HomeTown Competitiveness

HomeTown Competitiveness, a Nebraska initiative currently working in seven counties and communities in Nebraska, has been chosen as one of six recipients of grants provided through the W.K. Kellogg Foundation’s 75th Anniversary Entrepreneurship Development Systems for Rural America.

The $1.7 million award, over three years, provides a framework for rural communities to help them identity reachable goals and strategies focused on the four pillars of reversing rural decline:

• building leadership and community capacity
• engaging young people
• fostering local philanthropy
• supporting entrepreneurship

The core partners in the Kellogg-funded initiative will be the Nebraska Community Foundation, the Heartland Center for Leadership Development, the RUPRI Center for Rural Entrepreneurship, and the Center for Rural Affairs.

The Public Policy Center’s role in the Home Town Competitiveness effort is to serve as part of the evaluation team, working with Dr. Cornelia Flora at the Iowa State University North Central Regional Center for Rural Development. The Public Policy Center will focus on documentation of practices and experiences of the seven communities that are participating in the entrepreneur system the project establishes.

Other collaborative partners are colleges and programs at the University of Nebraska; the Nebraska Microenterprise Partnership Fund; Northeast Community College at Norfolk; Northern Great Plains, Inc. of Fargo; the Nebraska Lied Main Street Program and the Rural Enterprise Assistance Project; and Consolidated Telephone Company and Great Plains Communications, Inc..