Vision and Mission

Vision

Our vision for rural America is one of vibrant rural communities and regions that embrace entrepreneurship, find new sources of competitive advantage in their inherent assets, and invest in a new more sustainable future for both present and future generations. It is a vision of hope and possibility; it is a vision that values connections between rural places and bridges between the city and the countryside.

The Center’s work has informed three core beliefs that guide our vision for the future:

Entrepreneurship development is a necessary component of rural economic development – it may be the most promising strategy for rural places.
Creating an entrepreneurial environment requires culture change – instilling a “growing our own” mentality in rural regions across the country.
Entrepreneurship development requires a systems approach – a collaborative, often regional approach of “connecting the dots”.

Mission

The Center’s mission is to be the national, value-added resource for rural communities and regions, and their states, interested in building more sustainable economic development frameworks around entrepreneurship.

To achieve this mission, the Center’s work focuses on three key concepts – study, learn, and engage. The Center actively studies entrepreneurship development through practice-driven research in collaboration with a wide range of partners. Building on this knowledge base, the Center creates opportunities for community leaders and policy makers to learn about rural entrepreneurship through training, an electronic newsletter, development tools, and other mechanisms for learning in person and virtually. The Center also engages community and regional leaders by bringing new models and new tools directly to rural leaders in a more hands-on, strategic approach. By applying these three concepts, the Center is committed to connecting economic development practitioners and policy makers across rural America to the resources needed to energize entrepreneurs and to implement entrepreneurship as a core rural economic development strategy.