The North Carolina Rural Economic Development Center has released a study of ten community-based projects that have nurtured entrepreneurship in some of the state’s smaller towns.
The National Dialogue on Entrepreneurship has a good summary of the report in its weekly e-newsletter.
In the report, the Rural Center outlined four key steps to developing an entrepreneurial community:
1) Strategy: Pursue a Realistic Economic Opportunity
2) Leadership: Build and Connect Local Capacity
3) Implementation: Create Ongoing Value for the Entrepreneurs
4) Sustainability: Leverage Resources to Maintain Momentum
In addition to this study, the Rural Center's Institute for Rural Entrepreneurship is also taking the lead on a separate two-year project funded by the Kellogg Foundation to build a Rural Entrepreneurship Development System (Rural EDS) in North Carolina.
CED is partnering with 22 other organizations on the Rural EDS project to bring high-level business development expertise to the state’s most economically distressed areas.
In particular, CED chairs a workgroup to develop a hands-on guide for building entrepreneurial networks in rural North Carolina. CED has convened several focus groups to discuss best practices for starting and growing entrepreneur-focused networks. The guide will be published and distributed to North Carolina’s rural community leaders starting in July 2006.