Posted by Susan Davis
Your Economy is a free resource that enables people to take a closer look at business activity in their local communities—and across the country. Just launched by the Edward Lowe Foundation, this appears to be a work in progress, but will certainly be a beneficial for community planners.
Posted by Don Koverman
In their March 2008 electronic newsletter, the RUPRI Center for Rural Entrepreneurship highlighted the latest publication from the Aspen Institute's FIELD Funder Guide Series. This article examines how programs are partnering with corporations, financial institutions, government and a wide range of comm unity development organizations to promote matched savings accounts, financial literacy, better access to credit and tax benefits for low-income families. You can read the full article here.
North Central Indiana's regional entrepreneurship strategy includes a major effort to educate new and would-be entrepreneurs and to encourage them to develop their new ideas. The initiave, Incubicity, is using some Web 2.0 tools to do this education. Below is a YouTube Video about the initiative and the art of an "elevator pitch."
A new report came out this week from the Kauffman Foundation on the importance of entrepreneurship to urban and regional prosperity. The report urges local, regional and state officials to focus on forming and growing new companies in their cities and region.
"Policy-makers at local and state levels increasingly recognize that entrepreneurship is the key to building and sustaining their economies' growth," said Robert Litan, vice president of Research and Policy at the Kauffman Foundation. "Although this is a seemingly obvious proposition, it represents something of a departure from past thinking about how local, state or regional economies grow."
This report adds an important voice to the emerging trend across the country: Focus on urban entrepreneurship and regional innovation. You can learn more about the report here. You can download the report here.
Surefire advice to local officials: Streamline regulations. The report suggests that more aggressive interventions are more risky and need careful evaluation. The newspaper in Sacramento carries a good summary article. It is available here.
Posted by Susan Davis
The Urban Institute has just completed a comprehensive study of the US Small Business Administration's Loan Programs and found very promising results, both in customer satisfaction and support. The research reports can be found here.
How does a community become a great place for businesses to start and grow? What models are out there that work? What role can those of us in supporting organizations play? These are the types of questions discussed during this two-hour video workshop conducted on February 7, 2008 by Scott Hutcheson of PCRD and Purdue Extension Economic and Community Development and Jeff Sanson of the Indiana Council for Economic Education. The links for both the video workshop and the PowerPoint handout is available below:
Entrepreneurs are usually a very giving bunch. I was recently talking with a a young entrepreneur about a workshop she had attended. Although she could not remember the content of the workshop she enthusiastically recounted stories of the other entrepreneurs she had met and how generous they were in helping her get started in her business. One person offered some used office furniture she was getting rid of. Another referred her to a talented graphic artists. Others contacts and advice helped this women jump start her business. It was not long before she was returning the favors and becoming a mentor herself.
Those of us on the community side of entrepreneurship, need to think about how we can foster these networks of reciprocity. Using terms from the Open Source Economic Development model, how do we create Quality Connected Places where entrepreneurs can bump into one another? Not every community can build an incubator. Can Entrepreneurship Networks be effectively fostered by a third party or do they need to emerge organically? How do we do this across a wider economic region as well as the corner coffee shop?
Fortunately, there are lots of experiments going on and we're learning quickly about what can work and what doesn't.
A new report on self-employment published by the Rural Sociological Society includes some fascinating findings. For example, since 1969 the number of self-employed rural workers has expanded by 240%.....and during this same time period the number of rural wage and salary workers increased by only 61%. The full report can be found here.
An outstanding book on entreprepreneurship and economic development has just come off the press. The book is edited by Norman Walzer and includes chapters by a number of highly qualified and experienced scholars and practitioners. Topics/chapters focus on youth entrepreneurship, microenterprise, community-based entrepreneurship, the culture of entrepreneurship and rual entrepreneurship. Lexington Books is the publisher and the title is Entrepreneurship and Local Economic Development. It is available from Barnes & Noble here.
The US Small Business Administration 's Office of Advocacy has just release a report on the characteristics of the Self-Employed. One of the most influential factors is higher education, but other factors like military experience and heads of household also are good indicators. See more at:
http://www.sba.gov/advo/research/rs313tot.pdf
Posted by Susan Davis
