Pathways to Rural Prosperity with Don Macke

Growing numbers of rural Americans are becoming marginalized, profoundly impacting the viability of communities. Don Macke and Frank Spillers, owner of Rural Comm unity Solutions, explore the marginalization of rural Americans and its implications for rural community economic development.  

In this episode of Pathways to Rural Prosperity,  Chris Gibbons,  founder of  Economic Gardening,  joins Don in a conversation about the role of market intelligence research as part of a robust entrepreneurial ecosystem. Chris shares the history of this historic and possibly oldest entrepreneurship movement as well as some fun stores of how Economic Gardening is making a d...

Rural entrepreneurial ecosystems come in all shapes and sizes. This episode focuses on the  Hannah Grimes Entrepreneurship Center  in Keene, New Hampshire and its founder Mary Ann Kristiansen. This episode coincides with the release of a new case study on the Center and its upcoming September 2021  Radically Rural  conference in Keene.

Rural Minnesota is blessed with very strong community economic development infrastructure and culture. This episode of our podcast features veteran economic developer, Pam Bishop, with the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation and its highly successful entrepreneurial communities’ initiative –  Rural Entrepreneurial Venture (REV).  Pam shares stories of empowering entreprene...

Every day thousands of Boomers are retiring in America, a trend that will continue for three decades. Retiring Boomers are a massive economic, social, and entrepreneurial driver in rural America today. In this episode, Don and Shelley explore retiree-led development as a nontraditional entrepreneurial development opportunity for nearly every rural community.

In this episode of Pathways to Rural Prosperity podcast, Don Macke hosts Maria Meyers and Kate Pope Hodel with SourceLink and the authors of the book  Beyond Collisions: How to Build Your Entrepreneurial Infrastructure . They share how SourceLink came to be and how it provides infrastructure for entrepreneurial ecosystems across the country.

Our guest on this episode is friend, colleague, and teacher-- Milan Wall  with the internationally recognized  Heartland Center for Leadership Development . Together we explore the keys to community capacity building, which is the ability of a community to impactfully engage in its own development. Milan is a practitioner and thought leader in this space.

In this fourth and final episode of our series on e2’s Development Framework, Shelley and Don talk about how a community can gather metrics, short stories and testimonials to create a compelling narrative for community stakeholders. Funding the metrics and story capture work at a robust level and ongoing basis is often a big challenge but demonstrating impact is key to the sustainability of entrep...

Don and Shelley talk about e2’s field-tested and comprehensive development framework for organizing communities to effectively and efficiently engage with entrepreneurs, network them to resources, and generate desired community economic development impacts. They address how communities can learn from entrepreneur interactions to inform smart entrepreneurial ecosystem building.

This episode is Part 2 of a four-part series focusing on entrepreneurial ecosystem building in rural America within e2’s Development Framework. Shelley Paasch and Don Macke discuss the role of strategic assessments in helping communities find their “starter” or “next stage” entrepreneur-led development strategy. They cover development opportunity assessments, entrepreneurial talent assessments, an...

In this edition of  Pathways to Rural Prosperity  podcast ,  Don Macke with e2 Entrepreneurial Ecosystems explores one of the most significant trends driving urban America to rural communities.   Urban America is Filling Up –  Opportunities for Rural America  provides illustrations of the motivations that are causing urban residents to relocate to more rural area...

This episode is Part 1 of a four-part series focusing on e2’s Development Framework.  In this episode Shelley and Don explore the keys to community readiness needed for engagement in entrepreneur-focused development and entrepreneurial ecosystem building. They also explore the foundations for organizing a community to undertake this work. Shelley draws from her NetWork Kansas experi...

This episode puts a spotlight on the development success of Ord, Nebraska and Valley County. Don Macke interviews his guest, David Iaquinta, sociologist and college professor at Nebraska Wesleyan University, about what he found during his extensive story capture work regarding the role of leadership in Ord’s development journey.

Shelley and Don share examples of economic crashes rooted in single industry economies. They focus on stories where rural communities that pursued entrepreneur-led development and diversification after a crash experienced quicker recovery and greater prosperity. 

Our guests, Deb Markley, LOCUS Impact Investing, and Dan Vorisek, Rural Action, describe the background, purpose, process, and outcomes of this region’s three-year entrepreneurship initiative seeded by the Appalachian Regional Commission’s POWER grant. This work is captured into a collection of impact stories, some of which Deb and Dan highlight during this episode.

Don Macke interviews Peter Creticos, President and Executive Director of the Institute for Work & the Economy, a not-for-profit policy research collaborative that recognizes emerging workforce issues and develops novel solutions for problems facing local and regional economies. In this podcast, Peter addresses some of the policy issues and themes related to work during the 2020 pandemic year a...

Don Macke and Shelley Paasch talk about some of the top trends that smart community leaders can explore as potential development opportunities.

Don Macke describes e2’s Rural Community Prosperity Development Framework and explains why entrepreneurship is so foundational within the model and for community vitality.

Steve Radley, President and CEO with NetWork Kansas describes the organization’s journey to becoming one of the most robust and longest running, statewide, rural entrepreneurial ecosystems. Steve and Don provide examples of how NetWork Kansas has been responsive during the Pandemic and plans for future support of entrepreneurs.

Our premiere episode focuses on likely development opportunities created by the Pandemic Recession. While most rural communities are focusing on just getting through the Pandemic, it is not too soon to begin to prepare for a post-Pandemic Recession world. Featuring: Hosted by Don Macke, e2 Entrepreneurial Ecosystems and Mathew Passy

The Pathways to Rural Prosperity Podcast is focused on providing strategies to empower community success and vitality. Hosted by e2 Entrepreneurial Ecosystems' Don Macke, each episode will feature interviews with cutting edge rural development thought leaders and community practitioners; remarkable entrepreneurs including business, nonprofit, and government professionals; and the learnings of...