Community-Based Economic Development

Programs designed to strengthen local economies through community or organizational action. Programs are focused on planning for, managing and evaluating community-level changes that support economic growth and productivity. Audiences include local elected officials, community organizations, business organizations, and nonprofits engaged in community change projects designed to strengthen local economies.

Example program topics: capacity assessment; business retention and expansion; downtown revitalization

CREATE BRIDGES – Celebrating Retail, Accommodations, Tourism, and Entertainment by Building Rural Innovations and Developing Growth Economies

Topic: Business Development, Community Planning, Resilience, and Sustainability, Community-Based Economic Development, Tourism | Phase: Initiating & Scoping, Organizing, Assessing, Visioning & Planning, Implementing | Resource Use: , | Resource Format: Presentation, Process Guide, Program

CREATE BRIDGES is a program designed for multi-county regions to raise awareness of the role retail, accommodations, tourism, and entertainment businesses play in the local economy; determine challenges and opportunities related to those businesses; and develop and implement strategies strengthening those sectors. CREATE BRIDGES was developed through a collaborative partnership…

Building Bank Relationships – A Small Business Banking Guide

Topic: Business Development, Community-Based Economic Development | Phase: Initiating & Scoping, Organizing | Resource Use: , | Resource Format: Process Guide

A Small Business Banking Guide is intended for new and established business owners and Extension Educators that work with entrepreneurs. The guide will help small business owners navigate the process of creating, maintaining, and enhancing a personal relationship with a bank representative. The guide also provides helpful information so that…

Rural Grocery Specialist Certificate

Topic: Business Development, Community Health, Community-Based Economic Development | Phase: Initiating & Scoping, Organizing, Visioning & Planning, Implementing | Resource Use: , | Resource Format: Program, Web-based Tool

The Rural Grocery Specialist Certificate Program trains and deploys resource professionals across the country to better serve rural grocers through business transitions. This course includes seven self-paced online modules covering key topics for supporting rural grocers through business transition. Each module consists of between five and 10 video lessons led…

Economic Contribution of Minnesota’s Craft Brewing Industry and the Impact of COVID-19

Topic: Community-Based Economic Development | Phase: Assessing | Resource Use: , | Resource Format: Fact Sheet

After a decade of exponential growth in Minnesota’s craft breweries, COVID-19 led to an 18 percent drop in economic activity during 2020 — a tough hit for an industry that generated more than $1 billion in economic activity only a year earlier. University of Minnesota Extension researchers documented the toll…

What is Community Development

Topic: Business Development, Community Planning, Resilience, and Sustainability, Community-Based Economic Development | Phase: Initiating & Scoping, Organizing | Resource Use: , | Resource Format: Fact Sheet, Process Guide

Community development is an essential component of county Extension education. To successfully incorporate community development into their programs, county agents and their supervisors need to recognize and define what is— and what is not—encompassed in community and economic development. This document provides a brief review.

Economic Opportunity Maps

Topic: Business Development, Community Planning, Resilience, and Sustainability, Community-Based Economic Development | Phase: Initiating & Scoping, Organizing, Assessing, Visioning & Planning | Resource Use: , | Resource Format: Presentation, Program, Tool, Web-based Tool

The Economic Opportunity Mapping (EOM) Tool provides interactive online maps that allow users to visualize potential county-level economic opportunities for businesses in different industries across the United States. In addition to county summary statistics, the EOM tool provides a visual representation of results of a model producing expected industrial predicted…

Beginner’s Guide to Grant Writing

Topic: Community Planning, Resilience, and Sustainability, Community-Based Economic Development, Human Capacity Building, Natural Resources, Organizational Development | Phase: Initiating & Scoping, Organizing, Assessing, Visioning & Planning, Implementing, Evaluating & Reflecting | Resource Use: , | Resource Format: Presentation, Process Guide, Program

The Beginner’s Guide to Grant Writing (BGGW) workshop is an award-winning two-day in-person training in which participants draft a proposal, give and receive feedback on each other’s proposal, search for funders, and learn the importance of building relationships with partners and funders. The BGGW workshop is an efficient, economical, evidence-based…

Community Survey Tool

Topic: Community Planning, Resilience, and Sustainability, Community-Based Economic Development | Phase: Organizing, Assessing | Resource Use: , | Resource Format: Web-based Tool

This online tool provide: information on how to survey a community, a repository of questionnaire templates that you can edit and modify to meet your needs, and information on where to find secondary data that could also help you think of additional questions to ask your community.