An anonymous reader left this plaintive cry on an old post here: My Arizona small town is a mess. We are going to become a ghost town and/or absorbed into the County if we can’t generate revenue. The Town Council and Chamber are full of power plays, bickering and a Good Ol’ Boy attitude. We…
Long ago, Rebecca Leaman asked me about nonprofits in small towns. Profit/nonprofit partnership is essentialin most small towns. “A lot of your thoughts on small-town and small-biz development seem to apply well to nonprofits, too – certainly to the grassroots groups that keep rural communities (I live in one) rolling. Your thoughts?” At the time,…
[Melyn Johnson is the Main Street Manager in Guymon, Oklahoma. She always amazes me with her innovative projects in tourism and community development. She is also incredibly generous at sharing her knowledge. She wrote this piece for her “On the Bricks” column, in the Guymon Daily Herald. It’s been reprinted in other area papers, and she…
Looking to grow your own local entrepreneurs? See if you can take some inspiration from these entrepreneur contests. First, Lewiston-Auburn, Maine, with Launch L-A. They are targeting young entrepreneurs with a prior connection to their county, but currently living elsewhere. Does your idea have wings? If you’re a young entrepreneur just itching to launch your…
This is the second of several reports from the Making Place Matter in Northwest Oklahoma Rural Community Economic Development Summit held in Alva on June 3, 2010. A session on community building covered a wide range of topics, from the Main Street approach, to supporting local businesses, rural tourism, rural grocery stores, the participation of young people,…
Small towns lose too many of their high school graduates: they drop out, they move away, they leave for college, they get involved in drugs, they vandalize, or they are just lost. What can you do? Read “This small town nurtures its teenagers,” a success story from Canada. Here’s the end of the story: The…
Lois Loucks, Director of the Tri-Cities Economic Development (Wheaton-Onaga-Havensville, KS), shared some of her innovative thoughts with me in an email about shopping local. “Shopping Local” as a two way street, with responsibility placed on the business owners to earn “their share of business”. Just because someone decides to be in business, does not automatically…
Shop local and buy local campaigns can significantly impact your hometown economy, but the instructions available online assume you are a big city. That’s why I decided to create a step by step guide to starting a shop local campaign in a small town, as a downloadable e-book. It includes solid research that shows whether…
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