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Youth Engagement Update
April 2014
In This Issue
Spurring Migration Innovation
Other Center News
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This update features the work that we and our partners are doing to help rural communities to take action in migration attraction. Read all about the Rural Migration Initiative and find out about the regional symposiums beginning in June 2014.

 

Strategy for Spurring Rural Migration Innovation

The past three Youth Updates have explored rural migration and some of the myths, trends, and opportunities it presents for rural communities (find them here). This month I want to invite you to become involved in a strategy for spurring innovation in proactively recruiting newcomers and former residents back home. As discussed in the previous articles, research conducted over the past decade clearly documents that new residents are moving to rural communities, but almost all of this migration has occurred informally with little organized recruitment efforts by community leaders or development organizations.

 

There are, however, pockets of innovation that are demonstrating success in proactively recruiting new residents, engaging them as citizens and leaders, and thereby revitalizing rural communities. The Rural Migration Initiative that we are now embarking on with regional partners has a three-year time horizon to achieve the following goals: 

 

1) Engage early adopters to share their work and the body of research with a broader audience of rural leaders and practitioners seeking to attract new residents. 

 

2) Encourage and support pilot projects based upon best practices and research to spur further innovation and learning.  

 

3) Evaluate and document results of pilot projects and share what is learned through an implementation framework with tools and strategies that can be applied on a wider basis. 

  

The following diagram illustrates the key elements of the strategy.

Ashown in the diagram, the major elements of the Rural Migration Initiative Strategy are regional symposiums, pilot project implementation, and assessment and evaluation with documentation of best practices that can be shared and utilized by rural communities and development organizations across the country. 
 
As discussed in previous Youth Update articles, we need to engage a broader group of stakeholders in understanding the rural migration trends, priorities of new residents, and pioneering work of early adopters so innovative strategies can emerge to advance this work.  

To facilitate this learning and innovative thinking, several regional symposiums will be held in 2014. The first of these symposiums is scheduled for June 4-5 in Morris, MN and will be hosted by the Center for Small Towns at the University of Minnesota-Morris. Partners in this symposium include: University of Minnesota, Extension - Center for Community Vitality; Center for Rural Entrepreneurship; University of Nebraska - Rural Futures Institute; and South Dakota State University - Department of Sociology and Rural Development.

The target audience for this regional event includes rural development organizations, higher education extension offices, foundations, regional economic developers, media, electric and telephone cooperatives, rural leaders and decision makers from Minnesota, Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska and Wisconsin, but we also encourage people interested from anywhere across North America to attend. Seating is limited to 250 people, so register early.

Goals for the Symposiums
  • Improve the dialogue about migration between theoretical and applied research approaches.
  • Exemplify the ways communities are connected through migration.
  • Inform the rural development industry of current strategies for recruitment and retention of all ages, races and ethnicities.
  • Bring the macroeconomic perspective of migration theory to the rural development industry to help frame strategies related to recruitment and retention.
  • Explore the role narrative language plays in recruitment strategies.
  • Delineate the strategy differences between youth and adult recruitment.
  • Develop a strategy to evaluate the effectiveness of both recruitment and retention efforts and determine measures of success.
  • Explore common recruitment strategy among states.
  • Describe the economic impact of newcomers.
  • Explore the opportunities the upcoming baby boomer housing relocations may have for newcomer growth.
  • Gather experiences with place-based strategies; i.e., land incentives, internships, alumni.

Participants will be encouraged to act upon the symposium dialogue by hosting newcomer-oriented community meals and social events to welcome new residents, facilitate nonprofit summits to expand the knowledge and discussion about rural migration and impacts, conduct newcomer interviews to better understand their perspectives and priorities, and pursue educational initiatives geared toward sharing the new rural narrative emerging from rural migration research. We will also host follow-up webinars so participants may invite their colleagues to become engaged and thereby expand the breadth of informed rural leaders and practitioners.

 

To learn more about the Rural Migration Initiative Strategy, the partners leading this work, and the symposium on June 4-5, please go to: ruralmigration.org

 

 

 
Other Center News 

Ogallala Commons... Community Building at its best!

Last month, Don Macke with the Center had a wonderful experience participating in a celebration hosted by Ogallala Commons in the West Texas rural community of Nazareth. Ogallala Commons has been around for a while and typically works with rural communities that are associated with the Ogallala aquifer which runs from Texas into the Northern Great Plains. The event focused on what it calls the 12 key assets of community commonwealth. Examples of key community assets include a sense of place, history, spirituality, education and health. One of the remarkable initiatives of Ogallala Commons is its internship program that places youth in rural places. One of this program's founders and one of Ogallala Commons' first interns is Simone Cahoj now rooted in Leoti, KS. This year Ogallala Commons will place 65 or so youths in rural communities. There is more to learn on the Ogallala Commons website

 
For more information about Ogallala Commons, contact its founder and visionary leader Darryl Birkenfeld at [email protected]. Don Macke at [email protected].  

 

New Book on sale now!

For the past eight years, the Center team and our partners have been working hard to test a new generation of strategies and tactics to grow more prosperous regions and communities by supporting entrepreneurs. We have captured this learning in our new book, Energizing Entrepreneurial Communities: A Pathway to Prosperity. We hope our new book becomes your well-worn, dog-eared entrepreneurial community roadmap! To get your copy, download an order form here

 

Development of Community Engagement Promising Practices. 

The Center and its staff have a long history working with community foundations and community development philanthropy. Our work dates back to the creation of the Nebraska Community Foundation, our work with Bob Sutton with the South Dakota Community Foundation and more than 40 Transfer of Wealth™ studies ranging from Brooklyn, NY and Los Angeles, CA to rural Montana. The Center is now partnering with Janet Topolsky and the Community Strategies Group with the Aspen Institute on a promising framework and process focusing on enhanced engagement among community foundations and their communities.
For more information about anything you've read in this newsletter, please contact
 Craig Schroeder at [email protected].