The state of Minnesota is hoping to help entrepreneurs pull up their bootstraps. In late September, Gov. Tim Pawlenty announced a new program targeting small businesses in rural Minnesota.
Dubbed SEED—Strategic Entrepreneurial Economic Development—the program hopes to boost rural economies, particularly struggling ones, by using various financial vehicles, such as loans, grants and tax credits, including a proposed 25 percent tax credit for state residents investing in regional angel funds that target growing local firms.
The effort would also create the Office of Entrepreneurship, as well as a new rural enterprise micro loan fund, and help rural businesses participate in international trade shows. Pawlenty said he would ask the 2008 Legislature for $20 million from the state's general fund, along with another $50 million in bonding that would generate an annual flow of money.
—Ronald A. Wirtz
