University of Minnesota Extension Center for Community Vitality, Business Retention and Expansion Program2015-12-142015-12-142015-12-14https://hdl.handle.net/11299/175737These data were collected in individual business surveys over the past 25 years as part of the Extension's Center for Community Vitality Business Retention and Expansion (BRE) program, and have been aggregated to the community level for release. The BRE program has Extension Center Staff working closely with Minnesota communities to identify strategies to keep local (and even non-local) businesses located in Minnesota towns where they are. The data were collected by community volunteers meeting with the business respondents in hour-long meetings. Respondents were chosen by community leaders using different recruiting strategies. For example, the respondents could be from a randomly generated list, or someone who agreed to participate. The survey instrument went through a modification process in 2010. Some aggregation was used to reconcile the 1990-2010 and the 2010-present surveys. The shared survey instrument is the most recent and thematically it stays the same with the older version of the survey.This data set aggregates 25 years of Business Retention and Expansion data to the community level. The excel document allows communities to compare their business and community landscape with others in Minnesota. Community mean responses are reported, and can be filtered based off of users' interest. This data set may be of particular interest to community and economic development practitioners.Attribution 3.0 United Stateshttp://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us/business retention and expansionBREcommunity developmenteconomic developmentDatasethttp://dx.doi.org/10.13020/D6V88Z