Archive for January 2018
Rosebud, AB Shows the Arts Can Transform a Small Town
Rosebud, AB is tiny (fewer than 100 citizens) but mighty — at least when it comes to using the arts as an effective means of economic transformation. Every year upwards of 40,000 patrons flock to Rosebud, to eat a fabulous meal and enjoy fully professional theatre, in the middle of “prairie nowhere”! The Rosebud story…
Read MoreCommunity Investment Sessions Coming to Southern Interior Communities
Community investment is the process of connecting local investors to local investment opportunities. While the demand for investing locally is increasing, traditional options available to investors limit where they can invest. The result is that most local investment capital leaves our community and is invested into far off stock markets and corporations. An unintended consequence…
Read MoreBC Rural Centre’s Recommendations for Rural Development
What kind of provincial policies and tools would help us with rural development in BC? This is an issue the BC Rural Centre/SIBAC has spent a lot of time and effort researching. We have developed a brief document (see below) that provides a summary discussion of the top five recommendations the BC Rural Centre would…
Read MoreCommunity Impact Investing – Putting Your Money Where Your Life Is!
Community impact investing? In today’s interconnected world, it’s easy to see how your hard-earned money can end up going toward projects and businesses all around the world. In 2013, British Columbians contributed $4.5 billion of new monies into their RRSPs, much of that disbursed outside the province and Canada. That’s money that ends up supporting the creation of…
Read MoreEnderby Hails a Ride
As B.C. mulls the future of ride-hailing services like Uber, one small town — Enderby — is making the case to welcome the service with open arms. Much of the ride-hailing discussion in our procince has been focused in big cities like Vancouver, Victoria and Kelowna — where Uber plans to focus its activity. But this week, a councillor…
Read MoreLocal Manufacturing Big in Rural America
Local manufacturing matters in rural America, employing more than 3.5 million workers. As rural America’s second largest sector, manufacturing employs 14% of rural civilian employees and produces 15% of total rural US earnings – that exceeds the retail sector, and is more than double agriculture’s presence in the US rural economy. After an era of…
Read MoreProvince Partners with CBT for New Affordable Housing
People struggling to find an affordable place to live in the Columbia Basin region will have access to new rental housing, thanks to a partnership announced between the BC government and Columbia Basin Trust (CBT), part of the government’s larger, province-wide goal of creating 114,000 new units of affordable market rental, non-profit, co-op, supported social…
Read MoreCooperation At the Heart of One Small Community’s Success
Community — pulling together collectively to affect real change — is often the key in small town turn-arounds. In this informative article written by Spotify’s Dayna Winter, we’re introduced to Almonte, Ontario, a town of 5,000 that has managed to revitalize itself through developing a collaborative consensus around development. Small towns exist in snow…
Read MoreB.C. small farms are booming, despite fickle buyers and extreme weather
B.C.’s small farms are booming, despite market and climate challenges, according to this article from CBC News. High winds slammed a tree into Paul Dumais’ chicken coop Tuesday while he was collecting eggs inside, sending a shudder through the walls of the shack south of Quesnel B.C. — but the chickens survived. “I just…
Read More