Disasters of all kinds can strain your community’s social ties, and that can make it harder to recover. This video shares real world examples from small towns that moved forward from tornado, flood, hurricane, drought, economic disaster or pandemic. You’ll learn ways to shift mindsets, look forward and rebuild community ties.

Specific tactics that help local businesses compete locally and globally all at once. Build on your small town strengths, and turn big retailer's tricks against them. 31 minute video to watch on your schedule

Young people like you CAN make a difference. It starts with seeing the change you want to create, then using the Idea Friendly Method to Gather Your Crowd, Build Connections and Take Small Steps. We show you examples of photos from other towns, talk about ideas kids like you came up with, and then we’ll share ways to make those ideas happen. Perfect for kids from middle school to college and anyone who helps them.

Activities that build community stewardship: Uncover hidden assets, activate them with activities and improve buy-in from the community to create the public spaces you've always wanted.

Addressing hunger, growing prosperity. Part of recovering from any disaster or economic blow to your community is making sure people have enough to eat. Grow more food, harvest more of what is available and share equipment to get more food to the people who need it most.

Organizations like Chambers and Main Streets depend on local businesses for projects and events. But how do you get them to even read your emails let alone be involved and volunteer? This video gives you five principles and 8 practical steps to get past the apathy and get businesses on board.

Not a list of resources or grants that may or may not work for you. Instead, an Idea Friendly approach. Activities to draw more people in and get them talking about housing. Two powerful questions that convert casual support into practical actions.

Discover the disconnects between what over 1400 rural people said they most needed help with, and what help they get offered most often.

Put the Idea Friendly Method to work: identify Old Way behaviors and shift to more Idea Friendly methods. Start building community around your ideas.

Expand the market for local food within your community, grow more food entrepreneurs and tap your local food culture for tourism.

5 top topics: small trends and opportunities hidden in challenges many rural communities face. Rather than obvious trends you've heard over and over, these are small town topics that get overlooked. If you're feeling a little uninspired, stale or burned out by the same old things, take a look at these top topics for rural places and small towns.

Craft entrepreneurship can create prosperity in any community, no matter how small, even if everything else is against you. Even if all you have is the dirt under your feet. These ideas scale up for bigger towns and communities.29 minute recorded video to watch on your scheduleGet immediate access 

Finding good employees is one of the most complex challenges for rural communities, today and for a long time now. While old way thinking, practices and beliefs are still out there, change is moving fast. Some of the old limits don’t have to be limits any more. You’ll also learn how the Idea Friendly Method gives you a do-able, flexible approach to your local workforce challenges.

You know the old way of planning by heart, but those same-old plans involving the same ten people with the same old goals... Time for an Idea Friendly approach! Learn 5 alternatives that will reinvigorate your community engagement and overcome the resistance to change. 24 minute video to watch on your schedule

Economic self-defense for small towns, including why local businesses beat recruited businesses. You'll learn 7 places to uncover emerging entrepreneurs to support, plus 6 places to look online; 5 Up-to-date ideas for succession planning. Deb shares how she improvised an incubator project and filled empty buildings downtown.

Take small steps to pull your town together. You build a stronger community through experiences that bring people together from across different groups to each play a meaningful role. 29 minute video to watch on your schedule

Forget the expensive downtown consultants and their $80,000 masterplans, make your downtown a vibrant place for $100 or less. Get 20 quick ideas you can copy immediately. Special help for officials and government staff constrained by regulations, where to scrounge for resources and materials on the cheap, plus 10 more bonus ideas, all in this 32 minute video to watch on your schedule

Bring your empty lots back to life! Put them to work enabling commerce, supporting business and adding to prosperity in your small town or rural community. 29 minute video you can share

You'll learn how being Idea Friendly makes your local economy more resilient How you can support lots of people participating in business, not just a fortunate few How you can grow an interconnected ecosystem, better able to resist shocks How you can shift to supporting lots of small tests, rather than making a few big bets

All towns have too many empty spaces downtown right now. How do we make downtown look full or busy? 1. Fill as many as you can with pop-ups. 2. Decorate the windows of the rest really cheaply.

Overcoming customer reluctance and helping merchants make the transition. This video is great for individual businesses, groups and organizations

You'll learn how to cut time and money off the process of getting into business How tiny businesses help manage the risk of failure How temporary businesses provide reliable market research How putting businesses together increases entrepreneurs' skills, happiness and success

New residents, regenerating nature, and good neighbors: what will be the lasting rural trends that affect small and rural communities in 2022 and beyond? Becky McCray and Deb Brown go in depth and provide quick takes on three additional trends that matter to rural people.

Make your town more open to new ideas24 minute video to watch on your schedule

Position your town for the future of remote work in this 31 minute video available to watch on your schedule

You're hearing more about "equity" in economic development grants and programs, but it's mostly from an urban perspective and hard to adapt for small communities. Luckily, there is a very simple approach you can adapt easily in even small and rural communities: Cut down the barriers to entry. Find out how in this video.

Serving as an official or on a board in a small town can be frustrating with all the rules and restrictions, not to mention the limited resources. The Idea Friendly Method gives you practical steps you can put into action right away to approach these problems in a new way, one that makes it possible for your town to prosper.

Real kids, real businesses, real rural - Build a culture of entrepreneurship in your community by helping kids start real businesses today.

Get beyond the same ten people. Kill your committees! The secret to finding volunteers in small towns today is to let go of old ways that no longer serve us. You’ll discover things you don’t have to do anymore, and new Idea Friendly ways that will attract more new volunteers.

The arts share our cultural stories and preserve our history, address our present and create the kind of future we want. Build a stronger community using our Idea Friendly format of Gather Your Crowd, Build Connections and Take Small Steps.

Empty buildings need to be showcased, not ignored. Learn how Deb’s original Tour of Empty Buildings created new businesses and new energy for a small town. Together, they filled 10 of 12 empty buildings and saved their local movie theater.

10 Years of Rural Insights Wed Feb 26 at 11:30 am Central Andrew Button, Becky McCray and Deb Brown Rural entrepreneurship, community challenges and assets

Join Dell Gines from IEDC International Economic Development Council, and Becky McCray and Deb Brown from SaveYour.Town for a no-charge webinar to help you develop robust networks for targeted purposes