Hometown Competitiveness: A Come Back-Give Back Approach to Rural Development

For the past few years, a collaborative of nonprofit organizations in Nebraska has been evolving a model for community intervention and self-help. The program, called Hometown Competitiveness, has emerged as a new model for interdisciplinary rural development. Combining outside technical assistance with local capacity building, the program features four distinct strategies for entrepreneurship identification and support, leadership training, youth engagement and the creation of local charitable assets. The HTC collaborative is one of 6 programs nationally that received awards from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s Entrepreneurship System Development Initiative. The upcoming paper will offer descriptions of the assessment and engagement tools that have been developed by the HTC team as well as a look at how the collaborative developed and has changed over time. More information is available at: www.htcnebraska.or