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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…
The other day, I told you about how the kids’ Photovoice project stopped me in my tracks and why we made a video for those kids. Today, I want to share one of the photo ideas the kids made and what Deb Brown and I said to those kids. It’s also part of the video…
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…
Our latest Survey of Rural Challenges said natural resources are our best rural assets, but you don’t have enough outfitters to take advantage of them as tourism development. Here’s how you can grow your own outfitters. Both Deb and I visited Eastern Kentucky last year. I visited Estill County, and Deb was in Jackson County….
Emily Karsjens Perry asked, “Has anyone seen an example of an Idea Friendly laundromat? My brain is mulling over how to start one very small, possibly in combination with other 24 hour machines.” An Idea Friendly approach to Emily’s laundry ideas would be to: Here’s what Building Connections could look like: Here are some extra…
As a random person with no office or title, you’re in the best position to make good things happen. You don’t have to follow complicated rules of office. You’re not limited by the scope of your title. You don’t have to worry about naysayers crowding your public meetings. You’re you, and you get to decide…
Part of being Idea Friendly is to Gather Your Crowd. It’s not arm-twisting or “volun-telling” other people. You put your idea out there, and you let it attract people to you. One easy way: show progress. Deb used to keep a list of every new business that opened in Webster City, Iowa. Then when someone…
This is my favorite finding from our latest Survey of Rural Challenges: rural people are optimistic about the future of their community. In fact, they were twice as likely to say they were optimistic than negative about their community’s future! Over 300 rural people answered the question, Do you think your community will be better…
8 years ago, I asked Deb Brown if she would like to do something together for small towns. Deb was a full time Chamber of Commerce director, and I had my liquor store and cattle ranch. We started by making email courses and picked the name, SaveYour.Town. Fast forward through 8 years of experiments, and…
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