Overview
While many people and organizations have the goal to assist economically distressed areas, especially rural ones, far fewer know how to do so. This talk explored how a range of stakeholders can work together to uplift rural communities—with understanding and empathy.
Key Session Insights
As the Founding Director of the Center for Rural Innovation and the Chair of the Rural Reimagined Grand Challenge at Tennessee Technological University, Michael Aikens has helped complete over 900 economic development projects in rural Tennessee. Through that experience, he has learned that the key ingredient to success is stepping back and evaluating the relationship with the target community. And the key to getting projects off the ground in rural Tennessee, where people may be wary of outsiders, is building community support through listening and active engagement before the project even begins.
Understanding the perspectives held by local citizenry helps build a greater awareness of local issues and trust. Aikens and his team have developed what he calls the “community immersion mechanism” to engage holistically with rural communities rather than dictating to them what they need.
As an example, Aikens shared how one project to build electric vehicle (EV) charging stations in rural Tennessee was derailed because community members turned against the project. Adding EV charging stations to rural places is a chicken-and-egg dilemma. To jump-start the adoption of EVs in these areas, infrastructure is needed to make an EV practical. But why would a local community invest in EV charging stations when a vast majority of the community’s residents have not adopted EV vehicles? To jumpstart EVs in this rural town and, even more so, attract outside tourists to the downtown area, a project was spun up to install a charging station in the town. That project was stopped when a small number of concerned citizens, feeling the charging station was forced upon them by outsiders, organized against it. Supporting Aikens’ broader point about the value of community engagement, the project’s leaders engaged in greater empathetic listening and community education, and the project was reinstated and successfully delivered.
“We, of course, want to bring innovation and prosperity that will ultimately affect positive change in rural communities…But these communities’ interpretation of what we are offering may be different, and we must be aware of that. We must be empathetic to rural communities’ points of view because, ultimately, it is up to us to immerse ourselves into the communities, establish trust, display authenticity, effectively communicate, and make good on our intentions and promises.”
Michael Aikens
Founding Director, Center for Rural Innovation;
Chair, Rural Reimagined Grand Challenge, Office of Research and Economic Development at Tennessee Technological University
