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I met Heidi Johnson (Tymko) at the Canadian Beef Industry Conference. After my presentation, she told me excitedly how she had been using Idea Friendly methods, even though she didn’t know it. Heidi moved to a new small town, so she started a run club to meet other people. That was her big idea. She…
What do you do about the people who just complain about everything but don’t ever take any action? That was one of the questions when I visited Caldwell, Kansas, recently. Here’s my advice: Recruit them to join the Pillars of the Community: to show up and encourage people. They can show up with their lawn…
That headline–hope is as infectious as despair–came from Geoffrey Canada, of the Harlem Children’s Zone, speaking at the recent Council of State Governments East Annual Conference. You know I’m always taking notes, looking for ideas we can adapt from big cities and small towns to our own communities. I liked that statement about hope so…
I just spent 30 minutes re-listening to the audio version of our Building a Unified Community. This is still exactly what we need right now. You build a stronger community through experiences that bring people together from across different groups to each play a meaningful role. Deb and I wrote and recorded that in 2021….
No one creates jobs in a vacuum. To create new jobs, people need to connect to: Innovation works best when people connect with people outside their usual network, people who aren’t exactly like them. That makes it easier to put together pieces of seemingly unrelated ideas to generate a new idea. Your town has different kinds…
Australia, Canada and UK weigh in with assets and challenges Our Survey of Rural Challenges just wrapped up this week, and I want to share the preliminary results with you. This year, international people made almost 4% of all responses, based on what survey-takers volunteered about their locations. There were 13 from Canada, 4 from…
You’ll never get everyone to like your town. It takes a certain person to appreciate your local quirks and charm. That’s OK because you’re not trying to get everyone on earth to move there, nor to force everyone to stay. The goal is for people to want to move there or want to stay for the…
Melody Warnick’s books have been refreshing reads for me in thinking about how people and place interact to create the culture in rural communities. In This Is Where You Belong, Melody talks openly about her own struggle to feel connected when she moved to a new town. In If You Could Live Anywhere she shares…
The first time I visited Pullman, Washington, in 2017, I bet half a dozen people told me they had a dirty sidewalk problem. Every time it rains, dirt and leaves and trash wash out of the streets and onto the sidewalks. As we walked around their downtown, they told me that they’ve done clean up…
See our mood board, above? It’s all about how SaveYour.Town is helping you along the way in 2024 and beyond. Deb Brown and I picked that phrase, helping you along the way, because we know that you’re full up on work to do. You’re probably involved in multiple organizations in your community. Certainly you are…
I have so many stories from the amazing communities in Washington and Idaho that I toured and supported last month. People are doing heroic work to make their communities better. A new recreation area and ballfield is in process in Deary, Idaho. The next step is to install a culvert across part of it. Inspired…
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…
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