SHOW LESSWhat does "Community," "Unify," and "Paradigm" all have in to do with community prosperity? 

Have you ever heard of a Communifier.   After today you will!!!  

Your community is the way it is because of the way people think it is.   

I have been called the "Zig Ziglar" of rural development by a Pulitzer Prize winning newspaper editor. Want to know why?

Rural America is vital to the heart and soul of this nation. Many rural residents and rural states have felt left out of the nation’s prosperity, sometimes as “flyover” places, sometimes with neglected infrastructure needs, and sometimes forgotten in our increasingly urbanized culture. Reducing economic disparity between rural and urban areas is key to reducing political polarization, increasing unity and boosting national prosperity.

Rural Development Councils are a great example of rural resource coordination. It makes so much sense, previous government administrations got rid of them. But some have survived.   What are Rural Development Councils? Today we find out.   

Paul Costello has served as the Executive Director of the Vermont Council on Rural Development ( https://www.vtrural.org/home ) since 2000.  

VCRD runs an annual Rural Summit and conducts “Community Visits” that help rural communities build priorities, set action plans, and build connections to resources.   

It also provides customized facilitation on rural development policy at the local, regional and state level, including more than a dozen major rural policy council efforts, and has built significant programs to advance the digital economy.    

Today VCRD leads the Vermont Climate Economy Initiative and the Vermont Community Leadership Network.

Do you work with Rural America? Are you suggesting policy changes to address Rural America's issues?   

What if your policies were successful?   

Why do you think they are needed?   

If you don't know where you are going, anywhere will be where you get.   

If you did what you wanted to have happen, what would it look like? Rural Policy can not be made haphazard. We need an intentional effort to create the Rural America that we want.   

Policy without vision is just something that will keep an organization busy. But policy that is created after a vision is made, will change the Rural World.   

Vision before Policy.

The building of Rural America is a little like the evolution of animals: You either learn how to transition to the changing environment or you die. Rural communities that are not constantly improving and becoming more competitive won't survive.  

Rural communities need to renew who they are and why they still exist. Just like when the community was created more than 150 years ago, your community must look to the future to who your community wants to attract.   

Attracting people not businesses, is how rural America is going to restart coming out of the COVID-19 crises. Describing who you want to live in your community is now the new strategic planning process that your community needs to go through.   

The time to start is now! What are you waiting for?

Do you often hear stories of angry, frustrated citizens who feel they have little power to influence important decisions affecting their lives? 

Politicians and media pundits often reassure themselves by characterizing that frustration as apathy instead of looking deeper at the desire of regular people to express their views on public issues but who believe they do not have the venue to do so.  

Deliberative conversations provide a safe, nonpartisan space for citizens to struggle with challenging issues facing their communities. These conversations are based on the idea that in a democracy, citizens have a responsibility to get together to talk through their common concerns, to weigh possible alternative actions to address these problems and eventually contact officeholders and others about the desired direction for public action.  

Making choices about how to deal with public issues is necessary because people see issues from their own unique perspective and favor different approaches, where the options for action may conflict. Any strategy to public action will have consequences that should be anticipated. Consequences will have a range of concerns that pull people in different directions, individually and collectively. Community works best when people work through these conflicts and deal with the trade-offs until they have a shared sense of direction for moving ahead and some idea of what fellow citizens are willing to do to solve the problem.  

Public deliberation. Moving citizens to common ground often requires a positive catalyst: public deliberation. Public deliberation is a means by which citizens make tough choices about basic purpose and directions for their communities and their country – a way of reasoning and talking together. It is polite civility.

We continue our conversation on the importance of a redesign of Rural America.   With 23% of the population living in rural America, it is important that we create policies that support rural communities. 

Throwing money at a community has not been a good and effective way to build rural America.   

It is time to redesign how we look at rural from a policy level. We should not be afraid of new thinking or even supporting unpopular thinking. Many creative, new products and processes have emerged from a crises.  How can your community leverage the events of COVID to make real change?  

How can our government leverage the events of COVID to make real change?   

It is time to think different.

Research from the Brookings Institution: Reimagining rural policy: Organizing federal assistance to maximize rural prosperity.  

A recovery from COVID-19 that strengthens America’s economic resilience and prosperity, reduces its social vulnerabilities, and addresses longstanding racial and social inequities will require policies that enable more diverse places—as well as people—to thrive. This must include rural areas.  

Rural America boasts a rich diversity of identity, employment, culture, and   experiences. People of color comprise 21 percent of the rural population; rural areas have higher self-employment rates than urban counterparts; and rural assets will be central to modernization and transition underway in several of the nation’s key industries. Yet rural people and places also face unique vulnerabilities: Their recovery from the 2008 recession was incomplete before COVID-19 hit, and they lag other areas on indicators of poverty, health, and education.

Rural is being ignored by policy makers. Fewer, larger farms are not contributing to population growth, nor is alternative energy, such as ethanol and wind. Wages are not equal to those in the metro areas.  Should rural communities give up? How can counties reverse the downward spiral? 

Ask these questions at home. At your board of supervisors/city council/economic development team/school board meetings. At the coffee shop. Ask them to people who do not participate in anything.  

Are you talking about population decline? More importantly, what are you doing about it? About poverty rates?  

Is your county still doing economic development the same way as it has for the last 100 years? 

Is the county getting the results you want?  Are you constantly looking for new people to engage and participate?

In America, every community is responsible for its own development and prosperity. Our Community Prosperity Institute provides an impactful resource for community foundations and their partners.

What You Will Learn: Our objectives for the Community Prosperity Institute are as follows:

Discovery. Frank and Kimberlee Spillers will share e2’s nationally field-tested Community Prosperity Framework. This development framework can be customized by communities to vision, develop, and implement impactful community economic development investments leading to greater community success, vibrancy, and prosperity.

Team Visioning. Our intensive institute will provide an efficient and effective opportunity to fine-tune your prosperity vision and agenda. Your team will have opportunities to work on your “game plan,” and tap the expertise of Frank, Kim, and their team.

This Institute will help begin the process of identifying its strategic niche roles in supporting your communities.

By the end of the Institute, you will have a development roadmap that can be refined with stakeholders, and used to guide action planning for moving forward. Additionally, as part of roadmap development, your team(s) can explore and fine-tune the foundation’s possible role within this overall development initiative.

Start your Prosperity now!!

Rural Community Solutions use systems that address the critical underlying environment of a community and its residences. The relationships that a community creates, sets the foundation for community growth and wealth creation. Our systems address areas of a community that are sometimes swept under the rug. Cultural foundations that have been developing for as long as a community has been in existence.    

Behind every process is data. Our Development Opportunity Profile brings together a range of secondary data so that you understand the regional context and the population, employment, and income trends for your communities. We also identify the primary drivers of your communities’ economic success, so you’ll be in a better position to focus in on your communities’ genuine development opportunities.