EARNING OUR OWN ENTREPRENEURIAL STRIPES

The qualities of an entrepreneur include taking calculated risks and being willing to put skin in the game. By those measures of entrepreneurial spirit, South Dakota Rural Enterprise certainly earned its entrepreneurial stripes in 2009. In the second year of its three-year pilot, Dakota Rising was showing great promise when its external funding dried up. However, seeing the potential risk-to-return benefits, SD Rural Enterprise committed its own resources to the Dakota Rising project. In doing so we kept the momentum going to complete the Dakota Rising pilot.

Several partners stepped up to provide resources, including Home Federal Bank, Dacotah Bank, First Interstate Bank, East River Electric Power Cooperative and the REED Fund and the SD Community Foundation. Several SD Rural Enterprise board members and staff wrote personal checks to make sure that we met our obligations and continued to serve the pilot sites and entrepreneur fellows already engaged in Dakota Rising.

The risk is paying off. Our organization has secured federal dollars to complete the third year of the pilot program. We received a grant from the U.S. Department of Treasury to recapitalize the SD Rural Enterprise Capital Investment Fund, making much-needed financial resources available to South Dakota’s development organizations and shoring up SD Rural Enterprise’s Statement of Conditions. There were times during the year when we seriously questioned the wisdom of continuing to support a program as resource-intensive as Dakota Rising. The deciding factor has been the evidence of what is happening in the communities in which Dakota Rising is working. Seeing their commitment to entrepreneur development, the increased collaborations that are transforming their futures, the connection to vital resources and the support that is being provided to growing businesses, we could not abandon ship. And we’re glad we didn’t.

By the time this annual report arrives on your desk, the second group of Entrepreneur Fellows will have been announced, we’ll have embarked on the third and final year of the Dakota Rising demonstration and the Capital Investment Fund will once again be near full deployment.

We are looking forward to the challenge of raising additional capital, taking Dakota Rising statewide, and continuing to take innovative approaches that serve rural development. Dakota Rising, the Capital Investment Fund, Creating a Value Added Community and SD Rural Enterprise’s other products and services contribute to creating a culture of confidence in South Dakota’s rural communities.

BETH DAVIS
President

CHRISTINE HAMILTON
Vice Chair
Board of Directors

DR. GARY LEMME
Chair
Board of Directors