South Dakota Rural Enterprise stimulates financial and human investment in communities that are invested in themselves.

During 2010, South Dakota Rural Enterprise had several great opportunities to achieve our organization’s purpose: to stimulate financial and human investment in communities that are invested in themselves.

"Community" can be defined several ways: a place, a region, a group, shared interests. But underneath any definition, community is really about people and relationships among people.

Every community is unique. Every community has its own “personality” or culture, just as companies and countries have their own cultures. Good companies, those that want to succeed today and stay around for the future, are deliberate about building that culture. They take the task of investing in their culture very seriously.

South Dakota Rural Enterprise, with more than 10 years of experience in working with communities and partner organizations across South Dakota, also takes its purpose very seriously. We understand that we can’t take a cookie-cutter approach to creating the future. We know that human investment is the first step of “culture-building” and that culture-building is a critical process that results in long-term prosperity. The most basic investment we can make is to talk with each other, listen to each other, tolerate diversity and share ideas as individuals. Then we can develop strategies and explore the mix of financial and organizational resources needed to execute on those strategies.

Standing ready to provide assistance and partner with us on these efforts are several organizations, including the South Dakota Community Foundation, Governor’s Office of Economic Development, Small Business Development Centers, The SD Value-Added Agricultural Development Center, USDA Rural Development and many others. Please go to our website, www.sdrei.org, for the full list.

We are especially proud of the communities that are making those human and financial investments through our newest initiative, Dakota Rising. They are making progress, building their local economies and preparing for a bright future.

We are working together to build the future of rural South Dakota.

BETH DAVIS
President

CHRISTINE HAMILTON
Chair
Board of Directors

Jon Farris
Vice-Chair
Board of Directors