#50 Reimagining Rural: Strengthening Communities that Make Montana Great
Trina Filan:
Thank you for joining us for this episode of talking health and the 406 where we are one community under the Big Sky I'm Trina Finland a public health evaluator for diabetes and cardiovascular health and I'm Margaret Mullins the social determinants of health program manager today we're talking with Jennifer Anderson an associate. Specialist with Montana State University extension community vitality program.
Jennifer Anderson:
Welcome Jennifer welcome thank you for having me. Tell us about yourself and your role at Cooperative Extension please Jennifer my background is an associate specialist and community vitality with Montana State University extension I have been with extension approximately 2829 years. My specialty now is community vitality so I do community development work. Across the state. With primarily rural communities prior to that I worked for a significant amount of time as a local county extension agent serving rosebud and treasure counties in southeast Montana I'm a. 5th generation Montanan and very passionate. About our rural communities across the state.
Trina Filan:
Extension does a ton of different things right and folks may think of extension as agriculture. And supporting agricultural communities what other things just so that people get a broad idea uh does extension do why community development.
Jennifer Anderson
Sure that's a great point Cooperative Extension is part of the foundational piece of the land grant university mission which is across the United states so every state has a land grant university in Montana ours happens to be Montana State University. So part of the mission of a land grant university is to provide outreach and education to the people of the. State and that. Is done through the Extension Service so extension has 4 primary what we would call programmatic areas so most generally people are that are familiar with extension? Are familiar with the agriculture and the natural resource development side of things and then next is probably 4 H or youth development and then the 3rd piece is family and consumer science affectionately historically known as home economy? And then the 4th. Programmatic area that people are less familiar with is community development so it is a foundational piece of the extension model however. Much less known as the other programmatic areas so on the ground level in the communities we have county extension agents and these folks are tasked with doing many. Print jobs and taking on many different roles in the community and they really work hard to adapt and meet the local needs of the community so they're very much boots on the ground next level up is a specialist or associate specialist and these positions have a primary focus in specific. Gary yes mine happens to be community development so we have a lot of specialists and associate specialists that have a primary focus in a specific area and we provide support and outreach and education in those specific areas so sometimes that means we're helping and assisting our local agents and other times it means we're working. Directly with constituents and clientele.
Trina Filan:
Thank you.

Margaret Mullins:
Yes that was a great explanation what an extensive I mean what an extensive program an organization.
Jennifer Anderson
's extension is such a well kept secret it's been around over 100 years and still to this day there's a lot of people who really do not understand what it is and what it does. Now specifically community development or the community vitality program we switched the name to it to went from community development to community vitality really works to engage montanans. To strengthen the social civic economic and leadership abilities of their communities so we kind of approach this work with the values of collaboration curiosity. And responsiveness so we try to ensure that our efforts our community centered and community driven the best work comes from within a community so we are here to lift up support help assist any way that we can.
Margaret Mullins
So for today's podcast and I'll give our listeners a little bit of background too we're focusing in on a program called reimagining rural which offers very small rural and frontier towns and opportunity to build civic health through small doable projects that work with the resources available. In each community. From past work we've done in our chronic disease prevention programs we know that people feel connected to their communities and feeling like they have the power to make change and have their voices heard is really important to their individual health and to the overall health of the places that they live. And we also know that where people live even their actual zip code can influence how healthy people are compared to their neighbors in another zip code. Sometimes folks in chronic disease prevention forget this connection between the health of the place and the health of the person but civic health is public health and promoting civic health can have a big impact on chronic disease prevention and management so Jennifer would you define civic health as you see it. In your work.
Jennifer Anderson
That's a great question and it's a great background and introduction because there's so much truth to to what you what you just said you know civic health encompasses so much so it's the social well-being it's the the infrastructure well-being it's. Everything that goes into making a up a community it's it's we look at this through the lens of something called the community capital framework.
Margaret Mullins
That is a.
Jennifer Anderson
Community development theory and basically it it falls back on their every community has assets and has strengths. And in our work we frame it through the 77 capitals so these are things such as your social capital like the connections those connections that you have within the community and. Beyond with your with state regional with resources as well so that social connection right cultural capital So what are the traditions and the things that that. You mean a lot to us and we make up who we are all the way to like political capital built capital natural capital financial capital so those are we look at our communities through the lens of. Those community capitals from there we try to help communities identify what those assets are in each in each of their communities and how we. Can try to build those up?
Margaret Mullins
That that's a super helpful explanation actually that's that's interesting to have 7 different capitals and being able to break it down like that. Can you give us like some examples of activities that are related to and promote civic health through your? Program.
Jennifer Anderson
OK so talking specifically about reimagining world so reimagining rural was a brainchild of some of our folks in extension who worked in community development we had this idea but really what happened is we were all together and we started talking about how the really was on a focus on. Rural community development nobody was really meeting that need that we could see. And because we are embedded in almost every county and reservation across the state we have a pretty good understanding of what's going on in our small. Towns. So we came up with an idea of like let let's do something let's try something that's gonna that's going to really impact our small town.
Speaker
Months.
Jennifer Anderson
So the idea of reimagining world came from that it's really rooted in trying to help our communities build local capacity by expanding partnerships so that mean and that's that social connection again right so it might be within the community because sometimes we know even in small towns. Groups are siloed so they they they kind of have tunnel vision and they work on their own little project and they don't see how it connects to other projects so expanding partnerships this also means creating partnerships between local groups and state or regional resources. Increasing the awareness and knowledge of those resources that are available so many times and you guys probably see this too in the health end is that our small towns don't even know what's available to them so you know you you don't know what you don't know so we really strive to expand that awareness about what's available to our small towns. And then the big one is inspiring folks to dream big like ours small towns. I think because of the what we've seen the changes and things that we've seen over the last 2030 years is. This idea that. Rural is dying. And you know it's so hard to build positive successes and positive momentum and when you're in a deficit based approach when all you ever see. Is negativity or the bad stuff will say that's not great great words? To use but. When you look around your town and you see you got potholes in your streets and your grocery store closed up and your schools on the verge of consolidating it's really hard to look through the lens of what's good about your town? And So what we tried to do with reimagining rural and talking about civic health. Is give folks to look at their community through a different lens extension completed a study called the Montana movers study my colleague Tara mastel and some other folks at MSU and we know people are moving into world? And we know. The reasons why people are moving into.
Speaker
Oh.
Jennifer Anderson
And the majority of those. Are because of quality of life? They want the small town experience they want to know their neighbors they want to feel safe they want peaceful tranquility and that that kind of you know hallmark sense. And. They love small towns that's why they're moving into these places and so we try to get our we try to. Get communities to. See those things.
Margaret Mullins
You know what's good about their team.
Speaker 1
OK so I have so many thoughts about this because when Margaret was speaking a little bit earlier she referenced some work that we did a couple of years ago about connection health the things that create connection how people perceive their resources. What kinds of resources they perceive as useful or challenging and one of the things that seems? True based on some of the work we've we've each done and the work that that you've done is that it's hard to run. See that you have assets just like you said it deficit mindset right and and we've sort of conditioned ourselves to see the challenges versus the opportunity. That's right.
Speaker
Absolutely.
Speaker 1
But then on top of it people who are new into smaller areas may have a ton of ideas and assets right but it's really hard for them not always not always but in a lot of cases it's hard for them to become part of the. Trusted community fabric so that they can feel comfortable sharing those ideas and then like there's a a melding right but that's not always. Like the melding of of newcomers and people who've been there a long time is sometimes a hard. Barrier to cross is that is that.
Margaret Mullins
Yeah that's a that's an absolute that was some feedback we got from a survey that we did where people said it takes a while to be accepted if you're coming into a new community full of great ideas Trina just summed it up great really but you know just suddenly you know inundating people with thoughts can feel overwhelming. And people are like well you don't understand our community so yes.
Speaker
Ah.
Jennifer Anderson
Oh my gosh yes. So reimagining royalty I guess they should back up. A. Little bit it's kind of has grown it started it started with a few elements and then we moved into the this having hosting an annual we call it the virtual community gathering which started in 2019-2020. So we actually started virtual before COVID required us all to go virtual and so the idea behind this virtual series is is the the best way that I can describe it is old school satellite like watch party. So what that is is it's a it's very simple it's 3 nights. Of what we would call education and programming when the community applies they gather their people and they meet in a community setting it could be a church it could be a school it could be a library might even be the local watering. So they gather their people and they tune in and they're they're tuning in live with 161718 other communities across the state and so it's a 2 hour session part of that session as we hear from a rural expert and we hear from a. Rural success story. And then the other part of the night we just turn off the TV and we give them some facilitated guided. Questions and we say now have a local conversation about what you just heard we do 3 nights of that so that's the virtual series getting back to your original question. One of the first series that we did we had Ben Winchester. He joined us via zoom bias with the University of Minnesota extension and here's a rule expert and he had done some previous studies about newcomers. And changing the narrative from rule is not dying it is changing and that was a Eureka moment for a lot of communities and a lot of people. And we have subsequently had him back and a few times and that is what led to the Montana movers study. And really interestingly. Communities a few communities took this idea and ran with it and started hosting newcomers events. In their small towns. Because what they thought they were and maybe what they really were. How they treated newcomers were 2 different things? Exactly to the point you said and there's a lot of reasons why communities are. Are not very trusting of newcomers and not very? Accepting new ways. Right there there's lots of reasons for that they're not all bad but what we did learn from reimagining world is that there are people moving in people want to be included in the community. And the more inclusive a community is the better off they're going to be. And so how. Welcoming are are you as a community. I will use my own hometown Forsyth as an example so Forsyth went through the reimagining rural series and decided first year out decided to host a newcomers event. Did a lot of due diligence of trying to figure out who are the newcomers how do we even find them? Held in newcomers event. And there was. Over 100 people in the room. And this is a small town in southeastern Montana that is has been experience experiencing a lot of change right so 100 people in the room fascinating all these newcomers come out and we asked them questions like why did. You move here. And the overwhelming positive sense that these people gave was just phenomenal and that now has led to. Moving on 5 years later newcomer comes in. Works remotely and and he and his family is now you know really becoming part of the community. Me and this gentleman has stepped up and sat on a few different communities and he came in with the idea to have a. A frisbee golf. He he loves frisbee golf. Comes in with this idea of setting up a frisbee golf course and he's got the plans like he he is he is you could tell he could spend all he spent a lot. Of time thinking about this. And the reimagining rural group embraced it and here we are a year later and the frisbee golf course is up and running in a park. And there are people that come to Forsyth specifically to utilize the frisbee golf course. Which would never have happened? Had we not changed our mindset and been more receptive to newcomers welcoming to newcomers. And invited this person to the table right invited this person to the table with his ideas so anyway and and we have other communities that have done similar events and welcoming newcomers that's great. But.
Speaker 1
Like.
Speaker
Yeah.
Margaret Mullins
How I've?
Jennifer Anderson
Absolutely that's a that's a challenge and our small towns. Absolutely.
Margaret Mullins
It seems like an amazing opportunity for you know rural places to begin to sort of wrestle. With some of. Those civic health issues that we just talked about earlier you know one of the things I'm wondering is how like this group is one of the ways but how do you move people from that deficit mindset. To the asset mindset like what sort of activities you know you have those events are there other things that can help with that.
Jennifer Anderson
The way we've kind of approach it is the first thing you've got to do is create awareness right people you don't know what you don't know. So for us it's awareness of the like the the awareness of. There's a different way to approach your community so awareness and knowledge right like we start with. Showing communities through the reimagining world that there's there's a different way to approach our community there's a different way to look at it. Also the piece that helps too is the success stories I I mean we we hear so much great feedback about the success stories because there is this sense of competitiveness right but there's also a greater sense of collaboration across our with our small towns across the state so number one you're participating in reimagining world. And you let's just say you've. Got a small town you know shoto great. Sample shoto was one of our spotlight communities first series shoto had done this fantastic job of rebranding their community and what's a local brand like that was something communities didn't understand. But that first year we showcased shoto. And they told us all about their branding and then in the next few years about 5 other towns would like we'll have shadow can do it we can do.
Speaker
Hill.
Jennifer Anderson
So cupping is another great example they went through reimagining rural created a community survey fantastic community survey had tremendous response. And the end result was a community branding like they they developed a new community brand for their town they've become part of the Montana Main Street program and they are working diligently on wayfinding signage so. And with that. What we've seen from the communities? Working that social cohesiveness again. Is communities are helping communities they're sharing resources that didn't happen before there was there wasn't that connection before so now what you see is like for example show was like Oh yeah we did it and here's how we did it and here's our here's our stuff use it great example for wayfinding is Glasgow Glasgow? Has tremendous wayfinding and So what for if people who don't know what wayfinding is it's the cool umm? In your downtown areas and beyond when you go into these towns you'll see it and it they're directional signage that shows you where where things are at where is the school where's the library where's where's the courthouse where City Hall.
Margaret Mullins
And they look.
Jennifer Anderson
Good like they're they're they're aesthetically pleasing right so anyway Glasgow tremendous plans so we have spotlighted Glasgow a few times Glasgow is more than willing to share their. Recipe for success like how they how they got it done so again it's just a great example of that social what we would refer to as social capital what we've seen since the 56 years that we've done this is tremendous.
Margaret Mullins
Growth in social capital across these. Communities that are participating. Jennifer how many communities across the state.
Jennifer Anderson
Have participated we are at approximately 50 communities across the state that have participated in reimagining rural at some point or another and there's about 16 of them that are?
Speaker
Yes.
Jennifer Anderson
Repeat ohh OK communities I think I 50 plus communities 16 repeat we're estimating over 500 direct contacts.
Speaker
Uh.
Jennifer Anderson
Through this we have multiple partnering organizations that have come on board to work with us our major partner throughout this entire program since its inception has been the Montana Community Foundation. Because we have very similar goals and missions when it comes to our small towns and they have local Community Foundation affiliates across Montana so there's a lot of crossover between reimagining rural communities. And communities that have local have local community foundations and in fact that's been an outcome too is we've seen I mean Cut Bank is another great example so. Cupping did not have a local Community Foundation and from participating in reimagining world it can't say that that is the sole reason why they have a Community Foundation but. Certainly learned about the benefits to having a Community Foundation and they have just they're doing a tremendous job they just started a local affiliate and have put out a couple of fundraising goals and are meeting that so. And the reason why I mentioned that too is it is so so important that communities. Understand that no one 's coming to save them. So. There is a huge transfer of wealth happening right now from one generation to the next and if communities want to be sustainable and thriving. Into the next 2030 years they've got to have some local financial capital. And so what's one way that you can do that. Is create a local a local Community Foundation absolutely?
Speaker 1
Right because then people who live in the area who value the area can make endowments or smaller donations to that foundation and then the foundation invests that back into the community right.
Jennifer Anderson
Yeah we invest that back into the community a great example and what happens to and we see this we know this from experience is you have people who have left the community like right that's going to happen you're going to have some attrition you're going to people who grow up in the small town and they leave. And they're probably not coming. Back but they still love. Their hometown great example is brought us in Powder River county they they received a very large sum of money donation from you know. Folks a a person who just loves. Loves their loves that community. And it has went into their endowment and and they then get to in turn reinvest funds back into their community.
Margaret Mullins
I can imagine that I think that place where you've grown up right those those feelings run deep even when you when you leave at your hometown.
Jennifer Anderson
Right absolutely and especially. Especially if you're being intentional. To create a place that is inclusive that has civic pride that. Promotes a healthy a healthy lifestyle right and and and when I say healthy lifestyle I mean holistically healthy. There's not just physical health but mental health social health all of those things. People who have that. Experience in a small town really are.
Margaret Mullins
Rich. Absolutely yeah yeah so if there's 50 of the you know 50 locations that have participated I'm curious does any other state have this program.
Jennifer Anderson
Sort of but no like reimagining rule is Montana is a Montana thing and we have been contacted by other.
Margaret Mullins
It.
Jennifer Anderson
Who want to kind of replicate it and do? It their way so. I'd say there are similar offerings but reimagining rural is a Montana program.
Margaret Mullins
Amazing great.
Speaker 1
Yeah that's a. Really cool inventive way to engage folks and it's very uh like I love the idea that. 16 or 18 or 20 towns want to get on a 2 hour zoom call and learn something and then talk about how they're going to use that right yeah that's fabulous and you had mentioned that you have reimagining rural groups. So it sounds like one of the things that could happen is that people decide this is what this is one of the things we're going to do and we're going to both participate in these sessions and then also do stuff.
Jennifer Anderson
Yeah so so at the end of the so there is other components now it started as a statewide gathering then we moved into the virtual series then we incorporated something we call it inspiration hours So what we found through the virtual series is that people wanted more they wanted more content and so we created inspiration. Hours that were just one offs they were kind of deep dives into topics they ranged from. Rural childcare to wayfinding signage to how renovating buildings in your downtown like just specific topics. And we were. Pretty mean I want to say we're pretty diligent. About asking folks what do. You want what do you want to listen to and we'll work it we'll work on making it happen. OK so we went to inspiration hours. So now at the end of that virtual series at the end of the 3 part series Montana Community Foundation has offered what we would call or refer to as like seed grants we've been able to do. Yes because of Montana Community Foundation they've offered seed grants of 1000 to up to upwards of $2000.00 to to communities that come up with an easy what we refer to as low hanging fruit project. That came out of their reimagining rural conversations so then they have the opportunity to to apply for some funding right then and there to complete a project so we we do our best to. Take that positive momentum and turn it into a win in their in their town and a great example going back to that ties back to that newcomers the frisbee golf course in Forsyth was. Was it was a reimagining rural project like they thought is that is what they apply it came up in the discussions that is what they applied for and that's how they use their that's?
Margaret Mullins
How they use the punting?
Jennifer Anderson
So now this year thanks to the great work of our partner Montana Community Foundation they received a $250,000.00 grant from the Wells Fargo foundation. And so now the applications for the 2026 series are is open right now so communities can reply the virtual series will be February 4th 11th and 18th. And at the conclusion of that there will be community grants available for advanced projects upwards of $7500.00.
Margaret Mullins
Wow yes that's amazing.
Jennifer Anderson
Yeah so a community that goes through the 2026 virtual community gatherings. And they jump through all the hoops they still have to apply but they could be eligible for community grant of $7500.00 or more. To work on community projects.
Speaker 1
Jennifer have you heard of the go grants from headwaters foundation.
Jennifer Anderson
No.
Speaker 1
OK so headwaters foundation in Missoula.
Speaker
What?
Speaker 1
Has? They have a whole bunch of stuff they do but one of the easy within reach things that they have it's called go grants and they I think last year were 8000 bucks. And headwaters focuses on kids and families right so so that's their their mission. So if if you have any communities that are working on projects that are oriented toward kids and family health. Tell them about this because the bill ramps are a really low barrier it's an easy application they try to get the money out in like 3 days after they get the application and the only hoops you have to jump through are like a final report at the end saying this is what we. Did? So. Let people know about that if they seem like they have a project that's relevant because headwaters wants people to do that stuff.
Jennifer Anderson
I will one of the things that we're we're attempting to work on so it at MSU extension the community vitality program. There's. 2 and a half of us so there's myself and my colleague Terry mastel are full time. And then we have a half time associate specialist Katie Weaver whose primary focus is on leadership development which is a whole nother aspect of this because we have another program called Big Sky big leadership that really focuses on developing human capital. But your peoples individual leadership skills because we also know in our rural towns that that's that's that's needed. In addition to that with part of the $250,000.00 grant what we're trying to create is more resources for our small towns where they can go almost like a one stop shop where they can go to one place and find all kinds of resources available to rural towns. And. Part of that is because. What we also know and have learned through reimagining world is the majority of the the majority of these towns run on volunteers? There's not paid staff folks who whose primary responsibility is to do community development. So what does that mean so that means you have you know your chambers around by volunteers your your organizations are in by volunteers they don't have city planners they don't have county planners per say so we have to do our job to make it as easy as possible. These folks because that's a huge barrier is they they just don't have somebody who's this is their job. To do another resource that we just we're working on getting developed.
Margaret Mullins
We have some experience working with partners in different communities and we know it's not always easy to get them on board it's pretty clear to me that once they're involved in the virtual gatherings and the the information that you share in those gatherings and people sharing their stories and your rural experts that why people would stay involved but I'm a little curious. How you get them on board? In the first place is it just word of mouth is there some other effort that's involved in that process.
Jennifer Anderson
That's a great question so reimagining role has become this bigger thing than we ever imagined it to be there's quite a following now however that being said we utilize. Our connections with our small towns that we're working with we utilize our extension agents to help share this information because again we have one in in every county reservation so we work. Then we work through our partners at Montana Community Foundation to help share this information we our other partners a Montana Main Street mickey's Archer Montana Main Street. Huge partner with us so that's primarily how we spread information about it and I will say there is good participation because so many small towns just need this they know they need it so they're looking and grasping for something. That might help them they know what's happening in their towns and they want their towns to be you know the best that that it can be you know they just they need some help with it so secondly the grants help I mean obviously having some incentive having a little carried out there is. I'm always helpful and you know we see that sometimes I. Mean I can't. I I can sit here and talk about all the benefits and the positive outcomes and they there are some tremendous outcomes that we've. And we've also seen some communities that factor of readiness is apparent and they just can't get muster up the people to the table or to get things done and that's OK maybe it's just not time so we continue to work with them on we offer to come out to communities as needed. That's a great example of. Pardon warden which is a community on the outskirts of Billings unincorporated was facing a lot of a lot of challenges and some folks community volunteers got together decided to do reimagining rural and they participated after Tara mastel and Katie Weaver. Are my colleagues come out and facilitate some planning sessions with them? And. They created a nonprofit organization they created a local event and they they needed street lights and it was it was like wow street lights like I'm not sure you know they created a mural too and but it was like street lights and they amazingly they they got street lights like this year they got some street lights put in like they made the connect the right connections at the county level. That the economic development organizations and. Tremendous success so and it's great to see and and and again like I said sometimes you'll see communities that they might have only one or 2 people participate and and nothing comes of it and that's like I said that that happens and it's OK you know the flip side is like wolf. Point last year. Shout out to wolf point I think wolf. Point showed up one night. With 40 plus people in the. Room which was probably. The most we've ever seen in one location.
Speaker 1
It sounds like you your projects are the projects that people come up with are super diverse right like.
Jennifer Anderson
Stoplights versus a mural versus versus a wayfinding system yes and they typically start small and we tell them that start where you're at So what we see generally is the community does start with something that. It's easy to accomplish low hanging fruit didn't use. You win and then they start building up so we I call it spiraling up right instead of downward spiral we're going to spiral up we're going to start with something that's easy to do makes you feel good people see you're making some progress. And then try to tackle something a little bit bigger so it's our readiness factor too so I can't I can't say that people did the virtual series and then jumped right into streetlights or things. They usually started with a small like a newcomers event or or completing a mural or cleanup even clean up having a community clean up. UM.
Margaret Mullins
Is a great place to start?
Speaker 1
Yeah and in fact this exactly resonates with something so I listened to one of the reimagining world recordings that you have on your YouTube channel and your your external. But was uh it was 2 women from a group they started called save your dot town and I was hooked instantly because the that's their message right like start small find the people who will say yes and work with you don't try to get everybody on board. Get the people who who work with you start with a very small thing and then see where it goes right but don't think you're going to get streetlights right away when what you might need is just people agreeing to sweep the sidewalks downtown. They are part of the sidewalk right.
Jennifer Anderson
Oh so totally so Becky and Deb and they're fantastic and so yeah we had them a couple of times and subsequently then they they've come to Montana to specific communities have hired them to come and talk come do assessments or visit their communities I mean. Absolutely start where you're at start with it's something that you can get done because I think one of the. Worst things that you can do.
Speaker
So.
Jennifer Anderson
Like housing OK so we all know housing is a huge need but if you're not ready to tackle housing the worst thing that you can happen is go out and be so full of. Vigor to let's do something and then take on something that's way too big and fail like that's probably one of the worst things that can. OK so start with something small something that you can do and be successful and build upon that you'll be much more successful in the long run so this has grown we're working on another program called community heart and soul which is from the Orton Family Foundation so. Thanks again to Montana Community Foundation they're taking the lead on this and we are we're supporting them but one of their mantras goals for that program is taking the Longview and that is so true when it comes to community health community development. Is that? You're yes you're doing things today but you've got like. So much with. Community development is you're playing the long game. Because. You may have a win today in a success tomorrow and then such new challenge comes around that you have to to work through so I mean if if these challenges were easy they'd be solved and we wouldn't have the work right so I don't know if you ever arrived I don't know if you ever solve. Issues when it comes to community health community well-being you just tackle what's in front of you and make progress.
Speaker 1
Yes yes and. I think that we you know. There there's no Superman right like we have to be our own superheroes and we're not superpowered right we're just people and so we have to. We have to know that not everything is gonna look the way we think but and maybe not everything 's going to work the way we want it but it's we have to start right and it's hard to start.
Speaker
Yeah.
Jennifer Anderson
It is a community resilience right is blunt as it is in a lot of the presentations I do now I very much mention no one 's coming to save you nobody 's coming to. Save your town. If you want your towns to change to be better then it's it has to start with from within? And so you have to build up local capacity and that. Again like we frame it through that capitals community capitals framework there there's a lot of different ways you could look at it but but the stronger your community is from within your you're going to increase your capacity and you're going to be more resilient. We talked about this a lot. Is the Montana rural rural capacity index while it's nationwide it's the rural capacity in? From headwaters economics and as doctor Kristin Smith who created it but it is a index that shows the capacity level of rural communities and counties across the United states. With obviously specifically look at montanas. But we we had Chris talk at an agreement rural event. And her data shows that 68% of Montana counties are at low capacity when compared to the rest of the United. So what does that. Mean So what does capacity look like in real communities So what we're talking about is. Sheer number of people stepping up to take on leadership roles. We're talking about paid professional staff the lack of paid professionals in these places financial resources technology like we still have areas that. Don't have broadband right. Knowledge skill set those social connections that skilled labor so all of those kinds of things. Make up that that capacity but the the thing that I why I mentioned this to rural towns or small towns when I go there is. The next 5101520 years they already don't look like the past 50 years when you're talking Montana small towns. So the approaches that we used in the past might not work in the future so we have to be innovative. We have to be willing to take some risks now I'm I'm not talking throw the baby out with the bathwater I'm talking about take some calculated risks do things different be open to new ideas. Because at the end of the day nobody 's coming to save your town and we have to figure out ways new ways of being resilient and building our own capacity. Absolutely yeah right and then it's like how do. You build local conversations around that. So and it goes back. To all of it like being welcoming to newcomers being open to different technology being open to different ways of doing things. It's a difference between fixed and growth mindset.
Margaret Mullins
That's right and you know when you talk about some of the challenges I'm thinking about in very rural towns as as much as some people move to those towns to have a more neighborly and friendly environment you have a lot of people that move there for privacy and like you know not as much interaction and in a small town those those differences your population is smaller and those differences. And be more significant so it it is a very big challenge sometimes to bring people sort of across the line to understand that you know they how they can help without it interfering with sort of their life choices. That way in all of this gets me thinking also a little bit about the rural and urban picture I'm sort of wondering obviously reimagining rural is working in rural areas but how how big is too big to be rural right like when does a community not qualify because it's too. Urban.
Jennifer Anderson
You know that's a really good question I don't think there was any threshold so some of the bigger towns we I mean we've seen things like Dylan haver mile city have participated. And and some. Of them been quite successful haver super successful. The flip side of that we've had smaller towns in western Montana participate that this wasn't this just was not for them right because they're not facing the same kinds of issues that maybe are eastern Montana community is right so when you have when you have what historically. And traditionally our rural communities. But they're very adjacent to an urban center that is growing and they're sprawl is happening they're they're facing much different issues now you could you could break this down and into fundamentally the same conversation. About welcoming new people about being inclusive about being transparent about being proactive about all of those kinds of things because that's the part of the fundamental piece for reimagining rule but we we have had some communities that participated that. Were just like this?
Speaker
Yes.
Jennifer Anderson
This isn't for this isn't the conversation for us we know that at the state level and we've had that conversation too is like how do we help communities that are you know not facing these. Same kind of. Things now that being said like we've had boulder has participated so obviously we're boulder is geographically in between. You know some urban urban more urban centers. I just heard from boulder and I think they're applying this go around so they've participated seeing some success they're also a pilot community for our heart and heart and soul program right now so they're they're working right they're working on it they're. There they're trying so that's sometimes like that's the best you can hope for is that people are being proactive about planning what kind of future they want for them.
Margaret Mullins
Community yeah.
Speaker 1
Yeah you know obviously urban areas have a lot more stuff right and they have more people who are paid they have more just general opportunity to identify assets and make use of them right there's there's a lot going. Going on in urban areas that may not be available in rural areas but I feel like a common thread there is that sometimes it's hard wherever you are to I to see that you have assets. And to identify. People who might be champions for your work right so a while ago I saw this really lovely uh short video on YouTube about how you can tell what your assets are and they were talking about how even in. Ourselves we need to think about our the assets in our heads in our hearts and in our hands right the things you know. The things you feel and the and the connections that you have have made and then the stuff you can do right and and. Often maybe we don't think that those are assets right but but you don't know until you try to you know find a you find the connections to let you use them right and similarly we may not know who the champion is and it may be easier to identify. In a bigger town but maybe your champion is. Like a hair. Yes Sir and not the person in charge right could you talk a little bit about like how do you find those hidden champions how do you in in rural areas I guess specifically and how do you like if if if people are. Kind of resistant to change. How do you find the avenue? To have a conversation even about that.
Jennifer Anderson
Back to kind of this fundamental community development approach that that's who we are that's what we that's what we take we actually refer to it at and there's different people call it different things and that's part of the I guess like maybe that's that's a challenge too we all did the same thing it's. Probably just called something different. Right but we we refer to it as community asset mapping and so.
Margaret Mullins
Hmm.
Jennifer Anderson
4 reimagining rural specifically the application is designed to start to get them thinking like that so application is really simple it's almost like a community scavenger hunt so you go out and find partners local partners or resources that can help make your event successful who are they and how can they. Help. So for example. Your school OK so if I'm going to coordinate if I'm a community volunteer if I'm the hairdresser or the local business owner or you know the head of the local PTS and I want to do reimagining her. Well I'm gonna go talk to our school Superintendent and I why am I going to get them involved because the kids they're huge piece of our community and we want the kids to have a say in things and then maybe what they will agree to do is put it in their school newsletter or share with their teachers or their school board and say go participate. This is a good thing right and so. I mean anyway so we put it into the reimagining rural application itself beyond that we can also provide educational trainings we go to communities and we will facilitate asset mapping activities with communities. On to get them thinking about those assets and again we use we frame. It in that. Community capitals framework and So what we do is we just get people brainstorming about what is an asset. And like talking about bill asset So what are the things that are constructed in your community that are positive and they just put it on big large sticky notes right so they just start spitballing. Everything and it could be the fairgrounds the baseball field and so once they get it up on paper what every time I've done this I what I hear from people is wow.
Speaker
Oh.
Jennifer Anderson
We really have a lot of positive.
Speaker
Stuff it's like.
Jennifer Anderson
Yeah you do you just needed to think about it so I'm Townsend great example I've been to Townsend now 2 years in a row they have a what's called the Big Sky big big leadership program it's community based leadership program ran through extension. And we do asset mapping every year with them that map is growing broadest another great example did some community asset mapping with them and now they're chamber maintains it so that's one piece of it now second piece of it is how do you get people involved this is a new term but not a new thing is. Social influencers so. Historically social influencers have been around forever. Social influencer new coined term but if you boil it down what does that mean it means that everybody listens to somebody and so every town. Has key people that? Are the the makers of the Breakers? Of what goes on in your town right wrong or indifferent. And So what we try to teach or facilitate or educate folks is to figure out who are those people in your community who do you need to go to to get that what I refer to as the Good Housekeeping seal of approval that yes this is a good thing. And yeah you should. Get on board. It is strategic feels sneaky some. But the reality is it's there everybody listens to somebody every everybody's influenced by somebody so you just have to figure out strategically figure out who are those people in your community every town 's got them and there is actual research behind that there is there is actual community development research that says this is methodology of how you figure out.
Margaret Mullins
For those people are so.
Jennifer Anderson
We just try to work with communities to to offer support and I'm training for those communities to to go through that process it's interesting it's so. OK to go in and facilitate those kind of conversations in the local community because they know once they get it on. The paper they're. Like Oh yeah yeah oh oh it's Joe we. Knew that but they go through the process.
Margaret Mullins
To figure it out right.
Speaker 1
One of the. Things we've been trying to do in the last couple of years in our Bureau is to you know breach the clinic wall or breach the public health wall and. Figure out how to you know bridge the very real it's not really a divide it's more like a a different set of immediate priorities right between people who are doing clinical work and people who are doing all the rest of the stuff. In the community right because the medical stuff is really important right like that's part of health but it's not the total part of health and so we've been trying to figure out how do you how do you bridge that sort of. Siloed set of priorities to show that they're connected and we're sort of making some progress like we have some projects that are cool and we've talked to some of those people on this podcast before but I I feel like. Alright. Helping the clinical folks you know they know all these things but they also have to do certain things so so is there like a I don't even know if I have a question here I just know that we're trying to do it but using some of these tools right like we're promoting starting to promote. Community asset assessments like having an asset mindset having a strength mindset but sometimes I think that the things that. We see as assets like the clinicians and the nurses and the the public health building right the public health staff they may not also be seen as. Assets because they're doing this separate thing have you ever encountered that maybe that's the question.
Speaker
Ah.
Jennifer Anderson
And my own experience and I think I want to think beyond that. Like the public health component is a tremendous asset in our rural communities tremendous. Asset.
Margaret Mullins
In our rural communities.
Jennifer Anderson
Umm. And especially if and when they take on a community based approach I think in mindset people think of public health and they they start to think of traditional media and we're not necessarily public health health in general like medical health right like physical health reasons why you would go to the go to public health I think when. If and when public health departments really try to be? Intentional and and holistic. And be a part of a community and then they're much more successful and much more viewed as that but I think that's a movement we're going to in a lot of sectors too like I I sent on our school board and certainly. I believe schools are taking more of a community approach as well like looking at being what is a role in the community and as part of the the community in the larger picture so I don't know if that answers your your question at all but certainly when I have seen is there are some public health departments. That are tremendous assets and tremendous resources in the community and their. Very well tested very well respected and that's tough right in the. Climate we live.
Margaret Mullins
In right now and what we've been through with COVID that's tough because they were put in a really hard position absolutely very difficult position do the public health workers come to the reimagining world events the virtual events. They attend those or maybe just being kept informed of them.
Jennifer Anderson
I'm you know I'm not sure it don't have a great answer for. That one because I. Don't know off. The cuff yes like I'm I'm not quite sure like I can give you examples in like a specific example in Forsyth so when we started reimagining real and because I work remotely and I still live in Forsyth but I was still the extension agent. So the first go around of reimagining rule I was still working primarily in rosebud and treasure county and in rosebud county our public health department was huge community resource and asset and so always. Sent information to them to share and to be a part of things and tremendous resource all the way around supporting our schools supporting the communities so. But I I'm not I don't have great.
Margaret Mullins
Insight into the to the rest of the.
Speaker
Communities on it.
Speaker 1
And maybe that's. Something we can start focusing on a little bit even just you know making sure that people that we know you know about this resource so that it's one more thing one more tool in their pocket right this is a tremendous resource.
Jennifer Anderson
You know like bodice for example I know that they work closely with their their public health department so yeah it's without a doubt and that is part of that asset mapping right is understanding those resources that you have available in your community and what they're doing if sometimes you.
Margaret Mullins
Wouldn't think this.
Jennifer Anderson
But there is some truth to it that even in rural communities it's pretty siloed you stay in your lane you know like like this is my job this is what I'm doing and so we go into communities sometimes just to start the conversation about how for an example how public health.
Speaker 1
Work.
Jennifer Anderson
Can interface with the school y'all are playing on the same team realistically you have the same goals so how do we build those relationships? And you wouldn't think that's the case but that is true even in in in small towns and so again like if if building capacity and building resilience. Is one of the outcomes you want you're gonna be better off by stronger social connections and more collaboration?
Margaret Mullins
That's absolutely true and I think it is really hard sometimes when you're in a community and you've been there a long time or even if you're new to sort of recognize who who you can work with and what those assets are and just. Breaking down that silo to think about things in a broader sense it takes an effort I don't think it comes naturally to most people. To do that.
Jennifer Anderson
I'm recognizing that it doesn't for me makes total sense but that's where I come from but the lens that I look things through but how do we work together better and how can we support each other in our efforts. And that's just an ongoing conversation a great example again just because it's Forsyth and I know our public health department worked with our school to put up new signage in the downtown area and it has the school logo on it and it's one of those market running marquees so you can put. Messages on it right so. So they share it right so sometimes it's public health messaging sometimes it's an update of what's going on at the school sometimes it's a chamber event but it was like it was a culmination of all these different entities coming together to make to make one thing happen everybody benefits a little bit out of it the town benefits because it makes. Your community better. At the end of the day so you know ultimately that's that's what you want so.
Margaret Mullins
So how do communities get involved in a rural revitalization project if they're listening today and they're interested but are the actual steps for that so if they want to apply for reimagining rule they can go to the MSU extension website or they can use Google Montana reimagining rule.
Jennifer Anderson
And it's going to take them there it's an. Easy peasy. Application process. They go there it's all online except for one piece is the partnership roster so they download the partnership roster they go around it's like like I said like a mini community assessment asset mapping and go around and and recruit different entities to participate. And turn it in and it it is pretty simple. And then at the conclusion we have all the sessions there will be 2 different grant opportunities available to communities so one is the seed grant so that is somewhere between 1002 $1000.00 and that's for the easy to complete. Right. UM. Projects that were identified in the virtual community gatherings and then we have the Wells Fargo foundation grant that. Is for more advanced projects that is upwards of 7500 for? Communities and we. Expect to have about 10 of the.
Margaret Mullins
Grants available you can apply for either or or does do most people start with the C grant and then.
Jennifer Anderson
Mouse start with the seed grant but well we've never had the large one available before OK so the see that was only one that was available but so I mean. I would suggest if. If you're a first time community and you're just getting started and this is all new ideas and new? So concepts then I would start with this with the smaller one I would say the bigger now you could still be a new community to reimagining rural but you've done a lot of groundwork right you've done a lot of work in the past you're you're moving forward you're you're progressing then maybe the $7500.00 one is. More appropriate so.
Margaret Mullins
What an amazing amount of good information I'm so inspired by the program I really really am I just am impressed with everything that gets done and it's a need that we need filled it's something that's absolutely in demand I suspect?
Jennifer Anderson
Yeah without a. Doubt I mean I'm a pretty forward and direct person and I. I I'd be remiss if I didn't say.
Speaker 1
This.
Jennifer Anderson
Too I mean moving forward into the future I just think we we collectively as a state have to figure out a way to make investments. Into our rural community. But we we need to invest in rural rural matters and it is a huge. Peace to the overall fabric that makes our state. Great and it makes us who we are and we need to recognize that and invest in it.
Margaret Mullins
Yeah it's a huge part of our Montana. Identity that's for sure yes. We really we're winding down here so I guess I'm wondering if there's anything else that you would like to mention that we have. Not asked you about.
Jennifer Anderson
I could talk hours about reimagining rural and the great work that is going on in our small towns in fact I love talking about the communities and the success that they're having because it's theirs it's their story I just get to share it so I I could I could talk about it all day long. A couple other things that we have coming up is in June we're calling it rule summit it will be a gathering of state statewide people who work with rural in any kind of capacity so it's like we want people who statewide.
Speaker
Oh.
Jennifer Anderson
Folks or even regional may not be in real but they work with rural so let's let's all let's all come to a the table and have conversations about what is real health looking like and what's real business looking like and real government and how do we start this conversation about collaborating.
Speaker 1
Oh yeah.
Jennifer Anderson
And working together.
Margaret Mullins
Well that's great well we have sure appreciated it I could hear about it all day long I know exactly.
Speaker
Like. Love it.
Margaret Mullins
So I just want to say thank you so much to our podcast listeners on behalf of Trina and myself and the crews behind the scene thank you especially to our fabulous guest Jennifer Anderson. If you would like any more information on what we discussed today just visit our website at talking health and the406.mt.gov where there will be links to the information that we've discussed and if you haven't already Please remember to rate review and subscribe to our podcasts and until next time be healthy and be well?