Category: Blog

Our guest blogger today is Brigid Tuck, Senior Economic Impact Analyst for the University of Minnesota Extension. The U of MN Extension has been doing in-depth analysis and developing resources to help businesses, leaders, and community members get through this challenging time. The post below is an extension of a fact sheet provided by U ...

By Kelly Asche Before the COVID-19 crisis began, the Center for Rural Policy and Development was gathering information and analyzing the impacts mergers and acquisitions among health care providers have been having on access in rural areas. We were a few weeks away from releasing a report before the pandemic turned everyone’s lives upside down. ...

By Kelly Asche April, 2020 Many industries across Minnesota are being impacted by the COVID-19 epidemic. Unemployment is at historical highs. Among all the policies being passed, a top priority has been creating new programs to support the recently unemployed. Soon, however, leaders will begin pivoting their attention from emergency measures to developing policies and ...

By Julie Tesch I grew up in a small farming community that took community pride for the greater good seriously.  Like many towns, then and now, we would hold a blood drive three or four times a year at a church or the community center.  When I was a child, I would sometimes help out ...

Rural hospitals are waging war on declining revenues on two fronts: the shift in payment philosophy and the lack of patients during the pandemic. By Kelly Asche Before the COVID-19 crisis began, the Center for Rural Policy and Development was gathering information and analyzing the impacts mergers and acquisitions among health care providers have been ...

By Julie Tesch What a time to launch a podcast.  Little did we know that when we debuted our new podcast, Center of Everywhere, in March that we would be stepping into an unprecedented time with a global pandemic. The original goal of our podcast was to share our research on rural Minnesota and talk ...

By Kelly Asche Only a month ago, the primary focus for workforce development organizations in rural Minnesota was to implement strategies that recruited and retained workers in their regions. Their doors were being blown open by businesses in desperate need for employees. We conducted research on this topic and designated this as the number one ...

By Kelly Asche Last week we highlighted programs communities have developed to help their small businesses during the pandemic crisis. One of those programs, a campaign put on by the Big Stone Lake Area Chamber of Commerce, turned out to be highly successful. We thought it deserved its own post. The Big Stone Lake Area ...

By Kelly Asche A number of programs have been released over the last few weeks to support our small businesses. As can be imagined, the need has been enormous and right now the turn-around times to answering clarifying questions and processing applications can take a bit longer than some small businesses have time for. This ...