Self-Help Is The Best Help - Rural Economic Development Newsletter - November 15, 2024

Here is a quick video summary (if you'd rather watch than read ??) of Chapter 2, "Self-Help Is The Best Help," from my recent book,?How To Win At Rural Economic Development:

A video summary of "Chapter 2 - Self-Help Is The Best Help" + a Free Bonus Offer

Chapter Two–Self-Help Is The Best Help

I am thankful to all who said no to me. It is because of them that I am doing it myself.?

-Albert Einstein, famous physicist and mathematician.

If you want to improve the community, you have checked the first box on the rural development checklist. The next vital element is embracing that your community's future depends on you. Your development success depends on the people and businesses in your community right now. An outside firm can help get you on the right path and support your efforts, but your ultimate success depends on your leaders and residents. Too many communities wait for someone or something to come in and make things better. They wait for their state's development office to bring them a project. Others wait for the federal government to design a grant or an initiative that helps save them.?

Please stop doing this!

No one is coming to your rescue; the quicker you realize this, the better. You have everything you need to improve your community. Your community's economic development success starts inside your community, with the people and companies already there. Nobody knows better what your community needs and what it can do than they do. Great things can happen if you can get your leaders and residents to embrace this opportunity! Look what happened when community leaders from my hometown, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, did this a few decades ago.

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CASE STUDY–TUSCALOOSA, ALABAMA

In August 1982, Tuscaloosa was reeling. It had lost several companies and hundreds of jobs before General Motors announced its plans to close its Rochester Products Tuscaloosa Plant. Rochester Products employed 200 people making emission devices and carburetors. Faced with this news, Tuscaloosa leaders decided the community couldn't stand to lose another company and were willing to do anything to save those jobs. Community and UA leaders joined forces, asking GM what they must have to keep the plant open. GM told them they must cut $500,000 in annual costs. UA said they would help GM find $500,000 in annual cost savings, or UA would pay GM $500,000. This was an unprecedented step for a university to take, using its own funds to save jobs in the community. GM accepted this offer and invited UA into the plant. UA leaders went to work inside the plant, using faculty-student-led projects to cut costs. Through diligence and collaboration, UA found ways for GM to save costs, which in turn saved community jobs. This was an extremely successful and ground-breaking project!

Following the success of the Rochester Products partnership, GM approached UA about the state's interest in building one of its new cars - the Saturn automobile. State and UA officials took a chance and recruited the Saturn project even though as of that point in time, Alabama did not have any experience manufacturing automobiles. It was a long shot, but Tuscaloosa leaders realized an automotive manufacturing plant meant hundreds of quality jobs and the possibility of attracting many suppliers. Ultimately, Tuscaloosa lost out on the Saturn project. State and local officials were disappointed but learned a lot through the recruiting process. A few years later, Alabama officials used the Saturn playbook to recruit the most significant industrial project in the state's history – Mercedes-Benz.

In 1993, Mercedes-Benz announced it would build SUVs in Vance, just outside Tuscaloosa. Since the Mercedes announcement, Honda, Hyundai, and Mazda-Toyota have located manufacturing facilities in the state of Alabama.? Now, just thirty (30) years after the state’s first automotive plant, Alabama produces over 1 million vehicles annually, ranking it in the top five (5) auto-producing states, and employs almost 50,000 people in the automotive industry. Vehicles are Alabama's number one export, approaching $9 billion in 2023.

Now, looking back, all of this is quite impressive. From the brink of disaster, Tuscaloosa leaders found creative solutions and took the brave steps needed to transform Alabama into an automotive manufacturing powerhouse.? Alabama's economy was forever changed when Tuscaloosa and UA leaders saved those 200 GM factory jobs. They decided it was up to them to save those jobs or risk continued community decline.

Improving your community starts with your leaders, businesses, educators, and residents coming together, deciding to improve the community, and then doing something. You could follow the example of Tuscaloosa and change your community's trajectory forever!

How To Develop A Self-Help Mindset In Your Community?

• Let your leaders and residents know that the community will no longer wait, wish, and hope for things to improve. Shift your community’s development paradigm from dependency to self-empowerment.
• Create development workshops that teach your leaders, residents, and students the foundational elements of community and economic development. ?By providing your residents with knowledge, you empower them to address and solve the community's problems.
• Celebrate community-led initiatives. Let your residents know the impact that people and organizations are already making in your community. Celebrate these wins and build on this momentum!
• Promote more risk-taking when solving community problems. It's better to try something new and fail than to continue doing the same thing or, worse, do nothing.

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We are looking for 1 or 2 rural communities to host a "free" 1-Day Rural Development Workshop. In 2025, we will start offering this workshop to help more communities and are looking for a couple of communities to help us fine-tune it before officially rolling it out. Please message me on LinkedIn or email me at [email protected] if you'd like your community considered for this free 1-Day workshop. It could be a great way to energize and kick off your 2025 development efforts! Here is more information: