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Posts Tagged ‘Youth’
Just another typical Millennial
January 20th, 2009
Should we be surprised when a seventeen year-old high school student buys a grocery store in his rural community? We assume all young people just want to get out of town, go to college, and then get a good paying job in the city? But is that really the case?
After watching this CBS News story about Nick Graham, a young entrepreneur from Truman, MN (pop. 1,259 ), I had to stop and rethink that assumption. Hopefully after watching it, you will too.
Before going further, I want to credit the Blog for Rural America for bringing the story to my attention. The video is a year old, and I missed their original post a year ago January. Luckily their latest update caught my attention.
What’s happened in the last year
The Blog for Rural America’s post is worth checking out, but here are a few brief highlights about what’s happened with Nick during the last year. First, Nick purchased two more grocery stores in rural communities. Sounds like things were going well, but he recently sold all three to another grocer who gave him a good offer. Nick has since moved on to a sales career and is currently helping out a struggling daycare center.
While some people probably think Nick is the exception among young people today, I don’t. If we step back and examine the Characteristics of Gen Y, we see that Nick fits the mold of his generation:
- He wants to make a difference, and believes he can. (Nick even has plans for additional business ideas for Truman.)
- He’s tech savvy. (Apparently, he’s written a software program to help the daycare.)
- He thinks like an entrepreneur. (I don’t think any additional comment is needed on this subject.)
So if Nick is not the exception, why aren’t more Millennials jumping into business in our rural communities? And if they have a natural inclination to be entrepreneurs, is there something rural communities can do to encourage them to start businesses in rural communities?
This needs more study
Admittedly, I don’t have the answers to these questions, but I’ve already started digging into some research. I’ll share whatever I find, and I hope you’ll help me out by sharing what you think. Because I can’t stop thinking about it, however, I’m going to throw out some ideas that I have on the subject.
My List of Recommendations
- First, make sure Millennials know that your community needs them. To quote Nick “I’m here hopefully to make a profit, but I’m not here for that in and of itself. I’m here because this community needs me to be here.” (from the CBS video) We hear Millennials are motivated to help change the world. Spread the message that saving the world can begin with saving their hometowns.
- Second, celebrate young entrepreneurs. I’d highly recommend that you forward Nick’s story to every high school teacher and administrator you know. Encourage them to have a conversation with their students about what Nick has done. But don’t just leave it to educators. Take the responsibility yourself to seek out young people in your community and engage them in a conversation. You could be the spark they need.
- Third, be ready to step up to the plate financially. You may not personally be in a situation to help out financially, but someone in the community surely is. In Nick’s case, the Truman Development Corporation lent him $22,000. I’m sure it was scary lending that much money to a 17-year old, but somebody has to do it or there’s no sense in encouraging young people.
I arrived at these ideas without any “deep thinking”, so feel free to criticize or clarify them. Like the topic of “third places,” I believe we need to build a deeper conversation on this subject. I hope you’ll add to this by identifying other ways rural communities can encourage the development of entrepreneurs like Nick. After all, the futures of our rural communities may depend on it.
Other resources on Nick Graham
- “Stocking Shelves, Restoring Hope“ at American Profile
- “17 year old reopens Truman’s Main Street Market“ at The Free Press, Mankato
- “Teen sells Truman store he saved“ at The Free Press, Mankato
- “Graham moves on to other ventures” at The Fairmont Sentinel
Tags: cbs news, entrepreneurship, Gen Y, grocery stores, Localism, millennials, retail, Truman MN, Youth
Posted in Economic Development, Gen Y, In the News, Quality of Life, Rural | Comments (2)
What’s entrepreneurship got to do with it?
November 19th, 2008
It’s Day 2 of HomeTown YouthForce. I have to admit that a two and half day conference is a bit long for me, but this afternoon I was re-energized in a session hosted by Gregg Christensen. Gregg is the Entrepreneurship and Career Education Specialist State Coordinator for Nebraska. He introduced what may be the most relevant tool for rural communities around entrepreneurship that I’ve seen. It’s called ESI.
ESI: EntrepreneurShip Investigation is a 4-H curriculum initiative that several organizations in Nebraska have developed for middle school aged children to introduce and develop entrepreneurship skills. The program includes hands-on activities that encourage experiential learning, community connections, and a CD-Rom application that integrates technology.
What’s most exciting to me is the role this curriculum could play in community development initiatives. What better investment can we make than encouraging our young people to follow their passion, with the understanding that it is something they can do at home?
I’d encourage you to check it out. I’ve already bought my copy.
Tags: entrepreneurship, Nebraska, Youth, Youthforce
Posted in Community Development, Economic Development, Training and Events, Uncategorized, Youth | Comments (3)
How many youth does it take…
November 18th, 2008
“How many youth does it take to turn a rural community around…” No, this is not an opening line to a joke, but rather a message both about the importance of involving young people in community and understanding your community’s current reality (the facts and figures, so to speak).
As Mike mentioned in an earlier post, I’m at a conference this week called HomeTown YouthForce: Engaging the Entrepreneurial Generation (a training being put on by the Heartland Center for Leadership Development and Center for Rural Entrepreneurship). The Heartland Center and Center for Rural Entrepreneurship have been doing great work in the community development field for years, and I am excited to be here learning with the best!
One of the most interesting facts of the day was this: 52% of youth in Nebraska picture themselves living in their hometown or the area surrounding it in the future (survey sample size is currently 2,153). This data comes from a survey that Craig Schroeder, Senior Associate at the Center for Rural Entrepreneurship, has developed for high school students. The survey also inquires about student interest in owning their own business and measures youth satisfaction with his/her community.
52% is a big deal. What’s perhaps more interesting about this study is that it also defines what Craig calls a “Youth Attraction Formula Benchmark.” This benchmark defines the percentage of young people a community needs to attract or retain to stabilize its population. These benchmarks vary based on an individual community’s statistical trends, but for many communities, the figure is somewhere between 10 and 15 percent.
So, that’s good news for rural communities. You don’t have to attract or retain half of your graduating classes each year to stabilize population, you only need 10 or 15%! It also makes me wonder: if more than half of our students want to return home someday, what in the world are we doing (or not doing) that is resulting in return rates of less than 10 percent in many cases?
Tags: entrepreneurship, Nebraska, Youth, Youthforce
Posted in Training and Events, Youth | Comments (0)
Posts from the Field
November 17th, 2008
This week is going to be scary busy. Tomorrow, I’m off to the SDHDA’s Annual Housing Conference in Pierre, SD. If all goes well, I’ll provide some reports from the field. I’m especially interested in the Rural Housing Collaborative’s presentation on their Rural Housing Playbook .
I’m also excited to introduce a new author on the ReImagineRural.com blog this week. Lindsey Karlson is the Community Outreach Coordinator for the Rural Learning Center, and will be attending the “HomeTown YouthForce: Engaging the Entrepreneurial Generation” conference in Nebraska City, NE. The idea of developing strategies to work with entrepreneurial youth and to retain our young people is something that I wanted to learn more about. And Lindsey’s gracious enough to provide updates.
Don’t tell her I said this, but Lindsey’s a pretty smart person and an awesome writer; so you’re going to enjoy her posts.
If you are at either of these conferences and see our smiling faces, I hope you’ll say “hi”.
Tags: entrepreneurship, Hometown Youthforce, Rural Housing Collaborative, Rural Housing Playbook, Youth
Posted in Community Development, Economic Development, Housing, In the News, Rural, Training and Events | Comments (0)