North Carolina's Rural Entrepreneurship Development System

Background

As part of its 75th anniversary celebration, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation launched a project called Entrepreneurship Development Systems for Rural America. Through $12 million in grants, the foundation is helping regional leaders establish comprehensive community networks that support the growth and development of entrepreneurs and their job-creating ventures. The national project also is expected to promote information sharing on effective practices in entrepreneurial development and to stimulate increased state and national interest in rural entrepreneurship policies and strategies.

A request for proposals drew responses from more than 180 groups nationwide. The foundation required that applicants be collaborations of organizations capable of integrating policy, education, training, technical assistance, financing, networks, cutlure and social entrepreneurship strategies.

Six regional projects, including a collaborative led by the Rural Center, were selected to receive grants of $2 million each over three years. Other winning projects are based in Nebraska, New Mexico, Oregon, South Dakota and West Virginia. Members of all six teams will meet regularly with Kellogg Foundation representatives to share their experiences and insights.

A System for Rural North Carolina

The North Carolina project is an outgrowth of the Rural Center's long-term Homegrown Jobs Initiative. As part of that initiative, a large group of state agencies, nonprofit organizations, universities and community colleges formed the N.C. Business Resource Alliance to assess and improve services for small businesses throughout the state. A subset of these agencies, led by the center's Institute for Rural Entrepreneurship, cemented their partnership by collaborating on North Carolina's Rural Entrepreneurship Development System. (Click here to see a list of partners.)

The project seeks to improve and broaden entrepreneurial support services in the state's 85 rural counties, ensuring that they reach current and prospective entrepreneurs in their home communities. Special emphasis is directed to regions with persistently high levels of poverty and to African American, Hispanic and American Indian communities, who have often been underserved by current programs.

Plans encompass five approaches to improving the entrepreneurial development system:

Education. A directory of entrepreneurial education programs, completed earlier, will be enhanced, expanded and eventually translated into Spanish. New endeavors include a trial using distance-learning technology to deliver courses on entrepreneurship topics and two youth entrepreneurship programs. A pilot program will help recent university graduates launch technology companies in rural communities.

Technical assistance. The goal is to create a more seamless and effective system of technical assistance that reaches rural entrepreneurs in all corners of the state. This will include 1) refining the referral system to eliminate wrong turns and roadblocks when entrepreneurs seek assistance and 2) training a network of community brokers to provide problem-solving assistance. Self-assessment tools, regional outreach meetings, web-based tools and distance learning will be incorporated into the system. Project partners will dispatch rapid response teams to help rural small business owners respond to economic or natural crises, and rural entrepreneurs will be alerted to new market opportunities with government agencies and urban companies.

Financial capital. Outreach and education about existing capital programs will be strengthened with particular attention to minority communities. Bilingual guidelines will explain available programs and help entrepreneurs assess their best options. Trusted intermediaries will help reach underserved communities. Regional angel networks will be developed to create sources of equity capital.

Business networks. Project partners will draw on the state's proven experts in entrepreneurial networking to help establish business-to-business networks, local entrepreneurs' clubs, mentor/apprentice arrangements and topical forums.

Leadership and policy development. Homegrown Jobs workshops will inform local, tribal and state policymakers about the power of entrepreneurship to strengthen rural economies and strategies to speed its development. Members will develop an integrated data collection and reporting system to document the effectiveness of various entrepreneurship development strategies and will report the results at an annual entrepreneurship summit. The summit also will become a platform for discussion of state policy to support entrepreneurship.

Schedule of Activities

The project team is hosting frequent workshops and leadership training opportunities for entrepreneurs, service providers and community representatives during the two-year demonstration. Regional events are held at six-month intervals in the northeast, southeast and southwest, areas of persistently high poverty and high minority populations. Other events are open to statewide participation.

Check the Announcements and Upcoming Events section for full details on scheduled events and information on how to get involved.

Press release announcing $2 million Kellogg grant

Related fact sheet

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N.C. Rural Economic Development Center
4021 Carya Drive, Raleigh, NC 27610