Episode 41 - The Impact of Collaboration Between Community Colleges and Civic Partnerships with Dakota Pawlicki and Elaine Morgan
Michelle Rathman: Hello, one and all, and welcome back to The Rural Impact, a podcast that works hard to connect the dots between policy and rural everything, or as I say, everything that we can think of. I'm Michelle Rathman and I want to thank you once again for joining us for another conversation that we understand is not always the lightest subjects, but we do hope by the very end that you have become enlightened.
I also want to make sure before we dive in to thank Ascendium Education Group for their support and for making this entire series possible. And I also want to remind you that you can subscribe to us to receive our e-blogs, our resources, all sorts of things in your inbox that are designed not to pester you or ask you for money, but rather just share with you our rural impact stories and hope that you join our, our network and our family of listeners. You can easily do that at TheRuralImpact.com - and we thank you so much for sharing and liking and leaving your comments.
Okay. With that said, I just want to let you know, as I said, we are the, in our last episode of this series, which is focused on adult learners, which is their access to post-secondary education and how that connects with obtaining good jobs and good paying jobs in rural America.
And to have this conversation, I was so happy to be joined by someone I've talked to in the past, but it's been a long time, Dakota Pawlicki. And Dakota is the Director of Talent Hubs with CivicLab. And I did so because in his role, he serves exemplary cross sector partnerships focused on post-secondary education attainment that have met rigorous standards for partnership and health, equity and systems change, in a nutshell, he introduced us to CivicLabâs work focused on building rural community systems and the cohort selected to participate in a three-year incubator program.
Really fascinating and the entire goal of this program is to rethink and revitalize their communities. Now, in the second part of this conversation, I sought out to talk with one of those cohort members because it's important for us to connect those dots from the resources made available to CivicLabs and how those play themselves out on the ground, if you will.
So, I sat down with Elaine Morgan, and Elaine is the CEO of the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce, in Berkeley County, South Carolina, and you are going to hear Elaine describe just how rural they are. I just learned so much from having these conversations because of this opportunity with CivicLab, Elaine shared with me that Berkeley County is now completely full steam ahead.
And their work to close the gaps and essential services, including health care, jobs, training, and education for their largely underserved rural communities. And they are doing so by overcoming barriers, such as limited transportation. I know many of our listeners can identify with that, as well as another barrier is overcoming a criminal record, inadequate internet access, and ultimately, their goal is to create equitable opportunities for all people in their community. And, and you will hear it.
Elaine is so sincere in her mission and her passion for this work. I just cannot wait for you to meet her. And incidentally, I interviewed Elaine just a few days after hurricane Helene hit and we were on our way and watching for Milton.
And it just reminded me of how important it is for community collaboration before the face of disaster. Because when you got it right, when you are working together before disaster strikes, you are much more resilient. That is the word that I'd like to use and being able to overcome adversity. So, I just, I invite you to think about ways that you can connect some dots in your community and become a solution finder, and become one of those people who collaborates with others in your rural community to make yours one that thrives.
Okay, here we go with that. I invite you, as I always do to sit back, put yourself in your podcast frame of mind, and listen to my conversation with Dakota Pawlicki and Elaine Morgan. Again, my thanks to Ascendium Education Group. Are you ready? I sure am. So, let's go.
Michelle Rathman: Hey, Dakota Pawlicki, Director of Talent Hubs with CivicLab. It is great to have you here. It's been a long time, but I'm so glad to have you here on this podcast. The Rural Impact. Welcome.
Dakota Pawlicki: Yeah, thanks, Michelle. So glad to be here.
Michelle Rathman: Well, you know, I, I do follow your work. This is not the first time that we spoke. It's been a couple of years.
But let me just say, we are needing our audience because they have not heard from you on this show. Tell us about what Talent Hub is all about, CivicLab is all about, give us a little bit of background first, and then we're going to dive right into this conversation.
Dakota Pawlicki: CivicLab is a nonprofit Institute. We're based in Columbus, Indiana, and we're dedicated to advancing the practice of civic collaboration. You know, really what we do is we go out, we learn what makes cross sector collaboration work best. We document those discoveries and then teach those practices and principles as broadly as we possibly can.
Really, the idea is that we're trying to help community and cross sector teams come together, and address complex social challenges things like housing, mental health, health, but of course, a big part of it is talent and post-secondary education, education outcomes.
You know, some years ago when I was still with Lumina Foundation and CivicLab was one of our partners, we learned that there's so many communities out there that are bringing together the public, private, and social sectors to try to improve post-secondary attainment.
And one of the big challenges we had was like figuring out who's the best at doing this. You know, it's so easy just to pick your favorites. And so, we knew we needed a way to say, here's really what community excellence, community collaboration excellence looks like. How do we document that? Uh, and then also turn it into something that folks can aspire to?
So, we created the Talent Hub designation. It's a designation program that pretty much is a marker of an exemplary cross sector partnership focused on improving post-secondary attainment and really kind of talent development and connections to jobs. You know, it's, um, the, I think the important thing to know about it, it's, it's model agnostic.
There's a lot of you know, models out there that say, 'Hey, if your community just organized yourselves this way, measured these exact things and did these exact things, you would reach the promised land.' That's not what the town of designations about it all. It really recognizes that every place is different and unique and that each of these communities has to do something unique to themselves in order to actually achieve their particular goals, which is why rural communities are so well suited for this kind of talent Hub thinking. You know, we do have several talent Hubs that are you know, serving rural communities, some as large as, you know, the entire region of 10 county region of northern California, that takes up more space than three of the eastern states put together. As well as, you know, smaller communities throughout Texas and Indiana, certainly, and throughout Appalachia as well.
You know, but really what it comes down to is that all these places, they're doing different things that are contextually appropriate, but they all have a methodical engagement process that really allows them to come together and answer the question, what can we do together that we couldn't do alone?
Michelle Rathman: It is so I follow the work, it is so exciting. And, you know, I think one, one of the things I want to want to mention to you is because in a previous episode Dakota, we had a conversation that focused on a report out of Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce and it's titled at, the long title, so bear with me, Small Towns, Big Opportunities: Many Workers in Rural Areas Have Good jobs, But These Areas Need Greater Investment in Education, Training and Career Counseling.
And of this reports many findings, there are a few relevant things that I thought were germane to our conversation Dakota. And the first is number one, the majority of rural workers without bachelor's degrees do not have good jobs. And the report defines what that is. The second thing is that post-secondary education increases the likelihood of holding a good job for rural workers. And lastly, the majority of rural workers with college degrees have good jobs.
So on August 20th, CivicLab along with ECMC Foundation and our collaborating partner Ascendium Education Group, an organization, as I said, we're so grateful to have their support. You released some news about a national effort to rethink and revitalize economies for rural communities. And I suspect that work has some connection to the stats that I just read to you.
Talk to us about that.
Dakota Pawlicki: Absolutely. You know, we're, we're really grateful that Ascendium and ECMC has given us the opportunity to do a second cohort of rural communities. You know, we, we closed our first cohort, uh, last year or so with five. We now have selected 10 really great community partnerships that are coming together to improve talent development.
And then also consider really the connection between post-secondary education employers. And explore, have new methodologies and new data and tools to explore new economies. Cause, cause you're right. You know, we, we look at the reports, like what Georgetown is telling us and what the, you know, challenges that are confronting rural communities.
And we say, you know, really what can be done here? I think the, there's a couple of points, I think that that's germane to this. One is you know, the important point of context. You know, really when we get down to it, context is everything, everything happens in a context. And so, if we embrace this idea, we have to understand that if we just redesign the context that people are situated in, that's where the system exists. And that's really how we can really change these kinds of outcomes when it comes to post-secondary endowment, when it comes to what good jobs are.
I'll give you two quick examples of this. You know, while of course, I, I love the Georgetown work, and they do a great job. But you know, whenever a national organization defines what a good job is, that framework only holds up. It's kind of an average framework. And if we took that average framework and laid it on any community in the United States, rural or not, that frame was only going to hold up a little bit. We have to define what a good job is locally and in that context.
And my favorite example of this is the CDL, the CDL in Southern Ohio is not necessarily a good job. It doesn't lead to other jobs. It doesn't lead to stackable credentials or a premium wage, but a CDL down in Corpus Christi, Texas is actually a very good job. They did figure out ways to scaffold that credential and it leads to a high wage premium. So that same framework changes.
So, we have to answer what is a good job in a contextually based way. I think the other way to think about context, and you know, we just had our first convening of this new cohort of these 10 partnerships. And one of them is a great partnership, an industry partnership based in Tuscarawas, Ohio. And they brought with them an employer.
And he said, 'you know, for the longest time, we have had a hard time filling our jobs and we have good jobs. You know, they're well paying, they lead to more jobs, those kinds of things.' But they were really having a hard time with talent. You know, uh, just like, Joe Fuller's work at Harvard tells us, you know, really employers can't rely on the spot market anymore. You know, going out there and posting on LinkedIn or indeed, so you have a job, is it going to work?
So, he noticed something, he noticed that next to him and his facility was a school, and every day he would see parents going and dropping off kids and the morning and picking them up in the afternoon. And he asked themselves and his team asked themselves, well, what are they doing in between those two drop offs?
And they literally just took themselves and their HR team and walked over to the school, had a conversation with them, and then approached the parents and said, âHey, you know, are you looking for a job between these two things? Imagine if you'd come work for me, you drop your kid off in the morning, you come work for me here, and then your shift ends when you have to go pick up your kid. And by the way, you know, if your kid gets sick at school or needs to, you know, have something, no problem. We'll be flexible with you. Jump over, take care of your kid.â
He solved his talent demands by simply looking within his context and asking, how do I redesign how this context works? So, a lot of our work with these rural communities is to really ask ourselves, you know, 'What is the context? How do you redesign a context to achieve your kind of goals you want to have? And then what's the process you want to use to get there? '
We know excellent communities really use a well-designed methodical process to engage multiple stakeholders. And in particular, this matters because when we think about what, you know, marginalizes rural communities, rural communities themselves don't marginalize themselves.
You know, in our applications, we intentionally do not define what rural is. And instead, we say to the community, 'Hey, you tell us about your place. You tell us about your people. Don't worry about squeezing yourself into some definitional bucket here. You tell us.' And universally, what we find is that those places that can talk about the pride, the stories, how many astronauts their community had come from them, the natural resources they have, how their limestone built you know, Washington, D. C. Those are places that have very strong community connections.
Whereas when we get an application that just talks about it from all the negative kind of, and qualitative secondary information, quantitative secondary information rather, we tend to find that those aren't places that actually work with the community very well.
And so really excellent communities have to follow a well-designed process to engage multiple sectors, multiple stakeholders. That moves us, it's an important paradigm from having things done to us as a rural community to actually doing things with us as a rural community. And so that's really what the initiative is about, is helping people.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah. My goodness, you're, you're making my head explode because I love the whole framework of context. I think that's missing from so many of our national conversations. We've become really, you know, really quick at, you know, clicking on things and then not having any context for it, I want to talk to you because we are focusing on this episode about you know, how communities community college, how, how they work together, how collaboration at the community level and through partnerships you describe address the barriers to earning that college degree, as well as work to achieve those achievement gaps that are directly related to talent.
So, talk to us a little bit about how collaboration at the community level really is the catalyst for kind of the things we're talking about to make sure that adult learners can achieve their dreams. Achieving post-secondary education dreams that they have. How does that work in the work that you're doing?
Dakota Pawlicki: It's a great question. And again, you know, every community has to find their own way of working well together and every community is different. And so, we have to really embrace the nuance of that rather than laying on, you know, a one size fits all kind of approach. I think that's where the policy conversation comes in quite a bit, honestly, is, you know, policy, I firmly believe there is no such thing as proactive policy.
All policy is reactive, right? And we're only reacting to two things. We're either reacting to a problem that we don't want to have anymore. Let's move away from this. Let's address this problem. Or you can react to a positive deviance. Hey, this place, this community, this is going really well. How do we make sure it continues and grow that?
So really when it comes to community collaboratives, right, we need to be thinking about, you know, how do we become, beacons of excellence? How do we become positive deviants to allow policy to move in our direction and move towards something rather than just away from something in particular?
And usually through having a methodical process and one that's not the political process, we actually can find a lot of very elegant, simple solutions. And I think what we're finding over and over again, and a lot of our real communities, and certainly among our Talent Hubs is that you know, they're making dramatic gains in post-secondary attainment in college going rates and, you know, worker satisfaction.
I mean, many of these communities have off has all excuse me, have also, you know, staved off population decline. You know, improved physical health, wellbeing, health, because they understand it's all connected. And they're working through a methodical process that allows them to discover what unique things need to happen in their own communities that they can only do themselves.
You know, a big part of that though, Michelle comes down to role clarity. You know, we, we talk about a lot of times we study. If we look at the reports that come out and the cases that come out, they're mainly about large institutions. Why? Because large institutions are easier for us to study. It is easier for us as researchers to study how a community college works with a large employer, or, you know, how a community college might work with a government agency, because there's so much richness there.
That can be misleading, though, to a practitioner who's on the ground. And really what we encourage people to do as one of the first steps when they're building a collaborative or if they have a collaborative that just doesn't quite work is look at your role clarity. You know, who is doing what and what position are they in?
For example, a lot of times, we look to the public sector, to a mayor's office or to the County government to try to convene multiple people, but in reality, they're pretty bad conveners. And I say that with love, I'm from the public sector. Like I worked in public sector jobs a lot in my life and gosh, we're pretty bad at it.
One, because we have to be held accountable to the political whims of our leaders that change every so often because of elections. You know, two, because turnover right now in public agencies is rather high. And three, because we've gutted a lot of public agencies, quite frankly, around the U.S. especially at the local level.
And so, they really just don't have the capacity anymore to actually truly lead in an authentic way. So, if you're in a community that's trying to do this collaborative work, ask yourself, you know, do we really have the public sector in the right role? Do we have the community college in the right role?
Because not every community college is the same and some are not great conveners and others can be. And so, you really have to ask yourself, you know, who in this community has a neutral position that is truly representing the vitality of the community and those community voices. You know, who, who is it in, in our community that doesn't have a political agenda and that they want to take responsibility for stewarding a process.
And if there isn't a clear who then build that table. You know, have a habit, you know, and I think my last bit of advice on this too is something that Alan Cohen from the Child Poverty Action Lab says. And I really love it. So, I'm stealing it from you, Alan.
He says, you know, you should really adopt a bureaucrat.
You know, I mean, one of the best things that you can do if you want to have a successful collaborative, and you really want to start tackling these things is. Is don't just go to, you know, a bureaucrat or city agency or county agency town group and demand things. Instead, ask yourselves, how do you make their life easier? We know from change management literature and we see it time and time again, you know, real change, lasting change doesn't happen to the C-suite.
C-suite leaders can do a lot of important things. They can rally resources, you know, incorporate and cast a vision, but real and lasting change happens middle to bottom up. And so, you know, when we go into a community, we say, you know, yeah, sure. Get your superintendent and your city manager and, you know, county manager, whoever it is at the table, certainly.
But really think about those, mid-level folks at every kind of agency, including your employer partners, including your colleges. And including your public sector partners and ask yourselves, how can I make life a little bit easier for them so we can achieve our common goal?
Michelle Rathman: So true I think about what you just said, and how many organizations I've worked with where so much of the magic happens in the middle. I think maybe there's something about the fact that so often that's the, that's the cohort, if you will, that is accustomed to removing barriers. Instead of, you know, having other people do it for them, they move the barriers.
That's wonderful. Okay. So, you brought up policy. So, the last kind of thing I want to talk to you about is, you know, you talk about the fact that, okay. You know, these partnerships, cross sector is required. We are now just on the cusp of a 2024 major election. A lot of states, a lot of counties, a lot of people have different things on their ballot and what have you.
So, our priorities are, you know, depending on where you live and your profession. How do you suggest that communities when you say community, that's a, that's a big word. How do you suggest that people within their own community want to address some of these challenges to make sure that, you know, we talk about the brain drain and people leaving rural areas because there are no good jobs or because they, they can't attain a post-secondary education.
When it comes to policy, how do you suggest those who are listening to this go out in their community and engage with their policymakers, engage with their state level policymakers to advocate for more resources, to build the capacity needed for rural communities to thrive in the ways that you describe. What are some things that you could share with our listeners in that regard?
Dakota Pawlicki: It's a great question. And one, as you point out, it is very, very timely. I think the first thing I remind folks is remember that you as a community have a right to self-determination. And what I mean by that is that, yes, our communities are carved up and convenient lines, town lines, county lines.
But people, you know, don't work that way, you know, our human systems don't really care about the political subdivisions that we have. And so don't allow a government-imposed kind of definition, a border that we create for good taxing purposes, to really define how your human system works. And what that means in practice is that, you know, the issue that you might be having as a county or as a town might be very, very similar to the next county over, to the next county over.
You might look at your entire labor shed. You might look at your commuting patterns. You might look at you know, all those kinds of things and then say, âokay, what can we all do together that we couldn't do alone? What are some common things that we have? And now let's go talk to our state or county or how do we as a group of cities and towns work together new configurations?â
There's absolutely no rules anywhere that says you can only stick within your own county. Even if you already are organized, perhaps maybe your state has a, you know, economic growth region that encompasses many counties. Break from that. If that's not the way it works for you. So, remember that you have a right to self-determination and start to ask yourself, you know, how do the humans that live here actually navigate our social systems, where are they?
And then what are the unique partnership configurations that we can bring together and say, âHey, listen, we, as a larger group here actually have this thing in common, because this is our people have in common.â So, you know, I think that's, you know, my first bit of advice. I think the second thing is you have to remember that policy is only one tool in the toolbox.
And in fact, policy really is an output of our social system. Policy is an expression of what we believe is right, and what we have to do. And usually policy is a floor, not a ceiling, right? And so, if I'm a collaborative and I'm at, and I'm out of community, I'm asking myself, you know, gosh, what, what could we do?
And I'm immediately reaching for that policy tool. It gets me a little worried honestly. I would first ask myself, what is it that we're trying to do together that we couldn't do alone? And what could we try? What can we pilot? What can we do that doesn't require any policy change? And then only go after policy change when it's absolutely required.
Because again, it's a floor and you're likely not going to get everything you want out of it. And even still the best policymakers will tell you when they create a new policy, it all comes down to implementation anyway. And so do yourself the favor, start implementing whatever it is that you want to see at whatever scale, don't worry about, you know, having the biggest numbers in the world or, or making sure you have the largest geographic footprint, you know.
Solve for one person. Solve, literally go out and solve the problem that you're trying to address for one single person, document what you did, see how you can extend that to many.
And then from there, you will discover, okay, we might need to change this or this or this in policy, but we need to change this and this and this in practice, maybe change this resource flow. You know, when we, when we look across examples of places that have really moved and addressed really complex social challenges.
Very rarely have they done it by one new policy trick. And I think that's the secret, Michelle. We have to keep reminding ourselves that if there was a policy that we could throw, that we could implement, that would solve all of our problems, I guarantee you, we would have done it by now. I've traveled this country extensively.
I know you have too, I've met a lot of really great people and none of them are dumb. None of them are, are, are, you know, ill-intentioned individuals. These are all smart, capable people who live in communities, who are running our governments, who are running our community colleges and social organizations.
And I bet you if they had a policy that would, you know, fix our post-secondary attainment problem, we would have thought of it already. So clearly, we can't just put all of our eggs in that basket. And I think that to really drive the point home, I think that is the major message that you want to send to a policymaker is to say, 'Hey, listen, this is how, if you enacted this policy, here's how it fits into the broader whole, right?'
If we go into a policy conversation and we tell the policymaker and we make this emphatic, you know, argument that this is going to solve all our problems. They're probably going to laugh at you a little bit, you know, privately, because that's just not how it actually works. So, couch your policies, ideas into a broader whole act as a demonstration site, be a positive deviance and say, this is how we could really work.
And this would work so much better. We could fix this for so many more people, if we had this one policy change rather than saying, hey, we have a problem. Let's start with the policy and then we'll try to fix it.
Michelle Rathman: Oh my gosh, you just gave me like a week's worth of motivation. I want to say, you know, we say in this podcast all roads to the quality of life are paved by policy, And I'm reminded every year in the place I live how many times I have to go out and fix the potholes, and so I think it goes right to your point.
Dakota, you are welcome to come back and visit with us anytime. It's been great to have you here with us to join us for this conversation.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for your time
Dakota Pawlicki: Thanks, Michelle. Really appreciate your show and everything you do really appreciate it.
Michelle Rathman: Oh, I, it is my pleasure. And I want to tell you folks don't go anywhere because we are continuing this rural impact conversation as if it could get any better right after a quick break to hear from our outstanding partner for this series, Ascendium Education Group.
Michelle Rathman: Hey, we're back from our break and I am so happy and I mean this to welcome Elaine Morgan, CEO of the Berkley Chamber of Commerce to the show, Elaine, welcome. We're so happy you could be here with us today.
Elaine Morgan: Michelle, I am so thrilled to be with you today.
Michelle Rathman: You know, as we're talking, it seems like we certainly do have so many things in common. And today we are going to focus on, continuing this conversation, because Elaine, we just heard from Dakota Pawlicki from CivicLab, and we had a really robust conversation. I mean, honestly, he's such a smart individual. I love having these talks with him.
But we talked about the importance of collaboration and the context of rethinking and revitalizing communities by strengthening rural higher education, uh, employment systems. And with that in mind, you know, also economic upward mobility. So, one of the reasons why we're so glad to have you here with us is because the Berkeley Chamber of Commerce is doing some pretty innovative things, if you ask me.
And you have an initiative and an application that was supported and accepted to help you secure your spot in a three-year incubator program with CivicLab supported by Ascendium. So, talk to us about that. I didn't want to do any spoiler alert here. It's really exciting. Share that news with us.
Elaine Morgan: We're absolutely thrilled. We were selected and we love the process. Because it truly is a process when you're trying to change a third and fourth cultural area. And a lot of times everyone's not aware of how our rural areas or our disassociated communities became like that. And they have pop answers.
You know, oh you can do this, you can do that. And this is a little bit more, I'm going to use the word complicated, but it's really a little bit more intense, because the one thing that we're so thrilled about is, we started years ago, and we've been meeting out in our rural areas for years. And the first thing we did is we had these meetings, and we'd ask them, âWhat's wrong? What do you want? If you could make two wishes, how could we fix it?â
So, that gave us a guideline to start that kind of conversation and from that, knowing our barriers. And anyone who works out in rural America, and I think I just mentioned there's this great article from University of North Carolina and University of Tennessee that says rural American health care is ground zero.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, and I want folks to know, I mean, if it wasn't obvious we're talking about rural South Carolina here. And so you, I mean, there are so many rural places across this country, and I've been to rural South Carolina and it's, you're hard pressed to say there's more rural than the rural that you're talking about.
So, the things that you're working at, so Berkeley Community Resource Hubs. It sounds, you know, kind of maybe benign. People don't understand what that means. So, explain to us what Community Resource Hubs are, where they are, what they're intended to do, how they're addressing closing gaps. Just give us a lay of the land, if you will.
Elaine Morgan: Just real quick, Berkeley County is as large as the state of Rhode Island.
Michelle Rathman: Hmm.
Elaine Morgan: And, and over half of our county is rural. Okay? So, you can already start imagining. So, what we did is we laid down the map and we located five community centers that were already open. And we went and talked to them about becoming Resource Hubs.
Michelle Rathman: Mm
Elaine Morgan: Why we did the community centers. There's a lot of background and we'll share that sometime. So, and they also had their own board and had volunteers, because this is a volunteer run Hub.
Michelle Rathman: Wow.
Elaine Morgan: So our funds that we've collected had gone for equipment, and training and then getting the community to understand the resources that's going to be out there for them.
All of these are 501(c)3 Hubs. They're all community owned. And our main goal has two factors. Health and wellbeing. Education, job placement.
Michelle Rathman: Health, wellbeing. Education, and job placement. They are all connected.
Elaine Morgan: They're all connected. cannot get a job if you're sick and you don't feel well. And apathy and trust are in the barriers.
We already got our agencies, I've got great agencies too, that are already visiting the Hubs and having appointments with the people out there. We are, we also have telehealth out there in a private room and we're working with all of our hospitals. We're working with South Carolina Department of Corrections, I mean the list goes on and on, because once you start, you start seeing the gaps.
Who needs services? And the other thing is, you know, we have some areas that got 30 percent unemployment. Even though most of Brooklyn County is less than three percent unemployed. Alright, so,
Michelle Rathman: tell, tell, tell us about that. Tell us, give us, I mean, I can intelligently make a guess, but tell us about the, the juxtaposition between the county as a whole, and then this population that is seeing the highest rates of unemployment. And what are some of the factors behind that? And how will the Hubs address that?
Elaine Morgan: Okay, so like, you know, we have Volvo, we have Nucor, we have Google, you know, international companies here, and they all pay great benefits and funds. But then you have this issue of, I have people that need to be up skilled, and they do not have any transportation, they do not have childcare, it goes on and on and on.
So how do you address that? So, what we're doing with the Hubs, is we're getting some of our industries to adopt them also. So, the Hubs are open to all of our members. So that's the other thing really good about our chamber, is I have an HR group and so they're going out there talking about what type of jobs they have.
They were trying to customize training at the Hubs for those positions. We're working with different groups for transportation also.
Michelle Rathman: Filling those gaps. So let's just talk for a moment about, I mean, I know things are very new. This is all just coming together. At the end of the day, we had a little conversation offline is that we know that, you know, philanthropy is wonderful, but many would say it's not quite sustainable and when to procure kind of those grant dollars and federal dollars, you have to be able to show that you've made measurable success.
And what does that look like? And so, I was reading something about your charity tracker, and I'm wondering if that's connected to how you're going to be able to showcase outcomes that demonstrate that the funding is being put to the exact use that it's intended.
Elaine Morgan: Correct. First off, since they're all ran by volunteers, we've had them trained to be digital navigators. So, not only so, if, if your aunt came in and she wanted to do a telehealth and wasn't comfortable, someone would go in, get her started, and then leave the room with telehealth. But in the meantime, someone is logging that in, into the Charity Tractor, that we had someone come in to use telehealth to connect to a doctor, hospital, one of my agencies.
Or we had someone come in and they wanted to get registered to do GED. Or take the GED test. We are offering GED tests at the Hubs. And that is another thing. You start talking to people. They say, well, you can come. I say, that's part of the issue. They can't come. We have to go. So, so you can do all of this at the Hubs.
And I told somebody, my overall goal is for it to feel like a Starbucks. You know, you can see mama coming in with the children and we'll have things to help the children regain some of the learning that the rural children need. And the mother can do telehealth, or she can see what type of jobs are available. Um, so it's, it has lots of facets to it.
Michelle Rathman: I love that in so many ways, it's just pliable, if you will. I mean, it's not this fixed, you come, you do this, you stand in line. It just feels like you're, you're creating the Hub to be intuitive in meeting people where they are, versus prescribing people what they need to do.
hmm.
Elaine Morgan: Not only that, you have the people from the community that are in the Hub. So, it could be your neighbor, your cousin, your aunt, anybody there. So, when you walk in, first thing you see is someone that lives in that community. So it, it's real friendly, it's takes away a lot of the angst of doing these kind of things.
Michelle Rathman: Yeah, and, and maybe some of the, you know, some of the negativity that would go along with, you know, um, it's not receiving charity, it's, it's giving, it's just such a different feeling than, you know, kind of prescribing any guilt you know, people feeling uh, safe in receiving whatever that assistance might look like for them.
Elaine Morgan: Correct, correct. There's not going to be a lot of questions. I mean, you would come in and say, Oh, I need to arrange a telehealth session, or I'm looking for a job. You know, they're not going to be drilling, I'm going to use that word, but asking a bunch of questions. They say, okay, let me help you start this.
If you need any more help, come get me. So, they'll be there for help, but they're not going to be prying. And we meet all HIPAA requirements.
Michelle Rathman: Yes, right as you would, as you would need to. Okay. I want to just mention this because, you know, it's the date that we're recording this. We are well into where I am in Illinois. It's very chilly put the heat on today. So, it's fall of 2024. I understand that you're going to begin, or you have begun to focus meetings to address specific barriers facing minority populations in your county. So, before we close out this conversation, tell us about these plans. And what you are really hoping to dive in and accomplish.
Elaine Morgan: We will never be as successful as we need to be, until we deal with the barriers facing our rural communities. We have got an MOU with our South Carolina Commission for Minority Affairs to address the known, it's just known barriers, transportation, child care, and all of those. We'll start at one. And this also is going to be kind of like a community meeting.
We're going to have people that have the issues. We're going to have Companies in there, we're going to have providers in there, and they'll all be meeting together to try to come up with solutions. And once that starts getting successful, it's like anything else. I just want two or three to start, but it will grow after that.
Michelle Rathman: Now, I always ask this question, so I'm going to, I'm going to end, and I want to ask you the same, and I'm, you know, kind of put you on the spot here. You know, we say in this podcast, every road to quality of life is paved by policy. So, whatever that quality of life is. And we know that the work that you're doing isn't happening in a bubble.
You've got great corporate partners. But policy, at the end of the day, anchors so many of the things that you're doing. So how do you share with your chamber members, with your community, with our listeners? What are the things that, I mean you've been successful, so you've been able to advocate for resources for yourself.
Tell us what's in your advocate's toolkit. What are the things that people who want to affect change in their communities, what are the things that they need to be really focused on in terms of getting corporate partners involved, philanthropy involved, policymaker involved. What, Elaine, what's in your toolkit to, to make, to shake things up and make things happen?
Elaine Morgan: Everybody has, first off, I tell you, I'm not really dealing with quality of life. I'm dealing with basic needs.
Which is a little bit different, but I am very factual with what we're looking for. I do not exaggerate. I also, you know what people want. It's just like working with Department of Corrections. We got 1,500 people coming back, returning citizens coming back.
They're being just dropped in the community. No resources. So, what we want to do, they can come to the Hub, and they can connect with all those resources that they need to begin that time to get back into the community, and we're going to try to help them get a job. Same thing with our veterans, same thing with the citizens there.
So, I guess it's being factual, you know, it's what do you need, what can we offer, what we're going to work on together. And so, everybody can, like my partners, we do not ask them for funds. The only thing I ask them for is, will they commit to provide service to each Hub?
Michelle Rathman: And the response has been a resounding, who could say no to you? Yeah.
Elaine Morgan: So, what we're doing is, I have people who need help and I have people who have services. And all I gotta do is connect that and then get out the way.
Michelle Rathman: Well, I'll tell you we're going to make sure that we put up the information about your Hubs on our website, theruralimpact.com, because I, I think it could serve. I know nothing. I know it can serve as a model for other places to take a look at and say, listen, here's a seed thought.
Let's see how we can make this expand because at the end of the day, doing the right thing and being in being good to our fellow humans. You know, how do you not go to bed at the end of the day and say, I just did the very minimum I could do. I did my duty of being you know civic minded and helping out those around me who need help.
Elaine Morgan: Michelle, to be truthful, this is the strongest community development any person can work on. Getting people to work, having resources in an area. How can we not do this? It lifts all boats.
Michelle Rathman: Lifts all boats. Oh my gosh, it's a great way to end it. But, before we close out. Thank you, Elaine, it's an honor to meet you and I celebrate your work, and we're going to keep following you and follow that progress, and we want to hear your story. So stay in touch with us.
And you know before we close out, I do want to thank Ascendium Education Group for their support of our work here on The Rural Impact because You know, more than anything, our focus is to help bring clarity and insight into conversations about rural that you're not really going to find in the front page of your paper.
If you're still fortunate to still have one or scrolling through your social media feed. There's a lot of negativity out there. And I think it's just so important for us to understand that you know, just looking at the little bit on your screen does not show you the big picture of what's really happening out in the world, and people in rural communities who are doing really outstanding work.
A quick note of thanks to Brea Corsaro our Associate Producer, to Sarah Staub for all her great creative skills and to all of you, please be sure to subscribe at theruralimpact.com because you're going to be able to get our blogs and information about upcoming events that we'll be at. And then also, I just want to make sure I say this to all of you.
Please rate us, leave us a note. It sure does help us bring out more content, and get more followers. So, until we see each other again on a new episode, please take good care of yourself and everyone else around you. We'll see you again on a new episode of The Rural Impact.