Earlier this month I had a chance to tell more than 200 partners about how our foundation helped create jobs and inspire community success during the past year — which we all know was a pretty tough year.

The theme of our annual luncheon — “Partnering for Success” — underscored how SMIF was able to invest more than $5.6 million into the region to improve local and regional economies. The remarkable thing about our investments (grants, loans, technical assistance) is that they were, and are, all done in partnership with others.

To illustrate, I showed this map of our 20-county region with 138 dots on it. Each dot represents some type of investment we made this past year — early childhood, new businesses, community growth initiatives, and more. Less obvious is this: Each dot represents a host of partners — community organizations, nonprofit groups, city/county governments, businesses and individuals — which helped the foundation make that investment successful.

For example, I talked about rural Minnesota’s first nanotechnology business, Rushford Hypersonic LLC, a testament to vision, passion and partnership.The company began production of its special nanotechnology coatings early in April with some of our loan money, a local EDA loan and private investment dollars. The seed for this exciting and innovative business started a few years ago when a local group began the Nanotechnology Institute in Rushford. Dozens of new jobs are projected to result from this investment.

Another community — Fairmont — developed a new way of selling local careers to high-schoolers. The resulting career fair transcended traditional boundaries by testing students and introducing them to job possibilities they may never have considered. Businesses, community leaders, educators and parents all got involved to make their inaugural Area Career Exploration event a huge success.

At our luncheon, we also celebrated two of SMIF’s key partners from the past year, one an individual — Jerry Monson — and the second a nonprofit — The BioBusiness Alliance of Minnesota. In both cases, it was their partnership with us that helped us leverage our resources and accomplish some pretty astonishing things; for example: the formation of an Owatonna SCORE chapter, dozens of new contributions to our Investors Club, and the exploration of new funding streams for southern Minnesota’s emerging bio businesses.

As we look ahead we realize our economy isn’t going to bounce back quickly — either locally or nationally. I believe it’s more important than ever that we connect and partner with organizations and leaders who are pursuing programs or projects that are achieving results. We’ve all heard the phrase, “working together we can achieve more.” “Partnering for Success” is the story of how SMIF carries out its mission to “invest in the region’s future growth.”

I challenge each of you, before this year has ended, to look at where you can partner through your time, dollars, or expertise to invest in and advance our regional success.

I’d also encourage you to read more stories of success in our new annual report available on our Web site — www.smifoundation.org (click on About Us, News & Reports). You’ll also find our 2009 Regional Report Card data that is helping us measure the regional impact of our collective efforts.

I hope that you will continue or become one of our partners in 2010. Contact me at timp@smifoundation.org to find out how.

Tim Penny is the president and CEO of the Southern Minnesota Initiative Foundation, which provides grants, loans, technical expertise and partnerships for the emerging workforce and new businesses, especially in the areas of bio-medical, bio-agriculture and alternative energy.