What if… (assets)

• What if education curriculum was based on assets of place?
• What if economic models include ALL assets — i.e., culture, people, environment
• What if we leveraged the fluidity of identity of social media with the assets of rural diaspora?
• What if we could “quantify” the value of human capital in rural economic development? What if every child had a support system from birth (CSA) (trauma)?
• What if, just like or very similar to this exercise, we could continually extend this same exercise to orgs and individuals to ask what is? And then we, as champions/funders answer “why not?” Let’s go to work.
• What if we collectively change the national conversation from the persistently stubborn rural vs urban debate or talk of the rural/urban divide and started with a conversation about the connections that exist between urban and rural, the way we are mutually dependent on each other? How do we articulate a strong rural proposition? How do we help urban leadership know us better and vice versa? Break down walls and barriers
• What if we eliminated the divide (rural-urban)? What if we turned deficits into assets?
• What if we own our communities in a new way? If a new connection to place and people was developed? We rural Americans started with new thinking approaches and curricula – New Schools of Thought – that creates new ground for how we understand “community.” Using raw ingredients of geography, history, culture, people and creativity, we would practice imagining and envisioning without restraint, playfully and with joy. The psychological burden of less than shame would be replaced with a new understanding of place and people and possibility and relationship between these three elements. People and place would lead change.