S9. The Virtual Incubator in a
Rural Setting
Tool Summary
This tool was created by a sub-team of the VIN composed of Kathy Eneguess, president, and John Dyer, dean,
at White Mountains Community College in Berlin, N.H., and Jen Worth of AACC. This tool will be widely
shared through the Rural Community College Alliance (RCCA). It is intended for community college deans
and key staff who will be opening the virtual incubator and/or operating it on a day-to-day basis. It offers a
perspective on how rural community colleges can effectively provide virtual incubation given their particular
challenges. Although all of the tools in this toolkit should be considered by rural community colleges, this
tool addresses some of the adaptations that can support these colleges in using the tools.
Rural Creativity and Differentiation
The creative economy often flourishes in rural regions, and many rural community members enjoy a quality
of life they do not wish to leave. However, rural residents and entrepreneurs may want more economic and
workforce opportunities than their “Main Street” storefronts can provide. Rural businesses may also reflect an
agrarian or wilderness orientation, and the nature of technical assistance required can vary dramatically. To
nurture business growth in the small towns that built America, rural colleges are obliged to define incubation
more broadly to respond to the scale and scope of the local need.
Unlike their suburban and metropolitan counterparts, rural community colleges frequently face challenges
of geographic distance across service areas without the infrastructure to bridge these gaps. Communities
may be separated by many miles, with only secondary and tertiary roads connecting them. Topographical
variations may exacerbate poor or nonexistent cellphone service. Broadband Internet connectivity may also
be lacking or absent.
In these circumstances, and especially in regions where population centers may contain only a few hundred
people, rural community colleges may serve as informal community centers, serving multiple constituencies
and responding to a variety of needs and demands more traditionally served by the other community partners
in less rural settings. Based on their particular circumstances, rural community colleges considering virtual
incubation must assess whether the centralization of services, with or without a brick-and-mortar incubator,
should be augmented or replaced by the delivery of services at the business location. Fortuitously, this kind
of personalized one-to-one communication remains the norm in many of these areas.
Leveraging Relationships and Networks
In some smaller communities, particularly those served by rural community colleges, personal relationships
are a particularly effective means of outreach to entrepreneurs, community partners and other concerned
parties. Those relationships may include other entrepreneurs, opinion leaders (who may not necessarily be
political leaders or economic development professionals), farmer’s market staff, post office clerks and letter
carriers, bank tellers and anyone who may come in contact with large portions of the public on a regular basis.
Resource deficits may limit rural community colleges to single-staffed virtual incubation operations, which lend
themselves to this approach. Community bulletin boards at grocery stores, one stop centers and other hightraffic areas in small communities may also serve as effective communication and marketing vehicles.
Partnerships with a variety of community-based organizations, banks and service providers in rural areas
may rely on longstanding relationships. Rural community colleges should leverage such networks wherever
possible, not only as a practical shortcut to service delivery but also as a way to avoid friction with those
networks and entities and to reinforce the personal relationships they encompass.
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S9. The Virtual Incubator in a
Rural Setting
Such networking is not a new concept for most rural colleges, whose staff and local residents wear multiple
hats because funding typically does not support full-time staffing. For example, a paid staff member with the
U.S. Department of Agriculture Cooperative Extension System 1 may work only one day a week at a campus.
On the other workdays, the employee may be on different campuses or engaged in other work around the
community. Keeping the lines of communication open and constant will ensure that all of the incubator’s work is
crosswalked appropriately and accurately.
Meeting the Needs of Rural Clientele
Community colleges in rural areas may face pressure to serve a variety of clients, diverse in the kinds and
sizes of businesses as well as the ambitions of the business owners. Frontline staff members commonly work
with micro-entrepreneurs, the self-employed and weekend hobbyists wishing to transform a hobby into a
business. As a result, the need, type and duration of services may vary greatly, placing demands on the staff
to be competent in any number of content areas in addition to business services.
When, for a variety of reasons, community colleges find themselves unable to be selective in their program
participants, for example, screening their businesses for growth potential, graduation from services
consequently may need to be defined liberally. In some cases, clients may not wish or need to pursue
a traditional entrepreneurial path. A successful outcome may simply mean making the chosen pursuit
sustainable at the existing level.
Building an Effective Staff
In rural areas, credibility can be hard won, and personal and familial relationships can carry as much or
greater sway than topical expertise. While mistrust of outsiders can be a hackneyed stereotype, it is not
without an element of truth in isolated communities. Therefore, an important consideration in selecting staff
for virtual incubators at rural community colleges is either established credibility among the local or regional
community or the relationships needed to quickly establish it. In addition, well positioned “champions” for
not only the virtual incubator itself but also those who staff it can greatly ease the start-up process.
A further consideration for some colleges is the ability of staff members to build trust with clientele whose
level of business sophistication (not to be confused with ability, acumen or intelligence) may be less apparent
than it is among their suburban and metropolitan counterparts. This is manifested in a staff member’s ability
to communicate with clients in a fashion that recognizes and accommodates their vocabulary and comfort
with financial and mathematical information without patronizing or pandering to the individual. While a
traditional academic approach can be successful, it may also intimidate and at worst alienate the clients the
community college aims to serve.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture supports over 100 land-grant colleges and universities to address exclusively rural,
agricultural issues. To find out more about extension, visit: http://www.csrees.usda.gov/qlinks/extension.html
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