Greater Fargo Moorhead Economic Development Corporation

The objective of the workforce recruitment and retention program is to assist primary sector business located in cass county, nd and clay county, mn with the recruitment and retention of skilled workers. Doing so helps grow the region's population and tax base and helps attract and retain primary sector businesses. In 2024, we focused on and promoted programs that assisted companies with the recruitment and retention of workforce. Through the regional workforce attraction campaign, we redesigned liveinfargo.com incorporating virtual tours and community champions, so people interested in relocating can see the community through a 360 degree virtual tour and connect with someone, all of which can help with talent attraction and retention. We used our data tool,lightcasti, to assist employers by providing workforce data.

Entrepreneurial development - the objective of entrepreneurial development program is to simultaneously assist entrepreneurs on an individual level while also strengthening and promoting our entrepreneurial ecosystem for fargo moorhead to be regarded as a great place for entrepreneurs. We supported individual entrepreneurs and supported entrepreneurial programs like grand farm and gener8tor. Entrepreneurial development supports and feeds into business development or job and wealth creation. We work to recruit and retain primary-sector companies. Job creation - our successfully assisted projects in 2024 helped to create more than 221 direct jobs; and additional 289 indirect and induced jobs for a total of 510 jobs in the region.payroll for these on-going jobs exceeded $43 million, which equates to an average annual income of $ 84,000. In addition, a total of 597 temporary jobs were added due to construction activities with a payroll of $ 38.9 million. Total payroll for temporary positions equates to an average income per job of $65,000.annual sales - due to company and employee spending, the regional economy had an estimated $293.3 million in additional sales that took place, of which $156.9 million will be reoccurring each year with the continued operation of the new businesses. Companies assisted - in addition to the aforementioned projects, the organization completed 75 company assistance projects in 2024. Newly utilized sq./ft. - companies utilized an additional 650,000 sq./ft. To support their growth strategies.

Entrepreneurial development - the objective of entrepreneurial development program is to simultaneously assist entrepreneurs on an individual level while also strengthening and promoting our entrepreneurial ecosystem for in an effort to better financial support the programming of the edc, and to better align our work with key partners, such as the chamber of commerce, we embarked in 2024 to raise funds through a four-year initiative called innovate28. Innovate28 is focused on achieving meaningful results in workforce development, business development and public policy. The gfmedc is charged with continuing its work in business development (retention, attraction and new company creation) and workforce recruitment, and funding from the innovate28 campaign are being utilized to fund programming for this work.