A growing Sioux Falls creates customers for YOUR business!
The Development Foundation works to encourage local business expansion and new business locations in Sioux Falls. The organization brings new customers for your service or product to our community and every new company means new employees, new families, new houses built, new cars purchased and has an impact on every segment of our economy.
Q: What‘s in it for me? Why should I join the Sioux Falls Development Foundation?
A: In addition to creating customers for you, the Sioux Falls Development Foundation:
- Increases your quality of life. A growing tax base means more community improvements, better parks, schools and recreational facilities.
- Keeps your taxes in line. With new companies, new families and a wider tax base, your taxes don’t go up as the community grows.
- Helps keep our young people in South Dakota. New companies mean new opportunities for young people, including new high-tech industries.
- Increases the employee base. During the past decade, the Sioux Falls workforce grew by over 21,000 people. A growing economy attracts workers.
Q: I’m already a member of the Chamber of Commerce. Isn’t the Development Foundation included in that membership?
A: While the Sioux Falls Area Chamber of Commerce and the Development Foundation are partners in Forward Sioux Falls, they are very different organizations, with completely separate goals. The Development Foundation was created to work with city and state government for the planned, orderly economic growth of the Sioux Falls area. Charged with marketing the economy of our community, assisting companies in expansion, providing valuable information about Sioux Falls and its business community and attracting new businesses to locate here, the Development Foundation operates on a budget funded through membership and the sale of land in the Development Parks.
Q: Doesn’t my participation in Forward Sioux Falls 2011-2016 make me a member of the Development Foundation?
A: Forward Sioux Falls is a marketing-specific joint venture between the Chamber of Commerce and the Development Foundation to raise awareness in the potential of Sioux Falls to business leaders outside the community and to address specifically identified business-based challenges for Sioux Falls. Those challenges include affordable housing and workforce development. The tasks of the Development Foundation run parallel to Forward Sioux Falls, but Forward Sioux Falls does not fund the operation of the economic development organization of our community.
Q: If the job of the Development Foundation is to encourage new business, why should I support an organization that may help bring my competitors to town?
A: The Development Foundation is more likely to bring new customers, new suppliers and new employees for your company to Sioux Falls than to bring in competition. The marketplace is a dynamic force, and strong businesses in our area traditionally become well-established enough to discourage competitors, while fueling the location of firms that can use your product or service, or wish to supply you with needed materials at a more cost-competitive rate.
Q: With unemployment so low, doesn’t economic development make it more difficult for me to find and retain employees?
A: The growth of our job market is one of the reasons unemployment does traditionally stay low in Sioux Falls. However, the driving force behind the population growth in our community has been the strength and upward trend of our job market, and the growth of our business community. In other words, opportunity brings population. It could be argued that without the growth in our economy during the past decade, the workforce challenges we see today might be greater.
The Sioux Falls Development Foundation seeks to increase the number of quality workers, partly through innovative methods of recruiting new employees, but also through the encouragement of quality companies to locate here. When new families come to Sioux Falls to seek the opportunities offered by growing or relocating firms, the inflow of skilled employees is doubled. One working member of the family comes here to take a high-tech job, and brings a working spouse, who may be a health-care professional or a food service worker. Growth in business means a growth in the workforce.
Q: Doesn’t the Development Foundation get its operating funds from land sales in the Development Parks?
A: One of the purposes of the Development Foundation is to provide a supply of affordable land for expanding and relocating companies. That is the reason for the existence of the Sioux Empire Development Parks. However, the key word here is affordable. The Development Foundation is constantly buying and developing new land in order to meet the demand, while selling existing land to cover the land cost plus development expenses. The Development Foundation uses land sale funds to develop new land, not to fund the operating and marketing expenses of the organization.
Q: What are the advantages of my membership in the Development Foundation?
A: Besides the assurance of continued planned economic growth for our community, your membership in the Development Foundation gives you six yearly issues of Directions, the newsletter that lets you know what’s happening in economic development in Sioux Falls; a complimentary copy of the Sioux Falls Community Profile, an annually updated book of facts and figures on our hometown, and a complimentary copy of the Sioux Falls Business Directory, a listing of manufacturers, processors and other supply businesses in our area. As a member, you also have access to vital business information about this market, with updated research compiled by the Development Foundation staff.
You should be part of the organization that is working so hard for YOU!
Become a member today!
Just call (605) 339-0103 or e-mail Diane Andresen at dianea@siouxfalls.com
for more information or for membership materials. |
