. 

Creating Idea Friendly Projects is an easy to use and effective way to address our rural challenges. 

This interactive IEDC session was a great success, and it was inspiring to see the plans the participants came up with to address the challenges they were facing. By working together and using innovative approaches, we can create more vibrant and resilient rural communities that are better equipped to face the challenges of the future.

“Thank you both so much for your preparation and execution of your session today! Sincerely, it was a true pleasure meeting and supporting you today. Your preparation and professionalism was reflected in your session. I appreciate your adaptability as well.”

Alexa Schultz, IEDC

Next steps:

• Reach out to SaveYour.Town about an Idea Friendly Workshop for your community or event
• Read more about the Idea Friendly Method. 
• You can also watch a 24 minute Idea Friendly video for a $5 investment into your community. 
• Don’t forget to sign up for our free weekly newsletter that addresses rural challenges! 

Source: Survey of Rural Challenges, 2021

One under-utilized source of workers: At-risk students

Tony Guidroz, from San Saba, Texas, told me he was shocked when he found out there were 702 kids in the local school district, and more than 400 were considered “at-risk” either because of grades or language barriers.

Tony wanted to give them more choices and more chances. So he shared his idea for a Blue Collar Career Fair where, rather than employers letting grades or language barriers stop kids from applying, employers could connect directly with these kids.

Tony’s brilliant insight was to skip the usual lecture part of the career fair. Instead why not make it all hands-on? From trying out a welder to driving a skid steer loader. That would grab kids attention while it also helped employers look beyond “at-risk” status.

Give at-risk kids hands-on career experiences

Another career fair with a hands-on portion came from Jimi Coplen. She participates in a career fair in Knox County, Texas, population: 3,353

“We feature a lot of careers that can be done in rural communities but pay big bucks. But we also feature things such as Marine Biology – which can’t be done anywhere close to here! Turns out, the kids were totally enamored by this career! It opened their eyes to new possibilities.

“Our day brings in about 30 different speakers from 20 different career fields. The kids get to pick…We do it regionally, focusing on small schools that may not get as many opportunities to hear such quality speakers. It is a tough event to pull together, but the benefits are well worth the efforts.”

Some of the hands-on demonstrations included trying on a full haz-mat suit and testing physical therapy tools.

Trying out a haz-mat suit at the rural career fair. Photo courtesy of Jimi Coplen.

At the career fair, high school kids tried out some physical therapy tools hands-on. Photo courtesy of Jimi Coplen

How are you reaching the kids in your town who get labeled as at-risk? What real world career experiences do they get hands-on?

Learn more practical steps in the Rural Workforce Trends video from SaveYour.Town

If you can work from anywhere, why not work from a small town? Photo by Becky McCray.

Remote work will dominate the future small town workforce

Your current residents

Your current small town residents will increasingly work from home or remotely.

Gallup looked at jobs that could be done remotely and the locations where workers actually did them. Four times as many workers will work remotely going forward, compared to the number in 2019. Up to 24% of all remote-capable jobs primarily will done remotely in 2022 and beyond, and that’s more than the 23% who expect to work primarily on site.

And most people in the workforce like it that way. In a 2022 Axios Harris 100 poll, 84% of millennials say remote work is important vs. 66% of Gen Z, 75% of Gen X and 68% of Boomers.

Your young people

Some of the new people who will be remote workers in the future are actually your own young people. Kids who are using distance learning today are your future remote workforce. They’re learning how to use the technology right now, and they already live here.

Your new residents

You will also see new people moving in who bring their job with them via remote work, or bring their own business with them.

Research from 2015, 2018 and 2021 shows that there is pent up demand for rural living, and way more people prefer living in rural places than urban.

What remote workers need in small towns

We’ve talked before about what makes your town attractive to remote workers.

Since your current residents, young people and future residents will increasingly work remotely, what will they need from their community in order to thrive?

Qatalyst Research Group shared their findings from a review of current programs from big cities and small towns all over the world that attract remote workers. Common tactics included:

• offering financial incentives
• providing coworking spaces
• building a community of remote workers

Those are the supports that remote workers with a choice are looking for, so these are the supports for rural remote workers we’ll talk about in this article:

1. Incentives to live here
2. Places to work
3. A sense of community

Incentives for rural remote workers often center on housing, including land giveaways and cheap building lots. Photo by Becky McCray.

1. Incentives to live here

Your first thought might be big-city style “come live here and we’ll give you thousands of dollars” incentives. That’s not your only option or even your best option for small towns.

Promote incentives for current residents to stay

Don’t just think about luring new people. Think about what rewards your local people to live here.

Start combing lists of benefits any local resident could qualify for. It could be a special program based on income or residency. Or it might be something a local business offers that helps local people. Get creative!

• homebuyer assistance
• weatherization and energy efficiency help for existing houses
• free checking at the local bank
• media services at the library

I’m sure you can brainstorm a longer list from local, regional and state agencies that serve your community. Make sure your local residents know how to tap all that they qualify for.

Create small-town sized incentives to move in.

You’ve heard of small towns offering free or reduced price lots for homebuilding for new residents. Most small towns could also offer reduced city utilities for the first few months.

In some places, you can promote your streamlined permitting process. James Decker pointed out the difference in homebuilding between his town Stamford, Texas, and Austin, Texas: “you can get permitted in like a day.” compared to it taking 100+ days.

You can also promote most of the incentives you found for current residents because they’ll apply for new residents, too.

Entice alumni with “come home” projects:

People who once lived in your town are an easy target for living in your town again. Here are some ways to encourage them to consider a return.

Hold awe inspiring alumni reunions. Cross the year boundaries and combine all the classes. Do this more than once every hundred years. Waynoka, Oklahoma, does it every 5 years.

Include all alums. Private schools, church schools, rural schools, vo-tech schools, schools now closed or consolidated, all the schools you can think of. Remember the colleges, universities, junior colleges, beauty schools, and trade schools. Include the pre-schools.

Develop an outstanding mailing list of alums. Use it wisely to promote your the quality of your town, events and opportunities to return.

Make sure that alumni groups know about the incentives you’ve compiled and mention them regularly.

Workshifting at the RV park. Photo by C.C. Chapman

2. Places to work

Create more flexible workspaces: Third Workplaces

With more people working remotely, more people are working from places that are neither their offices or their homes. Cue the rise of the Third Workplace.

You may remember “third places” as places you hangout that aren’t home and aren’t work. Coffee shops, bars and places like that. “Third workplaces” are places you work that aren’t home and aren’t the office.

One of our favorite trendwatchers, Emergent Research said:

We’re seeing signs that, thanks to the shift to remote work, the paradox of place is breaking down and workers and companies are geographically spreading out.We expect both the trends towards greater use of 3rd places for work and economic de-agglomeration to continue.

Different people will like different kinds of workplaces.

Some people want a noisy coffee shop. Some will like quiet libraries. Some want a more homey place, and others will feel more business-like in an office-style setting. Whatever the feel of the work space you create, there is someone who will love it.

Create appealing co-working spaces

A 2015 co-working study from Emergent Research and partners showed that coworking spaces are human spaces.

“The key finding is while coworking spaces are definitely workspaces, they are also much more,” they said. “They are places where members work, network, learn and socialize together.”

In their research, coworking members reported:

• improving professional success
• learning new skills
• attending events at the coworking space
• feeling happier and less lonely in their work.
• Those are all outcomes you’d love to see from any entrepreneurial program in your town!

Where to find space

You probably have some office space in a local business incubator, belonging to an economic development group, or in a local educational facility that you could re-purpose. Maybe you have a business that just has way more office space than they need. Or there’s an empty building with potential.

The key element is community. I successfully persuaded my friends at the Northwest Oklahoma Small Business Development Center in Alva to convert an under-utilized space for coworking. They had the space, outstanding wifi, desks, chairs and all the extras. What we didn’t have was a ready-made community to connect to it. So it didn’t get as much use as we would have liked, and they ended the experiment. We needed to build the community for it to work.

Connect with local people who work from home, coffee shops, the library or any other alternative space. Begin holding work-together days, like Fridays from 10-2 or something. You don’t need a special space for the meetups. The library, coffee shop, or even one big home office will work for now.

Joel Bennett of Pella, Iowa, helped pioneer a co-working space in his town. You can read his 5 tips for starting small-town co-working and listen to an audio interview with Joel on co-working. Sneak peek: he talks a lot about building community before finding a building.

Informal work space: the low-budget version of co-working

If you don’t have a coworking space in your town now, there are small steps you can take now. Find creative alternative places where remote workers can connect with each other and get some work done.

Where can you find unofficial coworking spaces?

• Start with the public library. They have work areas.
• Maybe a local hotel, motel or bed and breakfast has a workstation or two for guests.
• Whatever organization or business you work for, could you set up a guest workstation in your office? Economic development groups or chambers might be first to volunteer.
• Look for businesses that aren’t using all of their space.
• Maybe an insurance company has some open space up front.
• Maybe an attorney has an extra office they don’t use.
• What about the church fellowship hall or youth center? Would they accept folks for coworking?

As you share your lists of alternative work spots, you’ll be starting to build your remote work community.

Bonus: Nature offices

Working where you have a view of nature makes you more productive. Small towns and rural communities have easy access to nature. Put that together and your town can make nature offices an advantage for your remote workers.

There are plenty of options for creating nature offices.

Start with the public parks. Make sure there’s wifi coverage, then look for picnic tables, shelters or other places someone could plop down a laptop and start working. Add electrical outlet access as a bonus.

Local businesses could set up tiny offices. Those could be in tiny houses, attractive work sheds, or tiny mobile office trailers. Add power and satellite internet access. Put them in natural settings, rural locations or park-like areas in a small town.

Put several tiny offices together for a mini-co-working community with a nature view.

Coworking groups and clubs can provide that sense of community remote workers need. Photo by Sheila Scarborough.

3. A sense of community

Find a co-working group or make one.

Even small towns can support simple co-working groups. Just take your laptops to a local eatery or the library and spend Friday afternoons together. Even 2 or 3 people together can make your week more interactive.

Remote worker and artist Andrea Cook said, “Today’s social revolution is in need of a reality check and the independent professional is in desperate need of true community.”

Andrea helped pioneer Jelly Week events to support co-working and independent workers in her community.

Attend other in-person events in town.

Join the chamber of commerce. Invite friends for networking. Become part of a group. Attend all kinds of performances and events locally just to get out of the house.

More local chambers are actively reaching out to home-based businesses and independent professionals, and that includes remote workers. Some chambers, like the one in Caldwell, Kansas, do report more home-based businesses joining as members, but they don’t participate in events and activities.

Chambers and other organizations can do more to create the projects, events and activities that connect with what remote workers want and need. Start by listening to remote workers to find out what those are.

Practical steps for Zoom Towns and becoming remote work ready

Find more practical steps you can take in our video Remote Work Ready: Zoom Towns. Everything you’ll learn is do-able, affordable and scaled for small towns.

Is your town remote work ready? Get practical steps in SaveYour.Town’s Zoom Towns video

Shawn popped up a business test in his own yard! Photo by Deb Brown

Your fellow reader Ava asked a great question:

If I am already working, in school, and wanting to start up just a real small small business, then how would that work differently from someone who is coming from a completely different stand point, like not working or in school and is just generally starting up their business with saved money? Thank you!

The secret to starting a real side hustle, side gig or just a real small small business is to take small steps.

Try small scale steps that get your idea in front of people who can pay for it. That’s how you’ll build knowledge of what works, build an initial following in the market, and build assets toward your next, bigger step.

What can you do to test a business idea?

You don’t need much to start small. Even one square foot of space may be enough. Photo by Becky McCray.

• Try something temporary: pop-up for a day, a week or a season.
• Try something tiny: look for just a few hundred square feet to set up in.
• Try something together: set up your business inside an existing business, coworking space, maker space, shared art studio, or shared commercial kitchen.
• Try a truck or trailer: use more than one town to gather enough customers.

For example, a high school student in Alva, Oklahoma, popped up a business test by borrowing just one square foot of counter space in a beauty salon. She sold hand braided headbands made from fabrics scraps.

Our Deb Brown wrote more about testing your way into business here: Business plans are not worth the paper they’re written on

Surprise twist: this is how I’d advise someone not working or in school, someone who was generally starting up their business with saved money, too.

You can ask your rural small business question here.

How do we as parents set our kids up to lead into the future? Photo via USDA

By Paula Jensen

It seems I have almost always been interested in leadership.  My parents modeled leadership as I was growing up through their active roles in community, church, and school.  I joined 4-H at the age of eight, was called a “ring-leader” as an elementary student (which I don’t think this was a compliment) and continued to take on leadership roles throughout high school, college and beyond.  But my most important leadership role is as a parent. Through this role I’ve learned that all the wisdom and love in the world doesn’t necessarily protect any of us from parenting in ways that could potentially hold our children back from thriving, gaining independence and becoming the leaders they have the potential to be.

I was intrigued as I read an article by Dr. Tim Elmore and learned about how we as parents are keeping our children from becoming the next generation of leaders that are needed in this world.  The article shared seven harmful parenting behaviors that keep our children from becoming leaders – of their own lives and of the world they will live in:

1. We don’t let our children experience risk – We live in a world that warns us of danger and mistrust at every turn. The “safety first” preoccupation constantly reinforces our fear of losing our kids, so we do everything we can to insulate them from healthy risk-taking behavior and it’s had an adverse effect. Kids need to fail a few times to learn it’s normal. If parents remove risk from children’s lives, we will likely experience high arrogance and low self-esteem in our growing leaders.
2. We rescue too quickly – Today’s generation of young people has not developed some of the life skills kids did 30 years ago because adults swoop in and take care of problems for them. When we rescue too quickly and over-indulge our children with “assistance,” we remove the need for them to navigate hardships and solve problems on their own. It’s parenting for the short-term and it sorely misses the point of leadership—to equip our young people to do it without help. Sooner or later, kids get used to someone rescuing them: “If I fail or fall short, an adult will smooth things over and remove any consequences for my misconduct.” When in reality, this isn’t even remotely close to how the world works, and therefore it disables our kids from becoming competent adults.
3. We rave too easily – Kids quickly observe that Mom and Dad are the only ones who think they’re awesome when no one else is saying it. They begin to doubt the objectivity of their parents; it feels good in the moment, but it’s not connected to reality. When we rave too easily and disregard poor behavior, children eventually learn to cheat, exaggerate and lie.
4. We let guilt get in the way of leading well – Your kids will get over the disappointment of you telling them “not now” or “no”, but they won’t get over the effects of being coddled. Let them fight for what they really value and need. As parents, we tend to give them what they want when rewarding our children, especially with multiple kids. When one does well in something, we feel it’s unfair to praise and reward that one and not the other. This is unrealistic and misses an opportunity to enforce the point to our kids that success is dependent upon our own actions and good deeds. Be careful not to teach them a good grade is rewarded by a trip to the mall. If your relationship is based on material rewards, kids will experience neither intrinsic motivation nor unconditional love.
5. We don’t share our past mistakes – Healthy teens are going to want to spread their wings and they’ll need to try things on their own. We as adults must let them, but that doesn’t mean we can’t help them navigate these waters. Share with them the relevant mistakes you made when you were their age in a way that helps them learn to make good choices. (Avoid negative “lessons learned” having to do with smoking, alcohol, illegal drugs, etc.) Also, kids must prepare to encounter slip-ups and face the consequences of their decisions. Share how you felt when you faced a similar experience, what drove your actions, and the resulting lessons learned. Because we’re not the only influence on our kids, we must be the best influence.
6. We mistake intelligence, giftedness and influence for maturity – Intelligence is often used as a measurement of a child’s maturity, and as a result parents assume an intelligent child is ready for the world. That’s not the case. Some professional athletes and Hollywood starlets, for example, possess unimaginable talent, but still get caught in a public scandal. Just because giftedness is present in one aspect of a child’s life, don’t assume it pervades all areas. There is no magic “age of responsibility” or a proven guide as to when a child should be given specific freedoms, but a good rule of thumb is to observe other children the same age as yours. If you notice that they are doing more themselves than your child does, you may be delaying your child’s independence.
7. We don’t practice what we preach – As parents, it is our responsibility to model the life we want our children to live. To help them lead a life of character and become dependable and accountable for their own words and actions. As the leaders of our homes, we can start by only speaking honest words – white lies will surface and slowly erode character. Watch yourself in the little ethical choices that others might notice, because your kids will notice too. If you don’t cut corners, for example, they will know it’s not acceptable for them to either. Show your kids what it means to give selflessly and joyfully by volunteering for a service project or with a community group. Leave people and places better than you found them, and your kids will take note and do the same.

Raising children who are strong independent leaders is not about their happiness today, but about their readiness for their many tomorrows. The truth is, parents who are able to focus on tomorrow, not just today, produce better results.

How can we as parents move away from these behaviors that are holding our children back?

It’s important for us as parents to become exceedingly self-aware of our words and actions when interacting with children. Care enough to train them, not merely treat them to a good life. Coach them, more than coddle.  And try these 10 ideas as a starting point:

1. Talk over the issues you wish you would’ve known about adulthood.
2. Allow them to attempt things that s-t-r-e-t-c-h them and even let them fail.
3. Discuss future consequences if they fail to master certain disciplines.
4. Aid them in matching their strengths to real-world problems.
5. Furnish projects that require patience, so they learn to delay gratification.
6. Teach them that life is about choices and trade-offs; they can’t do everything.
7. Initiate adult-like tasks such as paying their own bills or making business deals.
8. Introduce them to community mentors in an area of interest to them.
9. Help them envision a fulfilling future, and then discuss the steps to get there.
10. Celebrate the progress they make toward independence and responsibility.

Video: Connecting with Kids

SaveYour.Town created a video to show how they connect with kids and help them to play a role in shaping the future of their town. The Connecting with Kids video is available at SaveYour.Town.

Easy summer business for teens: helping seniors with their cell phones.

Looking for the perfect instant summer business idea for young entrepreneurs? Try phone clinics.

I saw this idea pop-up in a meeting that involved a cross section of the town of Cathlamet, Washington. People of all ages were there: students from the high school, county commissioners, chamber of commerce members. One of the adults was lamenting that they didn’t know how to fix a certain annoying problem with their phone.

“That’s easy,” one of the students said. “I’ll help you after this is over.”

Immediately other adults spoke up. They had phone issues, too! Could they get help?

That’s a business idea! With just a sign and a couple of chairs, any tech savvy person could set up a booth at an event. Set a price by the job or by time.

There’s plenty of demand from older adults who are online and need some tech support. Maybe not a full time class, just a quick solution.

Especially in small towns, there aren’t a lot of established alternatives, so there’s not too much competition.

More help with Youth Engagement

Deb Brown and I are sharing what we’ve learned from working with students and youth in small towns. Learn more about our Connecting with Kids video here.

Castle Rock, Washington, takes beautification seriously. This storage lot sits smack dab in the middle of their beautiful downtown. This is how it looked before they turned it into an art gallery. Photo by Nancy Chennault.

You’ve seen it before: a chain link fence right in the middle of a downtown. Usually there’s barbed wire at the top. Let’s face it, barbed wire is not the friendliest look for a downtown. We can do better.

Why chain link in the first place?

When a business ends up with an empty lot they can use for storage downtown, there’s a strong drive to fence it off and protect their goods. Chain link topped with barbed wire is cheap and easy.

Businesses still need to store things. No one wants to spend a lot of money to replace the fence with something friendlier. Heck, we don’t even want to spend money at all if we can avoid it.

How could you make it look better?

A whole group of us brainstormed some ideas for you:

• Add colorful slats in rainbow patterns, waves, words or logos
• Frame art and hang it from the chain link, inside or outside
• Hang twinkle lights from the fence and barbed wire
• Twist wire foil tinsel garland around the barbed wire
• Hang whirly gigs or streamers to dance in the wind
• Set up a sculpture display in front of the fence (most fences are usually set back from the property line) or just behind the fence
• Create cut-out art to hang on the fence
• Hang some wayfinding signs to direct people to cool things around town

The Boise, Idaho, water reclamation plant features this chain link fence mural. The colors are little cups designed to pop right into the chain link spaces. Photo by Becky McCray.

The Stream of Dreams “mural” made up of individual painted fish shapes dresses up the fence alongside the school buildings in Castle Rock, Washington. Learn more about Stream of Dreams. Photo by Nancy Chennault.

How Castle Rock, Washington, made chain link fences into art galleries

When I visited Castle Rock, I pointed out the storage lot next the hardware store that in the photo at the top of this story. It’s not going to go away, so why not use it to hang art? Turns out they already had some kids’ art hanging on chain link fences, just around the corner in a less-visible place. So they moved it and added a big way-finding arrow to point out nearby attractions.

Originally, the art squares were hanging in a hard-to-find location. See those slats in the fence? You could easily use slats to be more artistic with rainbow patterns or logos. Photo by Becky McCray.

The students helped move their artwork to the highly-visible location downtown. Photo by Nancy Chennault.

The art now includes a big arrow to point folks to the nearby wildlife pond and the old jail park. You hardly notice the fence or wire at all now. Photo by Nancy Chennault.

Have you seen any good chain link art?

I’d love to see photos of dressed-up chain link fences you’ve seen anywhere. Share the ideas so we can inspire even more small towns to more beautiful fences.

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How do you get an entrepreneurship culture started in your town? Start them young. Photo via Norfolk County, Ontario.

As Deb Brown and I drove away from the small town we had just visited, we talked about something that the town was missing. It wasn’t one specific business or an amenity. It was a characteristic. It was hustle.

We didn’t see that entrepreneurial drive we’d both noticed other places. There were businesses and entrepreneurs in town, yes, but there were opportunities for a lot more.

We started brainstorming the businesses we didn’t see, ones we could imagine working there. We could imagine cleaning services and concierges, preparing and stocking visitors’ cabins before they arrive, or cleaning up and winterizing after they leave. While some people are hunting or fishing, there are bound to be some family members who’d like other activities, like maybe yoga, tours, or outdoors skills classes. Visitors take their dogs into the National Forest, so surely dog washing would be popular before people make the long drive home with a dirty dog. Then there were all the opportunities around the emerging bike tourism trend…

We came up with a dozen more ideas during the drive. Why weren’t locals trying these ideas plus all the ones they could see that we didn’t? Where was the hustle?

I talked with a local person about this. She felt it went back to the heavy industry jobs that used to be there. The ethic was to find a good job, and it would take care of you. As those jobs left, people encouraged their kids to get an education and get out. Probably a lot of towns have had a similar pattern.

Sending your kids away makes sense if you think the town has no future.

Today, any small town can choose to have a future. We all have the technology available for our towns to survive, if we decide to.

Once you decide to survive, you look around to see what you have available. If all you have is the dirt under your feet and the sun in the sky, then you start there. This place has National Forest, an existing tourism base and the emerging rails to trails project. That is a huge base of assets and opportunities to build on.

Could they develop or redevelop an entrepreneurial streak here? I think so, and I think it starts with youth entrepreneurship. A local group is working on that, supporting entrepreneurship training in the schools. They also developed a tiny business village, so pop up businesses would have a place to start.

Another thing that might help is starting conversations around the many opportunities and unmet needs. Start online conversations, hold brainstorming events with locals and visitors, and share stories of the hustle that you see when you visit other places. Any way you can think of to get more people looking around and talking about what could be.

It’s a long process to develop an entrepreneurial culture. But it’s your best bet for a prosperous place in the future.

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Changing your questions can help you change the leadership of your community, empowering a new generation to lead. Photo by Becky McCray.

Guest Post by Paula Jensen

Leaders are the essence of small towns and rural communities. The success or failure of any housing, community or economic development efforts in the places we call home often rests upon the level of engagement and investment of local citizen leaders. Yet, in so many communities I work in across South Dakota there is an invisible divide holding back the development of a strong leadership base. I hear experienced leaders saying, “Young people just don’t want to be involved in the community!”  and I hear emerging leaders saying, “The people in charge won’t let us try anything new!”

So, I am asking you, “How can we empower more people to lead in our rural communities?”

To begin searching for a solution to this question, I want to help you understand two community leadership systems that exist:

1. Most community leadership systems currently operate in a traditional hierarchy – meaning top-down (like a triangle) – the board’s officers propose ideas to the members based on their knowledge of what the community needs. Then, following a decision of the board, the tasks gets allocated to the members who carry out the projects with board supervision. Traditional leadership systems define levels of authority and decision-making within the organization and invite you to join the work they are currently doing.
2. The non-traditional community leadership system being implemented by some rural communities has a core leadership team that is structured as a network – meaning connected (like a circle) – with the basic goal of allowing distributed decision-making to empower and raise up resident leaders while giving everyone in the community the opportunity to identify priorities and go to work on projects they are passionate about. The non-traditional community leadership system can be chaotic and allows community leaders to collaborate, innovate, dream, and experiment which creates increased optimism and hope for new possibilities within the community.

The two systems listed above are quite different, yet if we are going to show emerging leaders that they do have the power to innovate and have real impact on the community, then we need to begin transforming the community’s leadership structure.

Experienced community leaders can initiate this process by asking good questions, listening with curiosity, and taking new ideas seriously. Below are some sample questions to help these transformational conversations begin.

Questions to transform rural leadership:

• Open Ended Questions – What needs to be done?
• Challenge Status Quo – Why must it be done that way?
• Learner Mindset – What is good or useful about this?
• Forward Looking – What possibilities does this open up?
• Optimistic – What can we learn from this?
• Empower Others – What are you trying to accomplish?
• Build Relationships – How solid are our connections with others?
• Understand Self – What do I need to reflect on to move us all forward?
• Deal with Dependency – Would you like people to solve their problems rather than coming to you for answers?
• Serve Humbly – How can I help you?
• Encourage Action – What will you commit to do by when?
• Evaluate – What does our leadership team do that gets in the way?
• Listen – Are we listening to each other with curiosity?
• Involve All Stakeholders – What are our common areas of interest?
• Enable Change – What will you need from us in the future?
• Develop Vision and Values – Are we being honest with ourselves?

The responsibility of building a pool of leaders in our rural communities falls to both sides. Experienced leaders must let go a little bit, and emerging leaders must build a foundation of trust. This will allow a smooth community leadership structure transformation with minimal chaos – ultimately good for the future of our rural communities.

So, if they want to lead, empower them to lead. #Iamrural

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It’s cool to be rural, don’t be part of the brain drain. That’s the message to students at a career day event in Texas. Photo shared by Jimi Coplen, Haskell, Texas

Guest post by Jimi Coplen 

Executive Director, Development Corporation of Haskell, Texas

In rural America, we know the “Brain Drain” is a real issue. We do a great job educating our kids, teaching them good work ethic, and turning them into amazing adults. Then, they leave for college, never to be seen again. Employers are left scrambling to find available workforce, communities have to depend on the same five people to do everything, and it makes it tough on small communities to thrive. But, what are we doing to tell our kids we want them back?

Our local Workforce Solutions organization hosted a WOW (World of Work) event for high school students. This event showcases a variety of careers that can be done throughout the region. It puts real-world business people and occupations in front of high school students. They can ask questions about the various careers, participate in some simulated activities, talk to experts, etc. It’s a great event.

This year, five community economic developers from small towns joined together to host a booth. But, rather than telling students what economic developers do, our booth shed some light on the “Brain Drain”! (Of course students were not familiar with this term, nor did they know they were part of the brain drain.)

We sent the message loud and clear to 3000 students that after college, trade school or whatever they decided to do, we want their brain back in rural Texas someday! We let them know their community is counting on them! We also gave them a list of jobs currently being done in our small communities with estimated salaries. Despite what they may think or are told, there really are good jobs in rural communities.

The highlight of our booth was a large brain built by one of our colleagues. We had students “pick our brain”. They reluctantly stuck their hand through a hole, and on the other side were small, brain-shaped-stressballs that read, “Working Rural is Cool!” We also had a selfie station with a variety of selfie frames promoting, “See You in Rural Texas!”

We took this opportunity to plant a seed and to make sure someone was sending the message to these students that they are the future of their community. It’s okay to go out and see the world, get an education, but someday, we want them back!

The communities represented in the “Brain Drain” booth were Tye, Haskell, Seymour, Gorman, and Snyder, Texas, along with our regional organization the Texas Midwest Community Network.

See more photos from the booth here.

Special thanks to Jimi Coplen of Haskell, Texas, for sharing this story! 

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