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The 2009-2010 year of Grow Minnesota! was the best yet. We completed nearly 850 visits to companies around the state. We also increased the number of partners to 55. Even more exciting, in a statewide business survey, 25 percent of respondents indicated that if they needed business assistance, they would turn to Grow Minnesota! or one of its 55 local chamber partners. This shows we have a baseline of companies that know about and would turn to Grow Minnesota!. It is our goal to increase that percentage.
Business assistance has become even more important in the day-to-day work of the program. Our BusinessConnection program has touched more than 6,000 businesses, and directly it has helped more than 100 businesses. In addition, the direct assistance that we have provided to businesses through Grow Minnesota! visits continues to be important. Grow Minnesota! was able to assist 108 businesses directly, affecting 1,293 jobs. (The number of jobs affected is since the summer of 2010.) Examples of the assistance are noted throughout this report.
Beyond local chamber partners, we have more regional economic development partners than ever. For instance, APEX, Itasca Area Economic Development, Meeker County, Redwood Area and most recently, the initiative of the Itasca Project, Regional Economic Development Entity (REDE). These relationships bring opportunities for more effective and comprehensive economic development programs statewide. They most frequently help ensure our strategic relationships with public-sector economic development programs. They also are opening new doors in regard to branding and business attraction. REDE is a good example of the partnership working. REDE can add to our success by taking on tasks like branding and business attraction. Both branding and businesses attraction are beyond the scope of any single local chamber partner, yet are none the less important to the development and growth of our economy.
Our goals for the coming year are more ambitious than ever. First, we will work to make sure each of our partners has a strong program. Our primary challenges here are increasing volunteer involvement and reporting on visits in a timely fashion. Second, we want to build awareness of our ability to help Minnesota businesses stay and grow in Minnesota. Our follow-up assistance is second to none, and we want to make sure each and every business in Minnesota is taking full advantage of it. Finally, we want to become the go-to group for the various regional organizations on business retention, assistance and expansion, allowing them to focus on our state and regional brands and business attraction. We have an unprecedented need and opportunity to build an effective business attraction program.