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A home with ample defensible space throughout the property.

Protecting Your Home and Landscape Against Wildfires

Wildfires pose a significant risk in western South Dakota, particularly within the Black Hills region, where periods of minimal precipitation can lead to drought conditions that elevate fire risk.

Clipboard with draft of storytelling notes.

Telling Your Organization’s Story: Building Board Competency in Fundraising and Marketing

Marketing, fundraising, and storytelling are closely linked activities. By leveraging the power of narratives and implementing strategic marketing techniques, boards can supplement their strategic goals and the tangible work of their organizations.

Mother with two young children shopping at a holiday craft fair.

Your Town Matters! Shop Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Shopping local allows you to make a difference in your hometown. Locally owned businesses reinvest a large share of their revenue back into the local economy, enriching the whole community.

Group of people gathered around a table in an office.

Creating a Virtuous Cycle of Grant Writing

Creating a virtuous cycle of grant writing can lead to a cycle of reinvestment and expansion within your community, allowing you to create new programs, reach new populations, and increase your capacity and impact, fueling your next cycle of success.

About six people sit around a table in a community room with notebooks and pens

SDSU Extension Community Vitality built on foundation of empowering people

February 09, 2024

Now a full-fledged capstone within SDSU Extension, community development – since renamed Community Vitality – has evolved and grown in the last 20 years. Program leaders agree the community work they did through Horizons laid the foundation for what would become a successfully thriving SDSU Extension Community Vitality program.

A group of people smiles underneath a huge Jackalope statue

2026 Energize conference touts benefits of youth staying in SD

June 05, 2026

South Dakota State University Extension hosted a successful 2026 Energize conference in Wall with 144 attendees.

Downtown main street with storefronts and apartment buildings.

How Livable is Your Community?

South Dakota offers great communities for people of all ages and is consistently highly ranked as a great place to age in.

Several tiles connected by line segments representing a business network.

Networks, Hierarchies, and Power in the 21st Century

In this article, we look at how hierarchies and networks have influenced modern society. Then we examine how South Dakota innovators in the community development space have utilized these concepts in their work today.