Lead Partner: Kentucky Entrepreuneurial Coaches Institute
Description
The Kentucky Entrepreneurial Coaches Institute is a leadership program for 60 citizen-leaders in nineteen tobacco dependent counties of Northeastern Kentucky (most of those counties are in Appalachia).
We are very much involved in assetbased approaches to community development drawing on the work of Kretzman and McKnight as well as Appreciative Inquiry.
Unfortunately, the region has been defined by its deficits (poverty, poor health, illiteracy, etc.) by external agents and these deficits have been internalized by many of the people. Our mission is to work with local people to strengthen business and social entrepreneurship and to build an entrepreneurial-friendly culture in the region. The leadership program involves nine seminars including a trip to the Highlands and Orkney islands in Scotland. They meet some of the “best and brightest” activists in youth entrepreneurship, policy leaders, and innovative entrepreneurs from their region.
We also integrate local arts (poetry, storytelling, dance, music) into our
program as a way to honor local creativity. Participants in the program are steeped in the asset-based approach. It begins with individual interviews with each other and extends to interviews in the community, internalising the asset-based approach in their community projects as they go.
For example, one group saw a waste product as an “asset” while others only saw it as a deficit. They initiated an entrepreneurial contest for creative uses of this waste. There were about 50 people who submittedsome creative responses. Eventually --- three small businesses were created out of this initiative. There are other examples.
What advice would you give to people staring out on coaching work similar to your own?
... Choose grass-roots leaders from the communities who are well-respected within their own circles. Make sure it reflects a healthy mixture of gender, educational, occupational, ethnic background and ages. This diversity allows people to help and challenge each other in healthy ways. Make sure everyone is committed to the process and has an accountability partner among their peers.
Contact Details
Ron HusteddeDirector,
Kentucky Entrepreneurial Coaches Institute
Professor of Community and Leadership Development500 Garrigus Building
Lexington,KY 40546 0215 USA
Office: 859-257-3186
Ronald.hustedde@uky.edu