Articles
via IASourceLink Blog
Governor Terry Branstad met with faculty and staff members from the University of Northern Iowa’s Business and Community Services division on April 4. During his brief visit, the governor kindly set aside time to meet with UNI students interested in pursuing entrepreneurial opportunities upon graduation. The group met in the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center where students shared their endeavors with the Iowa governor. Branstad later toured the Innovation Incubator (a business incubation suite part of the Regional Business Center) and completed his visit discussing the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Small Business Development Center region and Advance Iowa.
... Read MoreAdvance Iowa Update
On Friday, April 4, Governor Branstad met with faculty and staff from the University of Northern Iowa’s Business and Community Services division. Governor Branstad talked with students in the John Pappajohn Entrepreneurial Center and visited with them about their entrepreneurial endeavors. He then toured the Innovation Incubator, a business incubation suite that is part of the Center for Business Growth and Innovation and finished his visit discussing the Waterloo/Cedar Falls Small Business Development Center region and Advance Iowa.
Advance Iowa is in its second year after receiving funding from the Governor. The program targets Iowa-based, mid-sized c... Read More
via WHO-HD
We’ve heard about gardening in our yard, but what about gardening for your business. Economic Gardening started in the late eighties. But, an organization is hoping to grow the practice in Iowa.
Computers and technology are the focus at EmbarkIT. Anita Messerschmidt says, “We’re an IT company. We started in 2005 and we do everything from training to recycling, testing.”
Messerschmidt started the company in her home nine years ago. Twelve people now work in the West Des Moines office full-time, along with two part time employees. And, she’s looking to grow her business even more. She says, “I wanted to know if we needed to be doing more with social media,... Read More
via Business Record
The Greater Des Moines Partnership and the University of Northern Iowa's Advance Iowa team are bringing a certified "economic gardening" program to the region.Economic gardening is designed to develop partnerships among economic development organizations, researchers and businesses to help businesses get to the next stage in their development. It is designed for second-stage companies, which typically employ between 10 and 100 people and generate between $750,000 and $50 million in receipts.
Second-stage businesses represent more than 10 percent of the marketplace nationally, but generate more than a third of the jobs, said Partnership CEO Jay Byers... Read More
via Greater Des Moines Partnership
The Greater Des Moines Partnership is collaborating with the University of Northern Iowa's Advance Iowa team to bring the state's only certified Economic Gardening program to Central Iowa. Economic Gardening is a proven economic growth strategy that focuses on providing information and tools to help existing businesses get to the next stage. Often referred to as a "grow your own" strategy, the program partners economic development organizations, skilled researchers, and regional businesses prime for growth.
The Greater Des Moines Partnership is collaborating with the University of Northern Iowa's Advance Iowa team to bring the state's onl... Read More
via The Gazette
The University of Northern Iowa's Advance Iowa is looking for businesses to participate in its program designed to help small to medium-sized businesses.
Through Advance Iowa's so-called economic gardening center, team members identify companies that are looking for growth opportunities or have new products to bring to market, said Dan Beenken, director of Advance Iowa.
Advance Iowa is now recruiting 30 to 40 clients to be a part of the program for the rest of the fiscal year, Beenken said.
"We have a team of specialists in a variety of areas, including market research, social media and new media marketing and geographic information systems... Read More
Press Release
The University of Northern Iowa's Advance Iowa program, the state's only certified Economic Gardening center, has officially started. Advance Iowa is an economic development program that focuses on the expansion of small and medium-sized businesses using the Economic Gardening approach.
Economic Gardening is often referred to as a "grow your own" strategy for economic development and is a proven economic growth strategy that focuses on providing information and tools to grow existing businesses. To use this approach to meet the unique needs of Iowa, the Advance Iowa team consists of skilled researchers who mine sophisticated databases and use high-end tools r... Read More
via Professional Developers of Iowa
The Advance Iowa program, a new initiative from the University of Northern Iowa was highlighted and showcased at the 2013 National Economic Gardening Conference on June 6, in Kansas City.
Advance Iowa is an innovative economic development program focusing on helping small/medium sized businesses grow and expand using custom tailored solutions that have been proven successful nationally. The program follows the Economic Gardening approach created by the Edward Lowe Foundation, who also puts on this annual event.
Dan Beenken, Program Manager of Advance Iowa says, “It really was a great opportunity to be a part of a national even... Read More
via Economix Blog, New York Times
As a growing number of small business organizations pursue a policy agenda distinct from that of corporate America, they may be able to nudge state and local government toward new economic development strategies.
Currently, the businesses best able to garner generous grants and tax incentives by promising to create jobs within specific political boundaries are large, mobile corporations that can pit communities against one another, demanding ever-higher subsidies.
Greg LeRoy wrote about the problem at length in “The Great American Jobs Scam.” In his 2010 book, “In... Read More
via Professional Developers of Iowa
UNI is leading a new initiative beginning in the fall of 2012 to serve existing mid-sized Iowa businesses with customized technical assistance through an approach called Economic Gardening. The new program will be called Advance Iowa.
Economic Gardening Economic Gardening (EG) is a highly customized set of technical assistance services delivered in part, by a specialty research team, offering in-depth secondary market research, business intelligence, social media marketing assistance and growth strategy options to employer firms with 9-99 employees. First developed in Littleton, Colorado, Economic Gardening was adopted and scaled by the... Read More