(By Jeff Yost, President and CEO of Nebraska Community Foundation) “How fast can I leave this place?” Young people in Nebraska have been asking themselves that question for a long time. Maybe you even asked yourself at one point. I certainly did. For much of the 20th century, that’s just the way things were. There was a script: grow up, graduate high school, and depart for greener pastures. Not the most inspiring narrative.
We’ve learned since then that the questions we ask shape our community stories, and that those stories shape our community’s success. For the last 30 years, Nebraska Community Foundation has been working to change the questions we ask about our hometowns. Over the past five years NCF has surveyed over 4,000 high school age students in 43 Greater Nebraska school districts. Here are a few highlights: — Three-fourths reported no negative stigma with returning to or staying in the area they live now — 76% feel connected to their hometown — 59% said they are somewhat or extremely likely to live in the area they live now as an adult — When asked to rank qualities of their ideal community to live in, safety, good schools, and proximity to family top the list every year I don’t expect people to believe me right away when I say that one of the most powerful approaches to bringing people to your community is as simple as making space. Some might roll their eyes – surely there are better options? I believe invitation is the right tool for lasting change, and I believe one of the most powerful questions you can ask young people is “how do you want to play a role in our hometown?”
One way to ask that important question is through Hometown Internships. Nebraska Community Foundation launched the program in 2019, hoping to build an experience that brings young adults back home to see their hometown through a different lens. Communities invited them into the room where decisions are made and encouraged them to take an active role. We started with just one intern that first year. Now, we regularly have dozens of interns, with some communities even sponsoring two or three at a time. The NCF network has hosted 113 internships since 2019.
Alongside the increase in participants, NCF has expanded and refined the program's curriculum.
Interns now embark on something we call Operation Discovery. This educational component engages interns to explore innovative strategies grounded in mapping their community’s assets and helping lead important conversations, ultimately driving progress towards community aspirations.
By necessity, the places that make up the NCF network don’t always have the same approach to communitybuilding. And they shouldn’t, because every village, city, or county in our state possesses unique local assets and strengths requiring strategies just as unique. Some towns capitalize on their natural resources, others on a robust entrepreneurial spirit, and others on arts or culture. Most focus on a combination of their strengths. Our Nebraska hometowns have no shortage of assets to strengthen and share with residents, neighbors, and visitors.
The people who are best equipped to recognize and understand these assets are those who live and work in that community. Hometown Internships bring people back by appealing to one heart, one mind at a time. Some interns rediscover why they love their hometowns, and others fall in love with their community for the first time. That’s the kind of change that sticks and proves that an invitation and making room for the next generation should be part of any approach to bring more people into Greater Nebraska.
These experiences are having profound impacts on both the young adults and their local champions. They’re initiating all sorts of productive activities to build community, strengthen intergenerational relationships, improve community narrative and self-concept, and provide a strong case statement for investing time, talent, and treasure in their hometown. For the past three years at the end of the summer, we’ve asked Hometown Interns to write a love letter to their hometown. Listening to these young adults read their inspiring and heartwarming letters is one of my favorite days of the year!
We are learning these young adults are not just discovering their communities, they are discovering something about themselves – how their place shaped them and why they just might want to come home for good someday. Twenty interns have already returned to their hometowns. Some found jobs and joined local organizations. A few have even purchased homes. Even more interns have told us that they now imagine themselves returning to Greater Nebraska someday to build their lives.
They’ve flipped the script. According to one Hometown Intern’s love letter, there’s a new question: “How fast can I return?” For more information about NCF’s work, visit NebraskaHometown.org.
