The Greater McCook Development Alliance is working hard to help McCook County, SD grow.

We don't have all of the answers, but we've learned a lot from communities and experts all over the country. Here's what we think is most important (this is what we're trying to do)...

1.     Combine our forces of dollars, ideas and people, so we can all grow together.

2.      Help people start new businesses, and help the ones we already have to grow.

3.      Train our future leaders and entrepreneurs.

4.      Steer residential growth into our communities, without spreading it out across
our open spaces and farmland.

5.      Let people know McCook County is a great place to raise a family or a business, and invite them to come home to McCook.

6.      Create community foundations and facilitate a way to eventually replace our dependence on government funding for economic development.

 7.     Teach people why spending money and volunteering in their local
          community is so important.

McCook Alliance Purpose & Framework

Our purpose:

The Greater McCook Development Alliance, Inc. exists to facilitate collaborative, innovative and sustainable growth in the greater McCook County, SD community.

We facilitate, not dictate. Building our future is up to the people of our community. We will facilitate that process based on the vision the people have and on what we learn from other successful communities.

We collaborate. Alone, any one of our towns has few resources, but together as one united community, greater McCook County can build its future. We must tackle growth in an all-for-one-and-one-for-all effort.

We innovate. We study and learn from other communities and organizations. We apply new theories and proven practices that work. We strive to remain on the leading edge of rural growth and development. We aren't concerned with what everybody else is doing, but we watch closely what a few star communities are doing differently.

We build sustainable growth. We think for the next generations. We seek good growth, not just any growth. We support projects that we believe will make a positive long-term impact on greater McCook County as a whole.

Growth means positive change. It's not just about more businesses, more people and more jobs. It's about better jobs, better businesses and stronger communities. The first step will require changing our mindset as a whole community. We must believe in our people and want to change.

Community-building framework
To facilitate collaborative, innovative and sustainable growth, we rely on a development framework with these six key strategies:
 

• Regional Collaboration. Alone, our small communities can do little to effectively spur positive growth, but by sharing our resources, problems and ideas, we can build a stronger McCook County. To be successful, we must consider this effort a "one for all and all for one" project. Growing our economy isn't about beating out the other guy--it's about recognizing that we should celebrate our neighbors? success as our own because it makes our community stronger too.
  
  We also must recognize we are part of a regional community that includes neighboring counties and larger cities like Sioux Falls and Mitchell. The Alliance isn't concerned with County or any political boundaries--our economy doesn't work that way. We set up periodic gatherings with area economic developers from Miner, Turner, Lake and Minnehaha Counties, Sioux Falls and Mitchell. These informal discussions help to keep up and partner with our neighbors to make the entire region stronger.
   
• Entrepreneurship and Economic Gardening. Politicians and economic developers don't create jobs, entrepreneurs do. We are taking a different path to economic growth than most development organizations. Where they focus on competing with thousands of other towns to convince businesses to relocate, usually using expensive marketing campaigns and economic incentives paid for by taxes, we have focused on nurturing and helping entrepreneurs to grow and create good jobs. "Economic hunting," or business recruiting, is very expensive and rarely successful, especially for very small communities like ours.  We are economic gardeners. We focus our resources on giving our entrepreneurs a competitive advantage and partnering with them to grow and share their ideas and expertise with others in our community.
   
• Young Family Attraction.  We have seen the effects of long-term decline in population here in McCook County. Fewer people means fewer consumers spending money, fewer business owners, fewer jobs and fewer tax payers. We recognize the basic need for more people. We will work to bring more wealth and spending power to our County, focusing on attracting educated young people to raise families and businesses here. The best way to attract people is to give them a reason to want to live here. We must work to make greater McCook County a better place to live, raise a family, own a business or find a job.
   
• Leadership Development. Building stronger communities is a process that depends a great deal on volunteer leaders. By identifying, encouraging and preparing our current and future community leaders, we can help to ensure that the vision of a better McCook County community will last for many generations.
   
• Community Investment and Philanthropy. Building a stronger community costs money. In this time of budget cuts and tax crunches, funding for economic development sometimes becomes hard to find. We will create an opportunity for individuals, families, businesses and local governments to all invest for the long term in building our future through philanthropy; so fundraising never becomes our main focus. In contributing to building our community's future, supporters will leave a legacy for future generations.
   
• Planned Growth. Our rural life and open spaces are a treasure, and help to define our culture. We work to protect those spaces and farmland from sprawl. Growth is a terrific thing for our community if well-designed. By implementing smart development and planning at the county and local government level, we can condense growth in town centers and rural pockets instead of spreading it out randomly across the whole countryside. This kind of growth builds stronger communities, businesses, farms and neighborhoods.
   
• Spending Local. Main Street is the lifeblood of our communities. but without support form our pocketbooks, it is slowly dying. Local retailers can't compete with the "big box" guys on price. When you spend locally, you get great service and you know you're making a big difference. By encouraging community members to shop local first, and spend a bigger chunk of their budget at home, we can make Main Street strong again.