Southeastern Minnesota Development Corporation
About Us
SEMDC is a private nonprofit agency that has been in existence for 23 years, successfully providing a variety of services to counties and communities across Southeastern Minnesota including:
- Assisting businesses in startups, expansions and relocations;
- Guiding communities with obtaining infrastructure financing;
- Helping with Small Cities Development expansion grant program applications and administration;
- Working with entrepreneurs in business plan creation, financial packaging, marketing and cash flow analysis;
- Providing communities and developers with assisted, senior, workforce and market-rate housing throughout the area;
- Building communities with our grant writing expertise; strategic planning and other economic and community development skills
Community Support Program
SEMDC offers contracted community and economic development services to communities throughout Southeast Minnesota. Our staff facilitates business and housing development, conduct Business Retention & Expansion Surveys, offer onsite business counseling, provide project coordination, and a variety of other services
Small Business Counseling
SEMDC is a satellite office of the Rochester SBA Small Business Development Center. Our services include assisting small start-up and existing businesses with planning, marketing, industry information, and financing. These services are provided through a partnership with the Rochester Community & Technical College, the State of Minnesota and US Small Business Administration.
Microenterprise Loan Fund
SEMDC administers a microloan fund to provide financing for start-up, newly established, or growing business.
Small Cities Development Grant Program
SEMDC assists communities in Southeast Minnesota with the application process for Small Cities Development Grant funding for community development projects.
With all of this, our effort is to make Southeast Minnesota a better place to live, work, recreate and do business.
Our Mission
Mission Statement: "Southeastern Minnesota Development Corporation is a locally governed organization with diversified interest and shared goals. We are dedicated to the economic, social, and ecological well being of our communities through our grant writing and fundraising activities."
Our mission extends to serving the Southeastern Minnesota region by assisting communities with their planning and development needs as well as helping small business owners with the start-up process or development of their business.
Why We Need a New Website
Many times, our website is the initial point of contact for organizations that seek assistance from our company. Therefore, our website must clearly communicate the services that we offer, and how our services can benefit their organization.
Throughout much of the state of Minnesota, the services that we offer are attempted to be taken on by public or quasi-public organizations such as regional development commissions or planning agencies. The publc benefit nature of the services that we provide makes it somewhat difficult to quantify the benefits to clients. A well-designed website will help potential clients to understand the benefits of our work and allow us to display tangible results. Our website should also provide links to our member communities/counties.
As a satellite office for the Rochester Small Business Development Center, we work with many small businesses in the area to help them plan, market, access capital, start-up and expand. We need our professional looking and navigable website that will instill confidence in our clients; showing that we are able to assist their needs thoroughly and professionally. Furthermore, we want our small business clients to have easy access to information that will assist them with their needs. We would like our website to provide this information.
In summary, a new website will help us accomplish our mission of creating better communities and developing businesses by facilitating communication, displaying the benefits of our services, and allowing for easy access to information.
How Our New Site Will Help Make the World Greener
A primary goal in redesigning our website is to provide greater ease of communication between our clients and staff. Making important documents and information available online will reduce the amount of time that our staff will be required to visit with clients personally, thereby reducing our need to travel to remote locations.
Further, making documents and forms available to fill-out online will reduce the amount of paper documents that are needed. For instance, we utilize numerous documents intended to assist small business owners develop there business; however, we only have them available in PDF forms so business owners must print out a hard copy if they want to fill-out the documents. If we had the ability to create interactive forms on our website, we could reduce the use of paper tremendously.
Messages From Supporters
When the judges choose which non-profits will be selected to participate in this year's Challenge they will take into account testimonials from beneficiaries, donors, volunteers, board members and other
