The HomeTown Competitiveness Initiative

by Don Macke, Co-Director, RUPRI Center for Rural Entrepreneurship

Rural Nebraska faces many challenges. Youth out-migration, a daunting transfer-of-wealth scenario, and many towns’ depleted hopes for surviving – much less thriving – prompt a desperate plea from Nebraska’s rural communities for innovative strategies that will bring hope and sustainability.

Six years ago, the founding partners of what is now known as HomeTown Competitiveness (HTC) – The Heartland Center for Leadership Development, Nebraska Community Foundation, RUPRI Center for Rural Entrepreneurship, and the Center for Rural Affairs – decided to work collaboratively to change the landscape of rural Nebraska. They decided that a developmental initiative was needed that builds on small towns’ existing resources and assets, many of which go unrecognized.

HTC’s goal is to assess a community’s current situation and capacity, then build on four key elements:

Developing and mobilizing leadership capacity;
Capturing wealth transfer through charitable giving;
Energizing entrepreneurship; and
Attracting and engaging young people.

Together, these four essential elements create a synergy that can significantly impact the future prospects of rural areas experiencing out-migration and economic decline. HTC is drawing significant attention in Nebraska and nationally because rural leaders and practitioners recognize that even the most distressed community has, to some degree, each of the necessary elements to launch the initiative.

The HTC approach

David City, Neb., its downtown square shown above, is one of the HTC sites.

The HTC framework was officially established in 2001, and pilot work began in Valley County and Ord, Nebraska, in 2002. Other sites for HTC now include the cities and towns of Stuart, Atkinson,Mullen, David City and O'Neill, and Chase, Perkins and Knox counties - all in Nebraska - plus Brookfield, Missouri, and south central Kansas. The four key elements of the HTC approach, as outlined below, are illustrated in examples from these communities.

Mobilizing Local Leaders
For small towns to compete in the 21st century, they must tap into everyone’s potential knowledge, talent and aspirations. The Heartland Center for Leadership Development rejects the outdated notion of relying on “the usual suspects” to get things done. Rural communities must be intentional about recruiting and nurturing an increasing number of women, minorities and young people into decision-making roles. They need continuing leadership training programs because today’s leadership must constantly reinvent itself to reflect the challenges of a changing global environment.

The Holt County communities of Stuart, Atkinson and O’Neill are a great example of neighboring communities teaming up to build a stronger region as they work together on several HTC efforts. One of the key outcomes of this relationship is the HomeTown Leadership Institute, an annual leadership program in which a class of 30 to 35 individuals, from high school students to senior citizens, participate in monthly leadership lessons and experiences. Part of the program’s impact is that it works to match participants with leadership opportunities in the community.

With the second year reaching completion and plans under way for next year’s class, this strategy for building leadership is showing results: 60 percent of the participants indicated they plan to increase their volunteer activities as a result of the Institute, and 57 percent shared that they were interested in seeking public office in the future. Jack Schultz is the CEO of Agracel, Inc., a firm that specializes in industrial development in small towns. His work led him to wonder about the roots of smalltown health and prosperity. That curiosity, coupled with some research, resulted in 2004 in a popular book, Boomtown USA: The 7 1/2 Keys to Big Success in Small Towns. In it, Schultz attempts to answer a perennial question:What separates the thriving towns from the struggling ones?

Boomtown clearly has struck a nerve. The book is going into its fourth printing, and Schultz has been asked to do more than 200 talks since it published. Boomtown is part toolbox and part pep talk, a kind of self-help tome for towns.With great enthusiasm, Schultz cites example after example of successful strategies from small towns across the country and provides a framework for understanding why those strategies have worked.

It’s a book that will change the mind of even the most hardened cynic about the future of small town America. It advocates looking inward for the keys to success – nurturing vision and optimism, building on existing assets and leveraging leadership.

In this interview with Economic Development America, Schultz talks about some of Boomtown’s keys to success, some surprises he encountered in his research, and shares his recent thinking on the role of entrepreneurship in small town properity.

Leadership and the Effingham experience

Schultz has first-hand experience with the turnaround of a small town in economic crisis – that of his own town of Effingham, Illinois (pop. 12,384 in 2000), located almost smack in the middle of the state.

“In our town in the late 1980s, within about six months, we lost two major manufacturers, we had a third that was looking at moving its production to South Carolina, and a fourth was looking at consolidating one of its three plants. So, out of 4,000 higher-paying manufacturing jobs, we suddenly had 3,000 that were somewhat up in the air,” says Schultz. “The whole economy just dried up. Banks couldn’t make loans; dealers couldn’t sell cars.

“A small group of us got together and decided that we had to do some things.We could no longer be ‘held hostage’ by one of these big companies,” he says.

Effingham undertook a number of initiatives to change its fortunes, including a community planning process and marketing and image-building campaigns. “No companies came to town as a direct result of any of this,” Schultz writes in Boomtown, “but through these efforts the community began to recover its spirit, enthusiasm and optimism.”

After five years, the town attracted what would be the first of several new mid-sized manufacturers, and during the 1990s, Effingham realized a 70 percent increase in new manufacturing jobs. The story doesn’t mean to imply that attracting small manufacturers is the key to success; that’s simply what worked for that town at that time. Success came because community members came together and acted strategically to change the town’s fortunes.

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