HomeTown Competitiveness and Transfer of Wealth

The HomeTown Competitiveness (HTC) Program was launched in Nevada by the Nevada Commission on Economic Development in June 2007. Through a competitive Community Development Block Grant application process, the City of Fallon was selected as the pilot HTC community.

HTC is a program developed in Nebraska to provide a framework for rural communities to help them identify reachable goals and strategies to enhance community and economic development. The approach is a “come back, give back” strategy whereby individuals have the opportunity of securing a promising future in rural communities and also have the option of contributing to their hometown for its future betterment.

The HTC program is founded on Four Pillars of community activity: Energizing Entrepreneurship, Capturing Charitable Assets, Attracting Youth and Mobilizing Leadership. What makes the HTC approach a unique community development approach is the concept of using local, private charitable assets to build endowments that will invest in people and sustain the long-term development of communities. The objective of the Capturing Charitable Assets pillar is to provide local funds to sustain and enhance community development activities, especially considering the fact that outside funds are often unreliable for long-term needs. Community endowment is considered the bond that holds community planning and activities together.

To be most effective, communities need to know how to go about beginning the endowment building process. This is where the statewide Transfer of Wealth analysis proves to be invaluable in providing a roadmap for planning and implementing local community endowment building.