And you can’t plan your way there, either. I ran into another one of those outdated “how to fix your rural community” prescriptions. I think you know the type I mean, written to address the “official leaders.” It started with shared vision, then planning (lots of planning), recruiting additional participants, assigning parts of the plan…
A couple of times last year I had the chance to hear Dell Gines talk about collaboration. Both times, he used the phrase “build robust networks for targeted purposes.” That resonated for me as Deb Brown and I often tell you stories about Building Connections and turning your crowd into a powerful network as part…
What’s the best way to get volunteers to take lots of required training or complete an intensive commitment? Help them take small steps. Take a large volunteering goal: Break it into easier subgoals: And make it flexible for them: It’s the same goal! But wording it differently made a big difference in how volunteers reacted…
Two people at the Oklahoma Arts Council conference mentioned their support message groups. This is such a simple idea I wanted to share it with you. Alena Jennings said people call her The Doodle Lady because she runs The Doodle Academy, an art experience education business in downtown Ponca City. Alena has connected with several…
You’d like to do more for your small town or rural community, but you’re held back by at least a couple of things: You don’t actually need either of those. Small steps can be meaningful and usually don’t require permission. That’s why Deb and I say: 99% of the best things you can do for…
At the Teeny Tiny Town Summit last week, JaNae Barnard from Fairview, Oklahoma, shared how they jump started their new housing project. “We stopped settling for talking,” she said. She loaded up the key folks from Major County Economic Development, and they drove past every single house in Fairview. That gave everyone a much clearer…
You’ve probably noticed, but housing is a top challenge in most rural communities and small towns. That makes it hard to remember that back around 2013, cheap housing was a key draw of new residents to rural places, according to Ben Winchester from University of Minnesota and others. But by 2019, lack of housing was…
At the Rural Renewal Symposium last year, I was stopped in my tracks by a research poster presentation by Rural Scholar Stephanie Harvey on a youth photovoice project. Why did it strike me? It featured photos taken by kids ages 7 to 17 about what they wanted in their towns. I think you’d recognize their…
When we were talking about finding more volunteers in a virtual session with Radically Rural, some people brought up liability as a barrier to all kinds of volunteer projects and events. I get why this came up. Somebody in your town probably brought up liability when you shared an idea, too. “You want to let…
It’s not just you. Every small town struggles to find enough volunteers to do all the projects and events and ideas. Cassandra Boniface with the Township of Stirling-Rawdon, Ontario, told us how they flipped the volunteer recruiting process. “We created the Active Community Expo (A.C.E.). It’s held at our local arena, and is essentially a…
It’s pretty common to hear rural people say something like, “There’s nothing here!” That’s because they aren’t remembering all the new business activity or they maybe aren’t paying attention. Or maybe they’re only thinking of big new employers, the kind that come with visiting dignitaries for the ribbon cutting and announcement. Most small towns don’t…
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