Understanding and Supporting
Business Succession 

Welcome to the virtual workshop exploring how communities can support businesses succession.  

The workshop is designed around three modules and two case studies.  Each module has a worksheet designed to help you apply your learning directly to your community. We estimate that it will take 90-120 minutes to complete all activities in the workshop. You can do it all in one sitting or multiple. 

Activities for completing the workshop: 

1. View the video for module  one 

2. Complete the worksheet for module one (a summary will be emailed to you once you submit).

3. Repeat activities 1 and 2 for the remaining modules

4. View the case study videos (optional)

5. Complete the program evaluation

Podcasts and Webinars

Webinar: Supporting Business Succession & Transition: Lessons Learned from Minnesota (Nov. 2022)

Vital Connections, Episode 14: Understanding rural small business succession (University of Minnesota Extension) 

Vital Connections, Episode 15: Making business succession planning successful (University of Minnesota Extension) 

BRE Webinar: Silver Tsunami and Rural Business Succession (University of Minnesota Extension)

Planning for Business Succession (Lakeland Currents)

Research 

University of Minnesota study on rural business succession

This course was created by Jennifer Hawkins, John Bennett and Eric King, community economics educators with the University of Minnesota Extension with financial support from the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation and the U.S. Economic Development Administration.