Book this speaker: Becky McCray

About This Speaker: Becky McCray

Becky McCray is a lifelong rural entrepreneur, cattle rancher and co-founder of SaveYour.Town. Her own hands-on successes and failures as a retail business owner, city administrator, nonprofit executive and community volunteer—all in small towns—make her a passionate and sought-after expert on rural community and economic development subjects.

An empowering and interactive public speaker on rural and small-town development topics, she has presented at over 290 events and conferences in the US, UK, Canada and Australia. The broad variety of events and audiences range from major conferences like the International Economic Development Council and Main Street America, to local events held in rural firehouses, to an international TEDx focused on Rural Communities.

She often collaborates on rural publications, initiatives, advisory boards, listening sessions and advocacy events, including Oklahoma State University’s Rural Renewal Initiative, the American Independent Business Alliance, and the Harvard Kennedy School. She has served as a volunteer on community boards and committees, from local groups to state and national organizations, including entrepreneur events, professional associations, and regional initiatives. Known for communicating with simplicity and clarity, her expertise in rural business issues has been featured on radio and tv, in over a dozen books, and over 500 other mentions and interviews in international newspapers, magazines, reports, academic research papers, blogs, video shows and podcasts.

McCray created the influential Survey of Rural Challenges, analyzing over 1700 responses since 2015. The results are used by agencies, educators, governments and businesses, and have been presented to events and cited in academic research. Her Idea Friendly Method has been implemented internationally, and rural people credit this method for creating significant change such as new art shows, tiny business incubators, library expansions and beautification projects.

Becky has her BS in Business Administration, completed the Oklahoma Governing Officials Institute and earned certificates in Facilitating for Results and Workforce Quality Leadership. She makes her home in Hopeton, Oklahoma, a community of 30 people. Her goal is to deliver practical steps you can put into action right away to shape the future of your town.

Speaking Topics: Becky McCray

The Idea-Friendly Method: Open Up to New Ideas

You don’t have to know all the answers. You just have to be open to new ideas. Today the Idea Friendly Method helps you put your ideas into action the easy way, with less overhead, less drag and more meaningful participation by more people from all across the community. Learn three practical ways the research-backed Idea Friendly Method will help you improve the climate for new ideas and make it easier for you to build community. You’ll position your community to thrive, no matter what the future brings.

Learning objectives:
- Identify a situation where attracting people will be more effective than convincing people
- Describe a way that more people can play small but meaningful roles in your work or projects
- Identify do-able small steps to take next and take action before leaving the session

This topic gives hope to small-town audiences, generating a 16.7% increase in audience optimism at the North Dakota Small Towns, Big Ideas event.

Pull Your Town Together: Overcoming Divisiveness

Small towns naturally feel like close communities, right? Ugh, more like a hive of anger and division! Conflicting goals. Fighting factions. Political polarization. Generation gaps. Race, ethnicity and class cliques. No one tells you how to overcome divisions like these! This session will show you practical steps and simple ideas that pull people together. Tweak your projects to reach across divides. Improve group coordination beyond silos. Rally everyone around local small businesses. Learn how to apply this to your own work: Bring people together across groups, give everyone a small but meaningful role, and create experiences that change people’s thinking.

Learning objectives:
- Adapt any project or event to bring people together from across different groups
- Improve group coordination and bring organizations together across silos
- Update traditional “shop local” ideas to rally everyone around local small businesses, the most trusted American institution

Refilling the Business Pipeline: Expanding Economic Opportunity with the Innovative Rural Business Models

Rural business people are trying a variety of different business models today, including pop-ups, shared buildings, businesses inside of other businesses, and more. Entrepreneurs are using these smaller-scale experiments and tests to learn what works before making a huge investment. You’ll get idea after idea from how these smaller-scale business models are being used right now in small towns.

Learning objectives:
- Learn the reusable, Innovative Rural Business Models framework to adapt and apply ideas effectively in your own community
- Learn ways to effectively engage innovative service businesses to improve and enhance local retail
- Identify five or more new sources of potential retail sellers and specific places to engage local makers

Finding More Volunteers: Beyond The Same Ten People Who Try To Do It All Now

Small towns run on volunteer power, but finding volunteers has turned into a major challenge. How do we get more people excited about it rather than burning out the same 10 people over and over again? The secret to finding volunteers in small towns today is to let go of old ways that no longer serve us. Discover things you don’t have to do anymore, and new Idea Friendly ways that will attract more new volunteers.

Learning objectives:
- Use the volunteer participation curve to identify innovative “viral” ways to engage potential volunteers
- Identify new ways to work with long-time volunteers without letting them stand in the way of needed change
- Learn four ways to make intensive volunteering more attractive and easier to complete

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