Dakota Resources

Connection, capital, and leadership capacity for rural economic development.

Hi. We're Dakota Resources. We believe rural communities can thrive.

Rural communities thrive when local economic development organizations (EDOs) are strong. The EDOs we work with tell us the same thing again and again: they need deeper connections, more flexible capital, and stronger leadership.

To accomplish our mission, we partner with mission-focused funders and community-minded for-profit businesses to help expand their reach to rural places. Our work has focused on connecting those partners with the rural places they want to see thrive.

Include
Connect
Inspire
Empower
Celebrate

Our approach

We shape a path of support for EDOs.

Rural economic development organizations are underserved and face many challenges. They often can't access flexible capital, causing the organization to struggle moving community-based projects forward, attract investment, or sustain economic growth. These organizations are often isolated from peer organizations, partners, and new ideas. Internally, rural economic development organizations can lack strong boards, skilled leaders, inclusive practices, and a broad view of rural development. Through our years of experience, Dakota Resources has seen that when rural economic development organizations thrive, rural communities thrive.

Dakota Resources is a support organization serving rural economic development organizations. What sets us apart from other nonprofits is our focus on strengthening capacity in three essential areas at the same time: connection and collaboration, financial capacity building, and leadership capacity building.

Hand-drawn diagram showing Dakota Resources empowering rural EDOs through connection and collaboration, financial capacity building, and leadership capacity building, leading to thriving rural communities.

We help rural EDOs strengthen their organizations in four main ways, shaping a path through all four that begins wherever they are most ready.

  • Hand-drawn icon for Flexible Financing

    Flexible Financing

    As a Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), we aggregate capital from mission-focused funders and lend it directly to EDOs in ways that provide liquidity without tying up collateral or restricting uses. EDOs are able to develop projects and businesses in a way that meets the community's most pressing needs.

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  • Hand-drawn icon for Leadership Coaching

    Leadership Coaching

    We work with EDOs to understand where their capacity is and help them develop a plan to grow it. Our facilitation and leadership development coaching focuses on strengthening organizational operations, empowering leaders with skills and knowledge, growing board capacity, and accessing capital and other resources.

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  • Hand-drawn icon for Collaborative Networks

    Collaborative Networks

    We connect economic development leaders and organizations in peer-to-peer networks that break down isolation, build trust, and accelerate learning. The network is designed to help build the confidence and skills of the leader, giving them access to learning opportunities and outside resources that help them solve problems together.

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  • Hand-drawn icon for Real-time Resources

    Real-time Resources

    We bring rural resource providers together so EDOs can access the right support at the right time. Rural leaders and partners collaborate to solve problems, share solutions, and respond quickly to emerging needs.

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Impact

We are storytellers.

The heart of our work are the leaders, organizations, and communities that we impact. This can look like the impact numbers behind our work, the experiences of our program participants in their own words, or a deep-dive story about the work we are involved in.

$83,000,000+
in loans committed to 58 rural organizations over 30 years
$460,000,000
in New Markets Tax Credits allocated to 39 low-income community projects
150+
rural organizations supported through our financial lending and leadership development programs
8,300+
rural leaders connecting, collaborating, and learning together through virtual events and in-person gatherings
46
investors contributing to our loan fund through equity equivalent investments, program related investments, other patient capital, and grants
146
organizations supporting our programming through sponsorships and grants

News

Partner with us

We do this work with a strong network of partners.

Rural is stronger when we act together. We partner with mission-focused funders and community-minded for-profit businesses to help expand their reach to rural places. Our work has focused on connecting those partners with the communities that they want to see succeed.

  • Invest

    Strengthening rural communities is possible by investing long-term capital in Dakota Resources' Community Investment Fund. Your investment is pooled with equity equivalent investments, program related investments, other patient capital, and grants and is then re-lent to small, rural economic development organizations, many of whom have limited access to capital.

    Learn more about investing

  • Sponsor

    Your sponsorship goes directly to support our programming that ultimately helps rural leaders, organizations, communities, and regions thrive. You can customize your partnership by choosing from several different levels of support that best meet the needs of your organization.

    Learn more about sponsoring

Leading partners

As a Leading Partner, these organizations' dollars go directly to operating all of our programming, creating impact across rural places in a variety of ways.

    Leading investors

    Our Leading Investors have provided at least $3 million in capital to our loan fund, partnering with us to build the financial capacity of rural economic development organizations.

      Let's talk

      Whether you're an EDO looking for support or a partner ready to invest, we'd love to hear from you.

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