To find out what rural people felt were their biggest challenges, SaveYour.Town and SmallBizSurvival.com surveyed over 280 rural people in the fourth quarter of 2020. The results make up this fourth edition of the Survey of Rural Challenges.

Challenges stemming from the pandemic and economic crisis were ranked as less important than long-existing rural challenges.

Continuing challenges with losses in housing, business and population ranked as the highest rural community challenges. The ongoing lack of workers, stiff competition from online businesses, and marketing ranked as the highest challenge to rural small businesses.

Other preconception-changing results

Defying stereotyped media profiles of poverty, crime and drug abuse as the primary rural challenges, rural people ranked these lowest of all community challenges.

Although rural economic development often centers around jobs, it was one of the least-mentioned challenges in this survey.

For all the concern over small business lending, rural people say usable buildings are as hard or harder to find than loans.

Rural small business owners show little interest in business plan assistance, yet it remains a popular type of assistance offered to rural businesses.

More rural people said they needed an idea for a business to start than said they were worried their business would fail.

Rural Community Challenges ranked

The pandemic and economic crisis not only did not dominate the responses, but it also did not rank in the top ten challenges.

Housing, business and population losses continue to rank as the highest rural community challenges.

The top five rural community challenges in 2021 were:

1. Not enough good housing
2. Downtown is dead
3. Losing young people
4. Need new residents
5. Not enough volunteers

Small-town Business Challenges ranked

The lack of workers and difficulties with marketing continue to challenge rural small businesses.

Online competition continued to increase pressure on rural small businesses, climbing to the second-highest ranking challenge.

Despite the pandemic and economic crisis, rural business owners ranked the likelihood of business failure and the inability to find a business loan as some of the lowest of all listed challenges.

Crisis relief loan packages may have played a role in supporting small businesses in late 2020 as this survey was being conducted. On previous surveys, inability to find a business loan scored from the middle to low: ranging from sixth to ninth of the eleven listed challenges, before dropping to eleventh this time.

The top five challenges ranked by rural small businesses were:

1. Can’t find good employees
2. Online competition
3. Tried later hours without success
4. Marketing isn’t working
5. Need to sell my business

Get the in-depth report on the 2021 results of the Survey

See analysis of all four rounds of the Survey of Rural Challenges

Small towns face different challenges in 2020, but that doesn’t mean the old challenges have gone away. Photo by Deb Brown.

Seems like there have been a lot of coronavirus-related surveys this year. This survey is different: we’ve been asking for and listening to your rural challenges since 2015.

Of course rural challenges are different this year with COVID-19. That doesn’t mean all your other challenges disappeared, but it might mean your priorities have changed. We’d like your help to get an updated view of the challenges to your community and your business, and what’s working well or not so much.

The survey is open to rural people globally: USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand or any other country. If you live or work in small towns, we’d love to hear from you.

Why your answers matter

Every small town has its own set of assets, issues and opportunities. You get a chance to tell us your community challenges and your assets, as well as what projects and ideas you’re trying.

Small Biz Survival and SaveYour.Town use the results to create practical steps that help you shape a better future for your town. Other organizations like government agencies and regional utilities use the results to better serve rural people. Your responses also get shared in articles and media stories without ever identifying you personally.

Tell others about the Survey

The more people who answer the survey, the better.

You can share this survey to your friends, followers, subscribers, readers, or organizations you belong to. You can put it in your newsletter, on social media, on your website or anywhere else you think rural people will be likely to find it. You can share this link:

https://saveyour.town/survey2020

The survey will close to new responses on December 31, 2020.

Get the survey results

Results will be posted on our Survey of Rural Challenges page. You can also sign up for our newsletters to get all the updates.

And what topics rural people most want help with

Wouldn’t it be great if the people who say they want to help rural people would actually listen to rural people’s own challenges?! That’s why we created this survey!

We use the results to create practical steps that help you shape a better future for your town. Your responses also get shared out to others who work with rural communities through articles and media stories.

Using these survey results, we developed a free video of action steps you can take to shape the future of your town or the towns you serve.

Get the Action Steps Video

Surprise! Stereotypes didn’t hold up

The survey asks rural people what challenges they most want help with and what actions they are taking to address them. The results don’t match the common themes in media coverage and policy conversation around rural communities.

• Are rural people focused on well-publicized crises like opioid addiction or poverty? No, other challenges were selected much more often. Crime and drug abuse ranked in the bottom five of the standard choices. In their own words, fewer than a dozen people each mentioned drug abuse or poverty. Three times as many mentioned negative or angry people as a top challenge they’d like help with. 
• Are most rural communities devastated by lost factories, closing mines or damaging natural disasters? No, “our town has suffered a terrible blow” remains one of the least chosen options on all three rounds of the survey in 2015, 2017 and 2019. 
• Is the lack of small business lending a big challenge in small towns? Needing a business loan did not made it into the list of top 5 challenges chosen. More than twice as many people selected the lack of good employees as a challenge.  

Rural Community Challenges

Top five concerns at the community-wide level this year are very similar to the results from 2017 and 2015.

1. Losing young people
2. Downtown is dead
3. Not enough good housing
4. Need new residents
5. No one shops in town

“Losing young people” and “Downtown is dead” have dominated the top 2 spots in 2015, 2017 and 2019. “Not enough good housing” is a new entry that wasn’t included as a choice in the 2017 or 2015 surveys. “No one shops in town” also appears in the top 5 in all three rounds of the survey.

Here is a graph of all the choices offered on the 2019 survey ranked in order of how often people chose them. (Click to see it larger)

Small-town Business Owner Challenges

Almost ½ of those surveyed identified themselves as current or prospective small business owners. Here are the top five challenges they chose.

1. Can’t find good employees
2. Marketing isn’t working
3. People buy from online competitors
4. Tried opening later hours without success
5. Need a business idea

A new choice, “Can’t find good employees” was chosen by over 50% of respondents making it the number one challenge. It replaced a previous choice, “Need help but cannot hire,” in the top 5.

“Marketing isn’t working” has been consistently in the second spot, and “Opening later hours without success” remains in the top 5 on all three surveys. Online competition moved up to 3rd this year from 6th in 2017 and 2015. Needing a business idea returned to the top 5 after dropping to 9th in 2017.

Here is a graph of all the choices offered on the 2019 survey ranked in order of how often people chose them. (Click to see it larger)

What’s working

A new question in 2019 asked people what they or their community are trying to address their challenges. The four choices ranked in this order.

1. Traditional economic development groups
2. Informal idea copying
3. Formal programs
4. Other things

Traditional economic development was the clear top choice with over 75%, and informal copying of ideas was chosen in over 50% of the responses.

In their own words

When offered the opportunity to share more in their own words about challenges, what is working, or anything else, 389 people shared more. Their responses can be grouped into these general categories with both positive and negative themed responses.

1. Government, leadership or officials
2. Business and economy issues
3. Community teamwork, volunteers and engagement
4. Non-government programs such as Main Street, Chamber of Commerce and many others
5. Workforce, employees or jobs

Here are some of the individual responses.

• Team work is what is working and working best. What isn’t working is thinking that the money pool is the [economic development group] or Chamber [of Commerce]
• There is a group of us that are willing to try new things and looking for ideas. There are some in town who are stuck in the old way of doing things. We are starting small and I think the big will come. With each idea, it seems like more ideas are starting to happen.
• The empty building tour worked well. We will be planning another one for the Fall. Getting everyone working together is not working well.
• After losing some major employers, some people have opened businesses, also some spin-offs related to remaining businesses. Landing the “big one”, outside employer, has not been successful.
• A group of progressive minded “young” (30 to 55) leaders have joined together to celebrate what is right about our community and to make some fun things happen.

Each community is different, and different people from within a single community can see the challenges and opportunities differently.

Diversity in rural people and communities

How diverse were survey respondents? An open-ended question invited people to say if there were ways they considered themselves diverse, and 278 people chose to answer. Some answered with their own personal diversity, but most answered about their community at large.

More rated their communities as diverse than not

Over fifty percent more people said their communities were diverse than the number of people who said their communities were not diverse. Over 70 people said their community was diverse now or increasingly diverse. Another 43 responded with average or not sure; and 42 said no, not diverse or not applicable.

The top 5 most common descriptive answers were grouped into these rough categories.

1. Color, race, ethnicity or cultural origin
2. Age
3. Education, skills or technology use
4. Businesses, professions or commerce
5. Cultures, ideas and ways of thinking

The grouping of cultures and ways of thinking includes common perspective divides such as new vs. longtime residents, farm vs. town, city/urban vs. rural/small town, and full time vs. part time residents.

Gender spectrum and LGBTQIA diversity featured in over 50 of the responses. Diversity in income or class, disability, family makeup, religion, political views and military service were also mentioned.

What next? Action steps you can take

Using these survey results, Becky McCray and Deb Brown developed a special video of action steps you can take to shape the future of your town or the towns you serve. There is no charge.

Get the Action Steps Video

Press and Media Information

You’ll find more information on the methodology, talking points for media and links to prior surveys at our Survey page.

New to SmallBizSurvival.com? Take the Guided Tour. Like what you see? Get our updates.

What are the challenges in your rural place or small town? We’d like to know! Photo by Becky McCray.

Every small town has its own set of assets, issues and opportunities, but many of us share common challenges. We created the Survey of Rural Challenges so you could share your own view of rural, and we could better help you.

A total of 479 people answered our previous surveys, and we’d like your help to get an updated view. We’re asking about challenges to your community and your business, and what’s working well or not so much.

Add your input here:
Survey of Rural Challenges 2019. 

We use the results to create practical steps that help you shape a better future for your town. Your responses also get shared out to others who work with rural communities through articles and media stories.

Wouldn’t it be great if the people who say they want to help rural people would actually listen to rural people’s own challenges?! That’s why you should take this survey!

The survey is available in English, French and Spanish.

The survey is presented by Small Biz Survival and SaveYour.Town. Dr. Dave Shideler from Oklahoma State University will help us analyze the trends across all three surveys.

If you’d like to help get the word out, that would be great!

You can share this survey to your own members, subscribers, readers, followers or friends. You can put it in your newsletter, on social media, on your website, or anywhere else you think rural people will be likely to help us out.

The survey will close July 30, 2019.

Results will be posted on our Survey of Rural Challenges page.

Rural small business owners cited challenges with being open later hours, marketing and finding help. This small business in Galveston, Texas, is cooperating in the national Shop Small Saturday marketing. Photo by Becky McCray.

By Becky McCray

When you ask small town people what challenges they want help with, the responses provide an interesting insight into rural areas today.

SaveYour.Town and SmallBizSurvival.com conducted a survey among subscribers and visitors to their sites during 2017, receiving 250 individual responses. Participants included 215 from the USA, 25 from Canada, and 10 from other international locations. The results were compared with a similar survey in 2015 that received 227 responses.

Rural Community Challenges

Top five concerns at the community-wide level were mostly the same in 2017 as 2015.

1. Downtown is dead
2. Losing young people
3. No one shops in town
4. Missing out on tourism opportunities
5. Need new residents

The top four choices are the same as in the 2015 results, but with the first two switched in position. The fifth most-chosen answer, “Need new residents,” rose two slots from seventh position in the 2015 results. The number five choice in 2015 was “No businesses in town,” which dropped one position to sixth in 2017.

Small-Town Business Owner Challenges

Over ¾ of those surveyed identified themselves as current or prospective small business owners. Top concerns among business owners were mostly the same in 2017 as 2015.

1. Tried opening later hours without success
2. Marketing isn’t working
3. Need help but cannot hire
4. People want to pick their brain for free
5. Need a usable building

The top four choices are the same as in the 2015 survey, but with choices three and four switched in position. The fifth most-chosen challenge, “Need a usable building,” rose two slots from seventh position in the 2015 results. The number five choice in 2015 was “Need an idea to start a business,” which fell to ninth position this year.

Rural Trends of Interest

Over 85% of participants chose among the coming trends of most interest to them. This was a new question on the 2017 survey.

The top trends garnering attention were:

1. Rural retail trends (omni-channel, drone delivery, consumer shifts)
2. Rural population changes
3. Trends affecting rural makers and craftspeople
4. Rural service business trends (contingent workers, remote work)
5. Changes to rural society (populations, shifts in the center of power, automation)

Other Rural Challenges

Taking the structured and open-ended responses together, several themes emerged where the surveyed rural people most feel the need for help.

Conflicts and negativity hinder progress

• Lack of cooperation, apathy, negativity and resistance to change among local leaders and residents were the most commonly-mentioned challenges, appearing in 22 of the open-ended responses
• Conflicts between different groups and cultures were mentioned, including conflicts between age groups, long-time residents conflicting with new residents, different religious and faith communities, and diverse racial groups
• Social isolation caused by conflicts between groups and unique local issues were mentioned in three open-ended responses

Uncertainty around population

• Losing young people and a need to recruit new residents both scored in the top five of the choices this year
• Decline in population and aging population both were mentioned in the open-ended responses
• Lack of volunteers was also mentioned, with people saying they had more ideas and projects than people to accomplish them

• Workforce shortages were mentioned in five open-ended responses

Rural communities are focused on downtown

• Downtown business district issues were commonly mentioned, including the types of businesses, need for business support, drawing residents downtown for shopping and activities, and competition with online and big chain retail competitors

Rural Solutions

Even though the survey focused on identifying rural challenges, positive responses focused on the future, creating their own solutions and moving forward.

Rural people are focused on creating their own solutions

• Many people identified local trends they felt they could take better advantage of, including tourism, accommodations, youth retention and family-friendly activities

Lack of people is more of a limiting factor than lack of funding

• There are so many rural projects and activities that a shortage of volunteers emerges
• Over a quarter of all the people mentioned the lack of volunteers as a challenge
• Only two people brought up a lack of funding

There’s more interest in makers than in manufacturers

• When asked about trends 30 years into the future, more people expressed an interest in trends for makers and craftspeople than for manufacturing

What the Survey DIDN’T say

The responses from rural people broke down some prevalent small-town stereotypes.

Small towns aren’t interested in recruiting outside businesses

• While many local governments and economic development professionals are focusing on recruiting outside businesses, the need for that was not reflected in this survey
• No one mentioned needing to recruit a national chain or an outside franchise business to improve their town
• Only two respondents mentioned a business gap, or a specific business they felt their community or downtown needed to develop through local entrepreneurs

Rural people are not waiting for factory jobs to come back

• There was not a single mention of the return of factories in responses to this survey

• Many responses focused on growing local entrepreneurship
• Five times as many people mentioned a lack of available workforce than mentioned lack of jobs

Rural community challenges aren’t as poverty- and crisis-driven as you might think

• While national media coverage of rural areas often focuses on towns that have suffered the loss of a major employer or industry, the least-selected choice for challenges (under 7%) was that their town had suffered “a terrible blow” such as the loss of a factory
• Although rural poverty and drug problems are another common media theme, only three responses mentioned poverty, crime or drugs

Small town business challenges are more about buildings and marketing than about loans

• Although a lack of small business lending is often cited as holding back small businesses, more people cited trouble finding a usable building than trouble finding a loan, and this was also true in the 2015 survey results
• It’s not true that everyone knows everyone in a small town, as both top small business challenges related to marketing

Housing shortages didn’t get many mentions

• Although housing is a major focus issue for governments in some rural US regions, only three responses to this survey mentioned a shortage of usable housing

The Write-In Candidates

When given open space to mention any other challenges, the surveyed rural people shared many additional areas where they need help.

• Help how do we counter general apathy and build a greater sense of community across the entire community?
• As more young families decide to “go rural”, will the old communities welcome and open up to them? Can they help revive old or dying facilities and improve access to daily needs and necessities? How can young doctors and teachers be enticed to settling in rural areas?
• Our municipal leaders have PMS: they’re Pale, Male and Stale. They are risk averse, penny-pinching and, unwittingly perhaps, make their jobs look difficult which repels young people and business owners from running for election.
• We have great ideas to help our town/county, but not the human capacity to move them forward.
• Maybe the answer is to differentiate by giving rural consumers the “old” shopping experience, BUT doing it so well that the alternatives aren’t so attractive.
• How do I attract good employees for low-level jobs?
• Loss of transportation and loss of medical services in rural areas. What are alternatives?
• Demographic shifts, the creative class, “rural by choice”… finding a community niche in the business clusters that the entire region will depend upon, appropriate housing (we have affordable housing in spades)…..all of these are challenges to making our communities attractive enough for new residents and to have our own millennials return home.  There is no single magic bullet.  There are many threads to weave.*
• Knowing how to filter the media reports on government reports about changes in business and taxes and how it effects the shopping consumers, along with entrepreneurs who may want to start up in business. In other words…how can we prepare to change with the unknown?
• Start the talk about #BrainGain.  I hated when they coined #braindrain when I was in high school.  Let’s talk about the influx that is coming and give more momentum to the movement.  I also hate it when people talk about their communities housing problem.  It is a housing opportunity to the entrepreneur that will fix it.

*edited for brevity and clarity

Survey Details and Recommended Action Steps for Rural Communities

More details on the survey and methodology are available on our Survey Page. A set of action steps for communities created in response to this survey data is also available at no cost to subscribers.

The Survey of Rural Challenges 2017 identified bright spots as well as concerns from small town people

SmallBizSurvival.com and SaveYour.Town joined forces to conduct an international rural survey of 250 rural people during 2017. Some of the results don’t match up with the usual stories we hear about rural.

A few surprising results:

• More people mentioned a lack of workers than mentioned a lack of jobs
• More people were interested in maker trends than manufacturing trends
• More people focused on downtown issues than on recruiting outside businesses

Media stories about rural and small towns tend to focus on some well-worn themes that don’t match up to our survey results:

• Media often descend on a town when it suffers the loss of a major employer or other serious blow, but this was the least commonly-chosen rural challenge
• Crisis-driven stories focus on the loss of manufacturing jobs and portray a desire for the return of factories to rural areas, but people in our survey didn’t mention it and focused instead on local entrepreneurs
• Stories about the lack of small business lending say it’s holding back local business, but more rural people cited the lack of usable buildings than the lack of loans

While the survey was designed to identify rural challenges, people also answered with opportunities or solutions. Some included:

• Tourism trends to take advantage of
• Opportunity to provide accommodations to visitors or housing to residents
• Opportunity to provide family-friendly activities

Go to the Survey Results page for the full report, and while you’re there you can also sign up for action steps you can take based on the survey results.

Every small town has its own set of assets, issues and opportunities, but many of us share common challenges. We created the Survey of Rural Challenges so you could share your own view of rural, and we could better help you.

The first results were released in 2015, and we’d like your help to get an updated view. We’re asking about challenges to your community and your business, as well as the trends you want to hear more about.

Add your input here: Survey of Rural Challenges 2017. 

This year, the survey is being presented by Small Biz Survival and SaveYour.Town working together. If you’d like to help get the word out, that would be great!

You can share this special pass-along survey link [ http://saveyour.town/surveyshare/ ]to your own members, subscribers, readers, followers or friends. You can put it in your newsletter, on social media, on your website, or anywhere else you think rural people will be likely to help us out.

The survey will close March 15, 2017. 

Results will be posted on our Survey of Rural Challenges page.

Earlier this year, I ran a survey of subscribers and visitors here on SmallBizSurvival.com. Over 200 people who identified themselves as rural shared with me what challenges their small towns were facing that they wanted help with and what challenges their rural businesses were facing.

The challenges they picked were not the usual suspects.

When describing their community’s challenges, people selected a set of inter-related challenges, of bringing life and activity to their towns, so their businesses will prosper and young people will choose to stay and other people will want to visit. That’s a much more nuanced view of community development than we usually give rural people credit for understanding.

Most of the people surveyed also owned businesses. Adapting to being open later hours was their most-selected challenge. Marketing was the second most-commonly-chosen challenge. And in the open-ended answers, marketing got mentioned over and over. Clearly, getting the word out about your business is still a big issue, even in small towns.

There were a few surprises. Not many mentions of jobs or poverty, which are the stereotype of rural challenges. Very few people mentioned a business gap in their community. We hear a lot about filling gaps, so that surprised me. More business people cited a lack of usable buildings in their town than a lack of a business loan, which runs contrary to the usual stories.

I was struck by how often the lack of cooperation came up. We just don’t work together very well, from town leaders to local businesses. That’s something we can all work on.

Business issues seemed to fall into the pattern of the The 7 Most Common Weaknesses of Local Shops, and that’s something else we can work on.

And of course we can work on bringing more life and activity to town.

What to Do Next in Your Town

If you’re ready to work on those three things (cooperation, business weaknesses and more activity), then I have a guide for you. It’s a few pages of Action Steps specifically inspired by these survey results. It’s available only to subscribers of my separate email newsletter Positive View of Rural and Deb Brown’s Building Possibilities. You can become a subscriber right here for no cost:

Trouble with the signup form? Please go to the Survey of Rural Challenges page to sign up.

Survey statistical details

You can download a PDF report with more details on the survey results.

If you’d like an article about these results for your publication, or you’d like to request a presentation of these results, please use this contact form and mention the Survey of Rural Challenges.

I’ve been thinking about a long list of challenges for small town businesses and for people who care about shaping the future of their towns. Rather than me deciding which ones are most important for you, I’ve decided to ask you directly. So I have a four-question survey. I’d love to hear about your challenges.

Update: We re-open the survey every other year. Check the current status on our Survey of Rural Challenges page.

Thanks!

Nearly all customers say that shopping at small businesses makes them feel good. What’s your plan to build on that overwhelming consumer sentiment? Photo: The Daisy Village clothing store in Alva, Oklahoma. Photo by Becky McCray.

Tidbits from the Small Business Saturday Consumer Insights Survey, and what they mean for small town retail businesses:

• Nearly all (94%) U.S. consumers say that shopping at small businesses makes them “feel good.”

That’s good news for small town retail businesses. It’s up to us to reinforce the good feelings by making the shopping experience itself even more enjoyable. We’re the opposite of the mall crowded full of rude people. We’re comfortable, friendly, helpful and welcoming. Make sure you deliver on those promises. Add some extra help during the holidays, and work with all your help to maintain the friendly spirit of customer service.

• On average, shoppers estimate nearly one-third (31%) of their holiday shopping will be done at small businesses.

If we can encourage our local residents to shift just a bit more of their shopping to local businesses, imagine the difference that will make. Don’t try to guilt people into thinking they have to buy everything locally; they’ll feel it’s impossible and they’ll give up. Instead, emphasize that every dollar shifted to a local store benefits the community.

• Two-thirds (66%) of consumers say the main reason they patronize small businesses is because they value the contributions they make to their community.

Since that’s the biggest driver, let’s spend more time sharing the stories of how we contribute to the community. Talk about your causes, mention how your people volunteer, tell the stories of people and projects you support. Mention them in ads, in emails, on social media, in signs in your store. Post their pictures online and in your store. Include them in ads and social network updates.

About the Survey

The Small Business Saturday Consumer Insights Survey was conducted among a nationally representative sample of 1,999 males and females 18 years of age or older. The sample was collected using an email invitation and an online survey. The study was conducted anonymously by independent marketing performance specialist Ebiquity on October 20-30, 2014. The survey has an overall margin of error of +/- 2.2%, at the 95% level of confidence.