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Hometown Competetiveness Presents a Unique Approach to Rural Community Development
By presenting a “come back/give back” approach to rural community building, Hometown Competitiveness provides a comprehensive strategy for long-term rural community sustainability. This approach goes beyond the traditional tunnel vision of economic development. This approach has been developed and field-tested by three partnering organizations: the Heartland Center for Leadership Development, the Nebraska Community Foundation and the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship. Combining decades of experience in rural development, these partner organizations are focusing on four strategies that are essential and workable in most rural communities, yet are usually underdeveloped.
The comprehensive approach of HTC encourages communities to take action in four strategic areas—leadership, youth, entrepreneurship and charitable assets. Leadership development strives to strengthen the capacity of residents to improve and sustain their community. The goal of youth development is to support and enhance the idea of adults and youth working together to create opportunities for youth to stay in or return to the community. The purpose of developing charitable assets is to strengthen and sustain charitable giving at the local level in order to build an endowment that will sustain local civic institutions and create a new source of opportunity capital for community economic development efforts. The efforts of entrepreneurial development work to identify and assess entrepreneurial talent in the community and to devise an economic development strategy to increase entrepreneurial business development.
Together, these strategies create a synergy that can significantly impact the future prospects of rural areas experiencing out-migration and economic decline. HTC calls for rural communities to invest in local human resources and to build and retain local wealth. 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 an HTC approach. What differentiates HTC from many other development efforts is that it focuses primarily on internal resources and assets. The goal is to assess where a community is, here and now, and to build on the current capacity of each of the four elements.
You can find out more and access a wide range of resources from this group at http://www.htccommunity.org/
Submitted by
Walt Whitmer
Extension Associate, Economic & Community Development, Penn State Cooperative Extension
Associate Director, Northeast Regional Center for Rural Development
6C Armsby Building
University Park, PA 16802
(814) 865-0468
(814) 865-3746 (fax)