Thrive in Five: Practical Insights for People Building Stronger Communities
Sarah and Renee recording the Thrive in Five Podcast.
We’re Launching a Podcast. Here’s Why — and What to Expect.
Something new is coming to Thrive Community Partners, and we want to tell you about it in our own words before it launches. Starting this week, we’re launching Thrive in Five — a podcast built specifically for the people doing the work we care most about: community leaders, economic developers, nonprofit directors, small business owners, and entrepreneurs who are building something real and need practical, honest support to do it. Three episodes a week · Five minutes or less · One idea, delivered straight. No long interviews. No rambling intros. No sponsor reads for products we’ve never used. Just Renee and Sarah, talking directly to you about the things we’ve learned after decades of doing this work — and the things we wish someone had told us sooner.
Why a Podcast? Why Now?
We’ve been writing this blog for a while now, and we love it. But we kept noticing something: the people we most want to reach — the economic developer in a rural county running a one-person shop, the nonprofit director who’s stretched thin and making decisions alone, the entrepreneur working nights and weekends to build something — those people don’t always have time to sit down and read.They have a commute. A dog walk. Fifteen minutes between a site visit and a board meeting. And we thought: what if we could show up in those moments? That’s Thrive in Five. Short enough to fit into the margins of a full day. Substantive enough to be useful when you get there.
What We’ll Be Talking About
Each episode focuses on one topic, one insight, one thing worth knowing. Here’s a taste of what’s coming in the first six weeks: Grant Strategy Not just how to write proposals, but how to build a funding strategy that doesn’t start from scratch every time an RFP drops. Why most grants get rejected (and it’s not the writing). What funders are looking for in your budget. Community Development The community meeting that works. Why implementation is where most plans die. The leader every community has that nobody’s thought to ask yet. Entrepreneurship The most dangerous word for a new entrepreneur (hint: it’s not “failure”). Why your cheapest competitor is not your biggest problem. The business skill nobody teaches you. Leadership — What real leadership looks like in a community context. The partnership conversation nobody has early enough. When to ask for help before it’s too late. And yes — we close out the first season with an episode where we tell you why we started Thrive. The real version.
A Note on the Format
We made some intentional choices about this podcast and its format. We’re not doing long-form interviews right now. Not because we don’t love a great conversation — we do — but because we know what it’s like to start listening to a 45-minute episode during a commute and finish it three days later in the middle. We wanted something you could finish. We’re also not doing the polished, produced podcast voice. It’ll sound like us. Because it is us. If you’ve ever been in a room with Renee or Sarah, you’ll recognize it immediately — direct, a little candid, and always trying to get to the thing that’s useful.
How to Find Us
Thrive in Five is available on all major podcast platforms — Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and wherever else you listen. New episodes drop every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.The best thing you can do right now — if this sounds like something you want in your week — is subscribe. That way each episode finds you automatically, and you don’t have to remember to look for it. And if the first few episodes are useful to you, tell someone. The people we built this for don’t always know resources like this exist. Your share might be the thing that connects someone to exactly what they need.
One More Thing
We’ve been working in community and economic development long enough to know that good ideas don’t always find the people who need them. That’s one of the things that drives us — the gap between what’s possible and what people know is available. Thrive in Five is our attempt to close a little bit of that gap, five minutes at a time. We can’t wait to show up in your week.→ Subscribe to Thrive in Five
~ Renee & Sarah
