After being in the works for many months, Midwest Partnership is about ready to release its official entrepreneurship development plan.

The economic development group met with officials from UNI over the course of the winter and early spring, and Executive Director Chad Schreck details for us what he’ll soon be laying out to business owners, development boards and county officials in the weeks, months and years ahead.

“Really it is kind of a long-term plan with the overarching goal to make us more entrepreneurship ready, more entrepreneurship friendly.  We’ll be more focused on promoting entrepreneurship and small business in our four counties; helping our communities be more conducive and welcoming to entrepreneurs.”

Schreck says the way Midwest Partnership will help create this more entrepreneurship friendly culture is through a more fluid stream of communication with all types of community people.

“So often when you’re a small business and you’re trying to get off the ground, you don’t have much time for anything else, and if (information) isn’t right in front of you or it’s not clear something is out there, then you’re not going to have the time to dig and really find it.  So, we just want to make sure that we’re putting those resources directly into our communities’ hands to where if somebody were to talk to city officials, they could say, ‘alright, here’s where you’ve got to go’.”

To further entice area residents to get involved in the entrepreneurship swing, Schreck says Midwest Partnership will be pursuing a young entrepreneurs program and they’ll also be awarding an Entrepreneur of the Year Award at their annual dinner each year.

Raccoon Valley Radio will have more about getting the youth involved in area business development in the days ahead.