BUILDING AND MAINTAINING GREAT RURAL PLACES

The rural place building initiative developed by The Montgomery Institute (TMI) and partners garnered the Southern Growth Policies Board’s “2010 Innovator Award.” The role of TMI is to gather resources, guide programs, and goad partners to innovate. So, the award truly belongs to the wonderful partners who put this initiative in place – literally and figuratively – through the West Alabama-East Mississippi (WAEM) WIRED Initiative and the MyBiz Alabama-Mississippi Network.

The core elements of the rural place building initiative are:

1. Building great rural places;

2. Building economic wealth through entrepreneurship; and

3. Building a competitive region.

The highlights that led to the 2010 Innovator Award give an indication of progress in this multiyear,

capacity-building initiative: