The Three Things Your Community Needs To Survive & Thrive / Rural Economic Development Newsletter / October 4, 2023

Quick Summary - To have rural development success, your community must have three (3) vital elements. Your community needs:

1. An Innovative Vision and an Actionable Strategic Plan;
2. Leadership/Leadership Development; and 
3. Collaboration.

If your town struggles to keep residents, add jobs, and be a place your kids and grandkids want to call home, you must decide if you wish to change your trajectory. Do you want more/different/better for your community? Having the desire to change is the first step. Step two is thinking and acting differently. Each town is unique, so no "cookie-cutter" solutions can be used. But no matter the community, three elements must be present for rural development success.

The Three Must-Have Elements

1. An Innovative Vision and a Strategic Plan

As Dolly Parton says,

"Find out who you are and do it on purpose."

Vision

Your community must have a vision for the future. To create a vision for your community, consider doing the following:

• Bring community leaders and residents together. The more people, the better.
• Challenge your leaders and residents to think about your community differently than they have in the past.
• Be creative and innovative, and don't let your history limit your future.
• But be realistic. Don't try to be something you're not.

Here are four places to look to help craft your community's vision:

1. Existing community strengths and assets - What does your community do well? - What differentiates your community from others? - Discuss how to strengthen what you do well. Invest in and grow your strengths and turn them into magnets for investment.
2. Regional strengths and opportunities - What sectors or businesses are doing well in your region/state? - Do you have synergy in any of these businesses or sectors? - Can you develop synergy? - Can you connect your community to opportunities in your region and state?
3. Look to higher education institutions in the region and state. Can you connect with them in ways you aren't currently? - Are there cutting-edge areas of research you can connect your community with?
4. Fast-growing industry sectors - What sectors are expected to be the fastest growing in the economy? Here are three industries to look at:

• Healthcare - Do you have it? How can you grow it? How can you develop and grow a healthcare workforce?
• Advanced manufacturing - Do you have it? Can you grow it? While the number of manufacturing jobs may be shrinking, the U.S. is developing or increasing several advanced manufacturing industries - EVs, batteries, semiconductors - and many are locating in the southeast U.S.
• Technology - Do you have any tech businesses? Can you develop and grow them? What about creating and developing a tech workforce? 

Plan

Your community needs a strategic plan that is: 1. Focused; 2. Concise; and 3. Actionable.

Here's where to start with your plan:

• Pick your most significant strength/asset. Identify the steps to turn it into a magnet that attracts investment and people. Then, get to work.
• Pick the most significant obstacle to your development success, brainstorm possible solutions, pick the best solution, and implement it.
• Pick the most innovative/creative/realistic moonshot opportunity and go for it! But make sure you have some synergy here.
• Ensure that you have some short-term initiatives and goals. If all your initiatives are long-term, you will struggle to create and sustain the momentum needed for community and economic development.

Plan = Asset + Obstacle + Opportunity

1. Leadership/Leadership Development

Henrik Ibsen, a 19th-century Norwegian playwright, on the importance of having a citizenry prepared to lead:

"A community is like a ship; everyone ought to be ready to take the helm."

You need at least one community leader to get things going. That leader needs a small group to work with them to start making change. But to succeed, you must engage a larger, more diverse group of community leaders and residents. Your community needs to work to develop more leaders. A community leader can be anybody involved in the work of change in the community.

You must think about leadership differently than you have in the past. Leadership is not something for a select few business leaders or elected officials. Leadership can be passed around to different people at different times. Think about leadership differently and work to create more community leaders.

Here are some areas to focus on:

• Existing leaders - continue to work to educate and support your existing leaders.
• Recruit more leaders - have your current leadership group educate and engage a larger, more diverse group of leaders.
• Create a community leadership pipeline by educating and engaging your students. Teach them the vital elements of community development and encourage them to plug into areas where they are passionate. Give young people opportunities to engage with current community initiatives. You must work to develop and engage your next generation of leaders.

 3. Collaboration

Henry Ford on the importance of collaboration, 

"Coming together is a beginning; keeping together is progress, and working together is success."

Collaboration should be a rural community's superpower. Rural communities have fewer people and organizations to pull together and get behind a common agenda. Bring different community groups together regularly to discuss vital community issues. Work to get your public, private, and philanthropic organizations together to work toward your community's goals.

The most critical area of collaboration in your community is the relationship between your education system and the business community. You must get education and business working together to produce the workforce your community needs now and in the future. Your community's leaders' and residents' ability to come together, stay together, and work together will determine whether your community thrives or just survives.

Summary:

To be successful, your community needs:

1. A Vision and a Strategic Plan;

2. Leadership/Leadership Development; and

3. Collaboration.

These three areas are essential and require daily work. But if you have them, you can do anything!