New Hampshire Hosts Radically Rural Conference

KEANE, NH (September 1, 2018) - The new Radically Rural Conference, hosted on the streets of Keane, New Hampshire, will highlight culture,  entrepreneurship and business development resources opportunities in rural New England.

“How do we have an event that emphasizes how cool it is to live in rural areas and what wonderful things are going on? That they’re great places to live, but also how do they become great places to work?” asked organizer Mary Ann Kristiansen, in her quest to establish a new approach to this subject.

Read further here.

Montana #1 in US for Entrepreneurship

Source: Montana Public Radio

HELENA, MT (August 7, 2018) - Montana leads the United States in entrepreneurship, according to a new study by the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at the University of Montana.

More than ten percent of Montanans own a business as their primary job, compared to the national average of six percent. Approximately 3,400 Montanans launch a new business every month, and more than half of all businesses opened in 2011 were still open five years later.

"Industries wax and wane. The entrepreneur's job is to kind of say, ‘Oh hey, that industry over there is on a downturn. That means there's some capacity that’s going un-utilized here. Let me see if I can figure out how use that to do something else,” said researcher Bruce Ward. "We create a lot of seeds, those seeds germinate and tend to survive."

Read the article here.

Protecting Community Banks From Consolidation

NEW YORK, NY (February 22, 2018) - Consolidation in the banking industry may reap rewards for investors, but it also restricts access to financial services for many communities throughout the United States.

Community banks support many geographic areas underserved by larger banks; more than 16 million people, or one in three counties, rely exclusively on local banks and have no physical access to large banks, according to American Banker. Local banks fund over 60% of small business loans, while holding only 20% of all banking assets.

“Community banks are not only more highly capitalized than larger institutions and therefore better equipped for economic downturns, but their local focus and accountability make them distinctly pro-consumer. These local institutions operate a relationship-based business model that incentivizes customer service and stewardship... [they] reinvest their proceeds into the communities in which they operate, promoting economic growth that begins at the local level,” American Banker reports.

Read the entire article here.

Community Banks Key for Small Business in Rural America

WACO, TX (February 1, 2018) - The higher the number of local banks in a rural area, the greater the chances that local businesses have opened or expanded with the help of small business loans, a new Baylor University study reports. The study suggests that the local bank is key to economic development in rural communities.

“It allows local business owners in nonmetropolitan America greater access to the types of capital that often prove most useful and affordable to start and maintain businesses,” writes lead author F. Carson Mencken, Ph.D.

According to Newswise, the benefit of conventional loans “is that they allow businesses to be more flexible and weather sales downturns. They also do not require that business owners invest large portions of their personal savings. That enables owners to maintain a personal reserve to weather the early years of a new business, when profits tend to be small or absent.”

This raises concern due to the sharp downturn of local banks in rural areas - from 80% in 1976 to 20% at present day, as reported by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission.

Read the entire article here.