Shila Bhatta and Nishchhal Kharal, Nepal natives, visited Nebraska, July 8-19, 2025.
When we arrived in Nebraska, we were initially struck by how different it is from Nepal. At the same time, we noticed how similar our experiences are. Despite vast geographical and cultural differences, we face many shared challenges. These include youth outmigration, the decline of towns and villages in search of better opportunities, and a diminishing sense of community belonging.
What stood out to us was the hope and resilience found in Nebraska’s small towns. These communities are working to reshape their futures—not just through infrastructure or financial investments, but through a shared vision and collective action that empowers local people.
Here, we were surprised to witness a true model of community philanthropy. It is slowly transforming the futures of these small towns.
In a time of growing skepticism around international aid, and as funding from global actors declines, we wonder how grassroots solutions can come from within. These efforts are driven by communities themselves, rather than external aid.
Learning from Nebraska
Our experience began in Red Cloud, where we participated in a farm tour. Here, we learned about advancements in technology-driven farming, such as precision tools and automated machinery, which have significantly increased efficiency and productivity in small-town agriculture in the US. While technology has boosted productivity and brought economic benefits, it has also weakened people’s connection to their land and communities.
Unlike traditional farming, modern methods require fewer people to work in large areas. This has led to a growing sense of detachment from the land. Similarly, the widespread use of heavy pesticides, particularly nitrates, has contaminated groundwater. It has put local aquifers at risk and raised serious concerns about the future of farming and community health.
Although there is reluctance to change due to current economic benefits, this situation has prompted reflection. We are thinking more about a balanced approach that includes technological advancements, community belonging, and environmental sustainability. This is especially relevant in Nepal, where farming remains more traditional and community-based.
To address this and similar challenges, where economic gain is prioritized over community growth and development, the Nebraska Community Foundation (NCF) is adopting the Asset-Based Community Development (ABCD) model. ABCD model emphasizes identifying and leveraging the existing strengths and resources within a community, rather than relying on external solutions. ABCD has highlighted locally rooted challenges and has encouraged, co-created, and led collective action by the community itself. One of the most important lessons we learned from the Nebraska Community Foundation, especially being an activist from developing nation is that every community possesses its own unique strengths, whether in its history, people, culture, or resilience, however, the key to success lies in identifying those strengths, investing in them, working together, and believing in their value. It is this sense of shared purpose and local empowerment that can
bring both economic and emotional benefits to a community, something we urgently need in ‘external aid-dependent’ developing countries like Nepal. And to our surprise, all four towns we visited in Nebraska demonstrated similar progress in mindset, behavior, and infrastructure, each expressed in its own distinctive form.
Local Leadership in Action
In Red Cloud, strategic investments have helped shift local mindsets from “we have nothing” to “we have something to share.” These include developing the childhood home of Willa Cather into a tourist destination and building infrastructure like hotels and museums in the town center.
Similarly, the development of Valley Child Development Center has offered high-quality early childhood education. It shows that a strong future for children can be built even in small towns like Red Cloud. These efforts have fostered a greater sense of belonging. They have inspired people to return to their hometown by investing in local possibilities.
In Leigh, community development efforts have ranged from investing in infrastructure like lakeside recreation areas to long-term commitments to youth. These efforts have strengthened community-led discussions and decision-making.
The Youth Advisory Committee (YAC), a group of local youth who meet regularly, has fostered greater inclusion in civic decisions. This has enhanced overall community wellbeing. Their efforts have also influenced local schools by promoting STEM education and encouraging educated individuals to return and teach.
An exceptional example of youth leadership is their investment in local real estate. It provides affordable housing and attracts families back to their town.
Similarly, in Diller, we witnessed NCF’s effort to shape young minds through programs like Serviceship Camps. These camps engage children and adolescents in real-world problem-solving and entrepreneurship. Through them, the community is nurturing leadership, responsibility, and a deep connection to the community.
In Hastings, the community has taken this approach a step further. They have created and emphasized experiential and place-based learning methods for young people. These methods prioritize real-world engagement and reflection.
While the world moves toward tech-based learning, the Prairie Loft Center for Outdoor and Agricultural Learning offers a different path. This community is ahead in understanding the effects of technology overuse. As a result, they are already working to balance real-life and digital elements in education.
This unique learning approach has helped young people build stronger social connections. It has also improved critical thinking skills and fostered a healthier relationship with technology.
The Spirit of Power Sharing
All this community work shows NCF’s genuine commitment to power-sharing. This is a core value that sets it apart from traditional CSOs. Instead of holding authority, NCF shares it with communities. It empowers them to make decisions that address their unique needs.
This bold approach has fostered trust, accountability, and collaboration. It has paved the way not just for infrastructure, but also for emotional and mindset development.
One striking example is the Hometown Internship program. Here, young people are not sidelined into administrative tasks. They are entrusted with real responsibility.
In most development organizations, young people are given routine administrative tasks. They miss out on real opportunities to lead and learn. In contrast, NCF’s Hometown Internship model gives youth the chance to collaborate, contribute, and take ownership of their community’s future.
Through NCF’s power-sharing approach, we saw how investing in young people and trusting them with real responsibility creates confident leaders and resilient communities.
At its core, this reflects the essence of community philanthropy. It shifts power to local people, values local knowledge, and fosters collective action.
Reimagining Development
In today’s context, where international aid is shrinking and trust in global institutions like the UN and development agencies are declining, the need to reimagine development has become more important than ever. Although it has several impacts of its own, it has somehow urged us to challenge top-down, donor-driven models and has forced us to rethink a new vision, one that is locally led, culturally rooted, and powered by the people themselves.
When we visited Nebraska, we didn’t expect to find lessons that would resonate so deeply with the challenges faced by communities back home in Nepal. Yet, in these small American towns, we saw the future of development, not paved by big aid, but built through trust, shared purpose, and community-driven action. This experience compelled us to look inward rather than outward. Nepal, too, has a rich tradition of giving, everyday, people donate to temples, monasteries, and religious causes with unwavering faith. Yet, this powerful culture of giving has rarely been directed toward long-term community investment, in education, local leadership, or infrastructure.
Inspired by NCF, developing countries like Nepal could begin experimenting with community endowment funds, seeded by cultural giving, tourism earnings, or remittances. Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) should develop the capacity to manage such funds in most transparent way, which could become powerful tools for self-sustaining development. Religious institutions, diaspora communities, and local tourism businesses could become foundational partners, transforming giving into investing, because it will create reinvestment opportunities in such areas like what we witnessed in Nebraska. But, it is not as simple as it is said to be done. Cultural issues, hierarchical traditions, short-term mindsets, and resistance to change still hold back transformative thinking in Nepal. But framing community philanthropy within our own cultural narratives, like dana (charity), guthi (social institution) can become a starting point to bridge the gap between tradition and innovation in giving. If we can redefine faith in terms of sustainability and future generations rather than just devotion, then we can surely see some progress in community development.
Local Ownership, Global Learning
What we saw in Nebraska wasn’t complex, there were no massive budgets or global experts and consultants, but was simple trust within local people, in youth, and continuous work towards the local vision. This has given us the understanding that shifting mindsets, whether in Nebraska or Nepal, doesn’t begin with money. It begins with belief. Belief in people’s potential, in their ability to lead. Countries like Nepal are surely different in many ways from states like Nebraska; however, one strong lesson that can be universal is the concept of development rooted in local power, not external approval. Therefore, now we need to start identifying local assets and stop viewing community members as passive beneficiaries.
The future of development, whether in the Global South or rural America, depends on how boldly we are willing to share power, build trust, and invest in community leadership. Because when people are given the space to lead, they rise, and communities grow. When power is shifted to those closest to the challenges, real lasting change becomes inevitable.
In 2020 Nish and Shila co-founded Freedom Studio in Kathmandu. Nish serves as Executive Director; Shila serves as Creative Director. Freedom Studio is a creative space that works to expand freedom and justice by integrating arts, analysis, and actions in Nepal. FS researches, advocates, and campaigns to protect and diversify art, community activism, and expand creativity in freedom and justice movements around the world. By doing so, FS seeks to help civic spaces flourish, increase civic engagement, enhance social cohesion, protect vulnerable communities, and improve democratic governance.
Nish is a graduate student at Duke University and Shila is a graduate student at University of North Carolina.
