Category: youth

announcement | community | economic development | entrepreneurship | resources | rural | success | Survey of Rural Challenges | trends | workforce | youth
Survey of Rural Challenges 2015 – 2025 results
ByBecky McCray February 3, 2025February 3, 2025
Download the PDF report Executive Summary The Survey of Rural Challenges asks rural people to share their ground-level insight into the challenges they face and the assets they can use. This report analyzes over 2200 responses from communities across the US and Canada from 2015 to 2024. The responses show what’s changing and what isn’t…
Read More Survey of Rural Challenges 2015 – 2025 results
community | rural | trends | youth
Young Americans Returning to Rural for More than Just Holiday Dinners
BySmall Biz Survival August 7, 2024
by Caroline Tremblay, The Daily Yonder August 5, 2024 Kansas: Elevate the work of younger people In rural Kansas, if you’re between the ages of 21 and 39ish, you might be considered a PowerUp — but not just because of your age or location. A PowerUp is someone who is rural by choice. “The name…
Read More Young Americans Returning to Rural for More than Just Holiday Dinners
economic development | rural | workforce | youth
Improving the rural workforce: small town stories and takeaways
ByBecky McCray January 19, 2024
Takeaways for improving rural workforce: Bring together students, employers and multiple levels of education Build and document employee skills with micro-credentials Use apprenticeships to build skills, increase awareness of local job options Stitch together multiple programs to build your own workforce To add a new program in the public schools, hire dedicated program staff (at…
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community | economic development | ideas | rural | youth
Solve Rural Community Challenges the Idea Friendly Way – stories from IEDC
ByDeb Brown November 9, 2023
Guest post by Deb Brown What attendees learned from attending the Idea Friendly Session by SaveYour.Town at the International Economic Development Council Conference — Big Ideas you can copy in your town Becky McCray and I were excited to lead an interactive Idea Friendly workshop at the International Economic Development Council Conference in Dallas in…
Read More Solve Rural Community Challenges the Idea Friendly Way – stories from IEDC
economic development | rural | workforce | youth
Reaching “at risk” kids for local jobs
ByBecky McCray July 15, 2022July 10, 2022
Workforce is a challenge for 2/3rds of rural small businesses. Source: Survey of Rural Challenges, 2021 One under-utilized source of workers: At-risk students Tony Guidroz, from San Saba, Texas, told me he was shocked when he found out there were 702 kids in the local school district, and more than 400 were considered “at-risk” either…
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community | economic development | rural | trends | workforce | youth
3 Major factors in rural remote work: incentives, flexible workspaces, and a sense of community
ByBecky McCray June 6, 2022June 6, 2022
Remote work will dominate the future small town workforce Your current residents Your current small town residents will increasingly work from home or remotely. Gallup looked at jobs that could be done remotely and the locations where workers actually did them. Four times as many workers will work remotely going forward, compared to the number…
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entrepreneurship | planning | rural | youth
How to start a real small small business
ByBecky McCray December 17, 2021
Your fellow reader Ava asked a great question: If I am already working, in school, and wanting to start up just a real small small business, then how would that work differently from someone who is coming from a completely different stand point, like not working or in school and is just generally starting…
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community | failure | rural | youth
How Parents are Keeping Children from Becoming the Next Generation of Leaders
ByPaula Jensen December 28, 2019December 22, 2019
By Paula Jensen It seems I have almost always been interested in leadership. My parents modeled leadership as I was growing up through their active roles in community, church, and school. I joined 4-H at the age of eight, was called a “ring-leader” as an elementary student (which I don’t think this was a…
Read More How Parents are Keeping Children from Becoming the Next Generation of Leaders

Small Biz Survival

Survey of Rural Challenges 2015 – 2025 results

Young Americans Returning to Rural for More than Just Holiday Dinners

Improving the rural workforce: small town stories and takeaways

Solve Rural Community Challenges the Idea Friendly Way – stories from IEDC

Reaching “at risk” kids for local jobs

3 Major factors in rural remote work: incentives, flexible workspaces, and a sense of community

How to start a real small small business

How Parents are Keeping Children from Becoming the Next Generation of Leaders

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