Leadership & Civic Engagement

• U-Connect – Local assessments and workshops help government and community members work together and strengthen social capital.
• U-Facilitate – Training and facilitation creates community meetings where everyone is heard and better decisions get made.
• U-Lead – Leadership education helps communities grow their local leadership capacity.

Community Economics

• Access E.info – Workshops, community projects and online resources help communities make technology a bigger part of how they live, work and play.
• Business Retention & Expansion Strategies – Community-based research creates a community-driven plan to support local business.
• Customer Service Education – Workshops and training for trainers help businesses and governments provide customer service to customers from many cultures.
• Economic Impact Analysis – Workshops and research reports using IMPLAN^™ data help decision-makers respond to changes in economies.
• Festival & Event Management – Training for event managers makes festivals and events successful and fun.
• Public Finance – Workshops and online resources engage community groups in conversation about public value, public finance and land economics.
• Retail Analysis and Development – Local retail sector data and community discussions help businesses know and grow their retail customer base.
• Roadside Advertising in a Digital Age – Workshops teach businesses, services and any community how to get on digital maps.

Signature Initiatives

• Horizons
• Farmer-Lender Mediation

In cohort groups that meet over time, or one-time workshops, important leadership concepts are applied to current leadership challenges, producing positive results.

Education

• Visionary Leadership workshops explore the power of a vision, and techniques that turn vision into action.
• Ethical Leadership workshops examine different worldviews that compete in communities, and the challenge they pose to leadership.
• Committees that Work workshops and guidebook examine the traps that can plague committees and the creative solutions for avoiding pitfalls. 
• Facilitation trainings help local leaders guide their meetings for increased group participation and better decision-making.
• Exceptional Personal Leadership workshops help participants identify personal leadership preferences and approaches.
• Leadership for the Common Good workshops introduce concepts of leadership in a shared power world.

Assessment and Education

• Communication and Conflict workshops help individuals examine their personal style for handling conflict, and the implications of style differences for handling teams.
• Team Building workshops help individuals understand their preferences as they work in groups, and the effect of different styles in creating effective teams.

Consultation

• Public participation strategies consultation helps local leaders think through ways to involve the public in local decisions, and designs meetings that effectively bring public input to group decisions.

Materials

• Leadership for the Common Good
• Building Leadership Programs Management Guide
• Public Participation Fieldbook

Research

• Published articles about Community Development

Education

• Committees that Work workshops and guidebook examine the traps that can plague committees and the creative solutions for avoiding those pitfalls.
• Facilitation training helps those who lead meetings use processes that result in more effective, collaborative sessions.

Assessment and Education

• Assessing Civic Leadership workshops help participants determine the strengths and weaknesses of their communities’ leadership systems, then set goals for action.
• Communication and Conflict workshops examine individual communication styles, implications for leadership and how to effectively deal with conflicts in groups.
• Team Building and Assessment workshops help individuals understand their preferences when they work in groups and the effect of different styles in creating effective teams.

Consultation

• U-Connect tools and consulting services help local leaders solve problems and make decisions with help from the community.

Materials

• Public Participation Fieldbook
• Committees that Work Guidebook
• Engaging with the Public tip sheets

Assessment and Education

• Strengthening social capital workshops help participants understand the role of social capital in communities and how it can be leveraged to solve problems.
• Social capital assessments, conducted with volunteers, help communities understand and strengthen the ties between people and organizations that hold them together.

Consultation

• U-Connect consulting help leaders build bridges between the public and communities.

Education

• At Your Service:  Working with Multicultural Customers workshops and educational offerings help local governments, businesses and other groups deliver better customer service to increasingly diverse community members.

Materials

• Social Capital and Our Community

Applied Research

• Business Retention and Expansion Programs help local leaders build economic development plans based on what they learn from local businesses.
• Retail Analysis and Development programs use research about the local economy and its customers to promote local discussion about retaining and expanding retail businesses.
• Economic Impact Analysis uses analytic software and descriptive reports to analyze real and potential events that can affect economies and inform future plans.

Education

• U-Lead programs can strengthen local leadership for economic development.
• Customer service education can help businesses up and down Main Street deliver customer service in increasingly diverse communities.

Consultation

• The University of Minnesota Tourism Center can help communities retain and expand tourism businesses and design research projects to inform local decisions. 

Research at the University of Minnesota Tourism Center helps communities examine critical questions and strengthen local tourism opportunities.

Business Retention and Expansion Programs mobilize local volunteers to talk to tourism businesses, creating an economic development plan that addresses their needs.

Trainings help tourism businesses enhance customer service, make festivals and events more successful and more.

Education and Consultation

• Public Finance workshops and consultations help local governments and other tax-funded organizations determine the best ways to invest that money for the public good.

Education

• Minnesota Land Economics Web site provides a one-stop source for information you need to build your own Minnesota land use dataset for better decision-making.

Education and Consultation

• Access E programs provide workshops, consultation and other resources to help small businesses, local governments, and other groups tap the benefits of the Internet for their communities.

Education

• Roadside Advertising in a Digital World workshops explore the power of using geographic positioning systems to guide visitors to businesses and other destinations in their community.

Materials

• Access E guides