Lac du Flambeau Housing Summit
Lac Du Flambeau Housing Summit will take place on October 28th at Lake of the Torches Casino Conference Center.
Downtown
Downtowns and business districts are the commercial hubs of our communities.
Articles
2025 Wisconsin Connecting Entrepreneurial Communities Conference
June 2025 – The CEC Conference was held in Wisconsin Rapids, the conference “about small towns, for small towns,” for economic developers, local government leaders, and community champions. Not your typical conference, CEC features programming about entrepreneurship in smaller communities, featuring the local leaders, local businesses, and local cultures of a Wisconsin town.
2024 Wisconsin Connecting Entrepreneurial Communities Conference
May 2024 – On May 30-31, over two hundred rural economic developers, community leaders, and entrepreneurs descended upon Platteville, WI, a small town in southwestern Wisconsin, population of 11,840, for Wisconsin’s first Connecting Entrepreneurial Communities (CEC) Conference. Known as a conference “about small towns, for small towns,” the CEC conference offers programming, discussion, and networking for stakeholders in Wisconsin’s rural business development. Other Midwestern states such as Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Nebraska hold the CEC Conference on an annual basis as part of their rural economic development strategy.
Rural Pharmacies an Overlooked Piece of the Rural Health Care System
This webinar explores the pivotal role of rural pharmacies in providing vital healthcare services, especially in areas affected by hospital closures. Learn why the decline of independently owned rural pharmacies is a pressing concern, affecting medication access and downtown vitality.
The Economics of Downtown Revitalization: Putting Some “Oomph” Behind the Numbers
This webinar answers a handful of essential questions: What is downtown revitalization, and why does it matter? Why is it important to quantitatively evaluate revitalization efforts (such as the Main Street Program)? What are some of the challenges involved with the evaluation of downtown revitalization?
2023 Wisconsin Rural Economic Summit
Using the latest research and data specific to Wisconsin’s rural communities and regions, this summit focuses on the Wisconsin rural economy. The summit includes an overview of the latest economic and demographic trends across rural communities, an examination of entrepreneurship, and a discussion of what rural communities can do to foster economic growth and development.
A Broader Vision of Quality of Life as Economic Development Policy
Over the last couple of decades, community economic development practitioners and researchers have explored the importance of quality of life on economic activity and population growth. Dr. Amanda Weinstein discusses her work on the importance of quality of life for Midwestern communities and shares what this might mean for a broader set of economic development policy recommendations.
The Hotel Industry: Recovery and Future Development in Our Communities
Hotels provide an important service to our communities and represent a significant economic engine for jobs, business income, and taxes. They often serve as a gateway to a community, influencing perceptions of the local community. During the pandemic, the hotel industry experienced significant challenges, including changes in travel behaviors, both in the US and in Wisconsin. In this webinar, we discuss the hotel industry during and after the pandemic with three industry experts, Michael Lindner, Bill Elliott, and Richard Sprecher.
Focus Group Analysis Tips
Consider the words May 2022 — Think about both the actual words used by the participants and the meanings of those words. A variety of words and phrases will be used and the analyst will need to determine the degree of similarity between these responses. Consider the context Participant responses were triggered by a stimulus […]
Developing Questions for Focus Group Interviews
May 2022 — Focus group interviews can yield powerful information. In order to get meaningful information during focus groups, you should follow several important guidelines when developing your questions. 1. Use open-ended questions Open-ended questions allow for qualitative feedback from participants and do not have fixed responses or elicit one word answers. 2. Avoid dichotomous […]
Recovery in the Hotel Business (Issue 197, May 2022)
Hotels provide an important service to our communities and represent a significant economic engine for jobs, business revenue, and taxes. Plus, they often serve as a gateway to a community, influencing perceptions of the broader community.
A Community Education Approach
May 2022 — While hiring a consultant to complete a market analysis might be appropriate for some communities, the approach of this toolbox is based on the premise that business and community leaders will benefit by being actively involved in the research process. Because there are technical components to the toolbox (obtaining data and using […]
