The Growing Small Towns Show

We love when we find people who support small towns doing big things in ways we've never seen before, and this episode features two people and a business that is doing just that. Jasmin and Cassidy are two sisters behind an organization called Realizing Rural that offers important services like grant-writing, project management, graphic design, and marketing to small towns and the organizations in...

We are so excited for another crossover episode with one of our most favorite people: small-town nonprofit expert and fun-haver Patrick Kirby. Hosted by Patrick, this episode is all about how to shift mindsets and rethink rural giving for small-town nonprofits.    In this episode, we cover: How the Rural Bus Tour works and… Why you need one of your own Why nonprofits are so important for small tow...

This episode is about dreams, missions, storytelling, and how Cory Hepola combines all of those things into his life as a storyteller and documentarian and how he uses his gifts and skills to highlight small towns.    About Cory:   Cory Hepola is an Emmy Award Winning TV Anchor and Documentarian.    Currently, he serves as the Vice President of Communications, Growth & Strategy at The Brookshire C...

Jeff Siegler is back with an incredibly thought-provoking episode about built places, communities, assumptions, and loneliness, and why designing our spaces and cities and towns to promote community is so important. This episode has it all: hot takes, hard truths, hard-to-discuss-but-mega-important ideas, and solutions to forge a better path forward.    (Please tell us you also read that last sent...

Strong small-town businesses are the backbone of our communities, and when our local small businesses are thriving, so are we. Aly Robins is a rural resident, business coach, and marketing expert and she joins us in this grab-a-pen episode all about business foundations, marketing, mindset shifts, and how small-town businesses can use all of them to put themselves on a path to growth and success. ...

When Haley Moen was getting her master's degree in plant science, she planned to continue on to get her doctorate—a dream she'd held since 10th grade. But she realized that would likely take her away from her beloved North Dakota, and that it might mean she would have to spend her time in a lab. As a farm kid who loves her roots the wide-open North Dakota spaces, that wasn't what she wanted. She d...

Mental health in small our small towns is one of the issues that is top of mind here at Growing Small Towns, and we know that is true for many of you in your communities, too. It's an issue that can be really difficult to tackle, and we feel so lucky to have Monica on the show to talk about it with us, share her expertise, and give us all some actionable items and things we can pay attention to in...

This week's episode is a special sort of follow-up to last week's episode about remote work in our small towns, and it's special because it's featuring a member of the Growing Small Towns team! Cassidy has been with Rebecca and Growing Small Towns for four years as a remote virtual assistant, and this episode takes our listeners through the whole story and how being a virtual assistant opened the...

Remote work is, to use a buzzy buzzword, a game-changer for small communities. One of the only good things to come out of the pandemic, the rise in remote work opportunities means people can move to small towns without having to quit their job or ask their spouse/partner to do the same, which is, well, fabulous for us! Danielle Teigen is kind of an expert in small-town remote work—it's kind of her...

If you have listened to our show for any length of time or follow us on social media, you know that here at Growing Small Towns the traditional approach to economic growth just doesn't get us real excited. While it's great if a big business does want to come to your town and build an office or something, we like to think outside that particular box. What we like to focus on is how our communities...

Startup Colorado is a 501(c)(3) that works with rural entrepreneurs and ecosystem builders throughout the state to cultivate successful environments to start and grow businesses in the places that they call home. They have an amazing, effective approach to supporting entrepreneurs in rural places and if you are involved in this work and their Communications and Editorial Director, Margaret Hedderm...

What does it look like to write your own rural narrative, and how can you actively incorporate that idea into convincing people to move to your small town? Well, we happen to have Erik Osberg to tell us all about it. He's his county's (and perhaps the country's only) Rural Rebound Initiative Coordinator and yes, it's the coolest.    About Erik Erik Osberg is the Rural Rebound Initiative Coordinato...

Happy New Year! We're so excited to be back, although we're not quite sure how we got here. Because we're more mindset folks than resolution folks around these parts, this episode is all about things to try this year for all of you small-town changemakers. When we have a new goal or are ready to embark on a new journey, we need to make sure we're starting with sustainability in mind, meaning that...

Happy December! Today we've got a solocast and it's all about what holds small towns back. There are five things, and Rebecca is here to talk through all of them.     So what are those five things that hold small towns back? Constraint-led thinking Underestimating the cost of doing nothing Treating today's decisions as if they're only about us An unwillingness to right-size ideas Accepting sliding...

We are so excited for another (crossover!) episode with one of our most favorite people: small-town nonprofit expert and fun-haver, Patrick Kirby. This episode is all about how small town nonprofits can raise more money and create a bigger impact.    About Patrick Patrick Kirby is the Founder of Do Good Better Consulting and a believer that "we've always done it this way" is the most dangerous phr...

You may have heard about Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) since it's a hot topic for many companies today, but how can we apply those principles to our small towns in a meaningful and intentional way? Rebecca and Cecily talk about what embracing diversity in small towns looks like, and how to have these own difficult but valuable conversations in your own sphere.   About Cecily Cecily Engelh...

Melissa Nelson is a woman after our own hearts here at Growing Small Towns. She is a lifelong small-town girl and rural champion who uses her love of agriculture, community development, and creativity to inspire ways to get involved in small towns. About Melissa Melissa Nelson is a Nebraska farm and cattle gal who transplanted to Northwest Iowa after college to build an agricultural education non-...

This is the second part of our two-part series with Phil Eich about storytelling. The first episode was the why, and here is the how! This episode is one of the most actionable we've ever recorded—it has all you need to go out and start telling your own community's story. About Phil Phil Eich is the founder of Storyville, an agency born in Saginaw dedicated to telling the stories of our cities to...

Storytelling is kind of having a moment: everywhere we go, we hear about "sharing your story." The thing is that it's really excellent advice—when it's done well. This is part one of a two-part series all about why storytelling is so important for small towns, and why you should care. About Phil Phil Eich is the founder of Storyville, an agency born in Saginaw dedicated to telling the stories of o...

Welcome back to the new season of the Growing Small Towns Podcast! Oh man, we are so excited to be back with a routine and a schedule and new episodes and new things in the works, we just can't even. This episode is a solocast with Rebecca talking about loving on our locals—sure, we want to invite people into our small towns, but are we doing that at the expense of the people who already live ther...

Rebecca is flying solo today with a podcast version of a recent blog post that took on a life of its own, and talking about how to keep your fire lit while you're trying to do big things in your small town—the stages you'll go through, the people you need, and how to prevent burnout (or getting snuffed out!) along the way.    In this episode, we cover: Why burnout is a symptom but not a diagnosis,...

Aaron Baker really loves small towns, particularly his small town of Atlanta, Missouri. He is an expert and community clean-up events, engaging help and funds, identifying creative ways to solve problems, and his enthusiasm and passion are infectious.  About Aaron If you know anything about Aaron Baker, you know he is obsessed with his small town. He's also in constant motion to keep Atlanta, Miss...

Rebecca is solocasting about the mental and emotional side of the work she and so many of our listeners do. This episode is about knowing yourself and how you think, how to relate to other people who may think differently than you, and how to experience new things to help you learn and grow.    Ideas for Holding the Vision, Even When Others Don't/Can't:   No story, no problem!  Along the same line...

We are so excited to have Charlie Birch on the podcast! She is small town born and bred, and is kind of a shopping local expert. Charlie joins us to talk about making a web presence work for a brick-and-mortar store. About Charlie After living the digital nomad life later popularized by Instagram, our founder Charlie returned home to South Jersey in 2016. Not long after, she founded a web design s...

Jeff Siegler knows small towns. He loves them. And he wants the people who live in them to love them, too. This episode is all about apathy in small towns--what it looks like, how it starts, how it gets worse--and how we fix it. About Jeff Jeff Siegler is a writer, speaker and consultant concerned with the powerful role place plays in our lives. He is the founder of the civic pride consulting firm...