Volume 13, Number 1 - January 2016 |
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Welcome to the latest edition of EntreWorks Insights, a quarterly newsletter that reports on business trends, policy developments, and other issues affecting the business of economic and workforce development. You’re receiving this note because you’ve asked to subscribe or because you have some previous interest in the work of EntreWorks Consulting. If you wish to subscribe or be removed from this list, please send an email to info (at) entreworks.net. If you’re interested in the newsletter, please read on. Please feel free to share with friends, family, colleagues, and other loved ones. Comments and constructive criticism (and praise) are also welcome. You are also encouraged to visit and comment on the EntreWorks blog at http://entreworks.net/blog. Thanks for your interest. |
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HIGHLIGHTS |
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Community Leadership: Time for a Youth InfusionAs my creaky knees often remind me, I am getting older—whether I like it or not. Yet, I find that I’m still a relative youngster in a large swath of my day job—interacting with community economic development leaders around the U.S. The business of economic development skews older, and we need to engage younger folks. Basically, we need a youth infusion in community decision-making. This issue of EntreWorks Insights looks at how some U.S. communities are tackling this challenge. Why do should we care about youth involvement in economic development decision-making? Ideally, we should seek to engage all local residents—from diverse ethnicities, age cohorts, and economic circumstances---in these discussions. But, engaging young people should be especially important. Why? First off, youth generally have lower community participation rates. So they are more heavily under-represented already. In many rural communities, youth engagement is a key tool in addressing problems of brain drain. Youth engaged in community decision making are more likely to stay in a community or return later in life. Finally, and most importantly, youth engagement is good for all involved. Youth gain key leadership and career skills, and economic developers benefit from a source of new ideas and new energy. I suspect that few people would quibble with this case for youth engagement, but then why is real youth engagement so rare in community economic development? Typically, we become consumed with the short term: “We need to create jobs now,” or “We need to focus on helping adult workers” or “I don’t have time to engage youth too.” But, all of these perhaps reasonable excuses should not obscure this basic fact: our current practices restrict opportunities to engage young people and often produce decisions that may not effectively represent the needs and aspirations of our community’s future residents and leaders. To give a sense of the problem, a survey of rural youth in Kansas, Missouri, and Nebraska found that 72% of surveyed young people had never been asked for their opinion on how to make their community more attractive to youth. Youth engagement can take many forms, and some of them are more show that reality. But, we do know that effective youth engagement efforts have several characteristics as noted by the Orton Foundation and others. Ultimately, communities should have an expectation that young people are engaged in discussions of all community issues and have a chance to be heard and take part in crafting and implementing solutions. There is a huge body of resources related to youth engagement, some of which are noted below. Here are some highlights and tips, along with some local examples that might guide you in improving your own youth outreach efforts.
In North Carolina, the NC Rural Center engaged young people in the creation of a new initiative, New Generation Ventures, that provides rural NC youth with business coaching/mentoring and business finance support. This strategy emerged directly from the state’s rural youth, who were engaged via surveys and focus groups to discuss what they wanted from their communities and what would help them stay in their rural hometowns. New Generation Ventures is a direct result of this effort. The message from young people was very clear: “Change begins with engagement.” 80% of them noted that they were ready and willing to volunteer on community projects, but had never been asked to help. Now, it’s up to us to ask!
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