Spearheaded by the Columbia Basin Rural Development Institute (RDI), the Business Retention and Expansion (BR+E) pilot project aims to help Columbia Basin communities better understand the needs of local business and the challenges they face.

BR+E focuses on addressing the needs of businesses already in a community, encouraging them to stay (retain) or grow (expand). This, in turn, affects job creation and the economic health of the community. Several groups in the area have come forward to test the project, including the Lower Columbia Initiatives Corporation, the Kootenay Association of Science and Technology and the Kootenay-Rockies Innovation Council.

Through the three-year pilot the RDI will offer research and training support to communities interested in undertaking BR+E initiatives. The RDI will work in partnership with varying groups—from local governments and Chambers of Commerce to the BC Ministry of Jobs, Tourism and Innovation—to gather information from local businesses, enter data into the web application BC Business Counts, for which RDI holds a Basin-wide license, analyze the data and provide recommendations for follow-up actions.

"The RDI's purpose is to support informed decision-making through the provision of relevant and timely research," said Terri MacDonald, RDI Regional Innovation Chair in Rural Economic Development. "With the valuable information collected through BC Business Counts in hand, decision makers and economic development practitioners in the Basin will be well positioned to provide targeted support to our local businesses."

The project's region-wide approach will allow the Basin as a whole to identify and respond to shared challenges that are important in areas with limited resources or community capacity. It will also allow the information to feed into the State of the Basin Initiative, which monitors and reports on social, environmental, economic and cultural indicators and trends in the Basin.