Last month, Go Daddy released Venture Forward, a report on the impact of local ventures on a community and impact of community on local ventures. I wrote about it earlier – and decided that it made sense to write two posts. One on the high level look at the report – and this one focusing on what we can learn about Minnesota Counties. You could slice and dice this info many useful ways and I will likely dig in when I do the County Profile reports but for now I’ve kept it pretty high level. But know that Go Daddy tracked data regulalry between May 2018 to Dece 2019. You can check out your county especially if you know there’s been a change in broadband access or other factors in your area! (Get spreadsheet of MN County data.)

A quick reminder from my earlier more on why local ventures are important:

• Each new venture per 100 people increases the predicted prosperity of a county by an average of 0.4 pts; or 1.4 pts if the venture is highly-active
• On average, counties with 2.5 or more ventures per 100 people saw a net gain in economic prosperity since the Great Recession of 2008.
• Adding one highly active venture per 100 people in a county increases median income by $331 on average or over 19%

Here some Top 10 lists based on how Minnesota Counties rank – you can get compete lists in spreadsheet form. The first two lists come from data based Go Daddy, which means they are updated  as of December 2019.

Top 10 in Venture Density (ventures per 100 people)

1. Lyon County 10.96020222
2. Hennepin County 10.1336298
3. Dakota County 9.492868423
4. Chisago County 8.988284111
5. Cook County 8.495574951
6. Carver County 8.300045013
7. Scott County 7.769239902
8. Ramsey County 7.42700386
9. Crow Wing County 7.171596527
10. Wright County 6.472303867

Top 10 in Highly Active Ventures

1. Cook County 2.411504462
2. Hennepin County 2.237640508
3. Dakota County 1.915973052
4. Carver County 1.686515287
5. Lake of the Woods County 1.68295335
6. Scott County 1.562431455
7. Ramsey County 1.556159183
8. Pope County 1.485350262
9. Douglas County 1.43686356
10. Lake County 1.331908815

The rest of the information comes from 2017 American Community Survey, 5-year estimates or 2018 Economic Innovation Group, Distressed Communities Index, which means the data is not as up to date.

Top 10 Ag (percentage employed in ag)

1. Traverse County 18
2. Kittson County 16
3. Norman County 15.30000019
4. Lincoln County 14.89999962
5. Wilkin County 13.60000038
6. Renville County 13.5
7. Lac qui Parle County 13.5
8. Marshall County 13.30000019
9. Pipestone County 12.69999981
10. Murray County 12

Top 10 Ag (percentage employed in retail)

1. Koochiching County 17.70000076
2. Pennington County 17.29999924
3. Kittson County 14.30000019
4. Douglas County 14.30000019
5. Crow Wing County 14.19999981
6. Stearns County 13.80000019
7. Sherburne County 13.69999981
8. Hubbard County 13.5
9. Freeborn County 13.39999962
10. Becker County 13.39999962

Top 10 in Prosperity (EPI)

1. Scott County 97.79957581
2. Washington County 92.739151
3. Dakota County 90.70198822
4. Carver County 89.37926483
5. Rice County 89.28246307
6. Wright County 89.06459045
7. Clay County 87.614151
8. Olmsted County 86.4201889
9. Nicollet County 85.7696991
10. Wabasha County 80.88555145

Top 10 change in Prosperity from 2016 to 2017

1. Aitkin County 14.83516312
2. Isanti County 10.38163757
3. Wadena County 8.680400848
4. Anoka County 8.203529358
5. Norman County 7.440498352
6. Meeker County 7.242202759
7. Chisago County 6.579452515
8. Douglas County 6.558887482
9. Kanabec County 6.447067261
10. Sherburne County 5.867752075

Top 10 change in Median Income from 2016 to 2017

1. Sherburne County 5814
2. Isanti County 4832
3. Carver County 4457
4. Rock County 3918
5. Chisago County 3839
6. Lake County 3758
7. Chippewa County 3560
8. Carlton County 3267
9. Anoka County 3217
10. Hubbard County 3199

Top 10 (really bottom 10 – but most positive) Unemployment rate

1. Wilkin County 1.4
2. Rock County 1.9
3. Chippewa County 2
4. Brown County 2.3
5. Carver County 2.4
6. Watonwan County 2.4
7. Stevens County 2.6
8. Roseau County 2.6
9. Kittson County 2.6
10. Cook County 2.6

In the nerdiest way, I am really looking forward to the County Profiles this year – especially with this data. I see that they had the same difficulty I had with the report I did two years ago on the Community ROI on Public Investment in broadband. Specifically, the stats that track income, unemployment and prosperity lag behind broadband deployment and adoption. But every year we get a better historical perspective and we can apply predicted improvements based on updated data related to ventures.