This awards program recognizes noteworthy projects and practices in rural and small metropolitan transportation planning, programming, and service delivery.  Click here for information about the Excellence Award program and to view past winners.

Eligibility:

• The organization applying to receive the award must be a member of NADO; if multiple organizations collaborated on a project, they may apply jointly, but the lead applicant must be a NADO member
• Up to three projects per organization may be submitted
• Projects must show substantive quantitative or qualitative results
• A competitive application should address one or more of the following issues: uniqueness/level of innovation; regional impact; ability to be replicated; long-term viability of the program and its impact; innovative partnerships and collaborations; and creative funding

Award winners will be recognized at a roundtable reception during the National Rural Transportation Peer Learning Conference (April 24 – 26, 2013 in Greenville, SC). For more information, visit www.RuralTransportation.org.  To send supporting documents or ask questions, contact NADO Associate Director Carrie Kissel, at 202.624.8829 or ckissel@nado.org.

NADO members and their local communities and board members are invited to attend a free webinar presentation by Transportation for America.  Rather than being a technical overview of MAP-21, which other sources have covered, this webinar will be an opportunity to engage stakeholders and decisionmakers on funding a variety of modes public transportation, vanpool, biking, walking, and road/bridge maintenance and repair projects that support in support of strong communities.  Please share the following announcement to invite your RDO and RTPO board members and others in your region to this presentation.

Investing in a variety of transportation options—like public transportation, vanpooling, bicycling, walking,  and safe roads and bridges—are crucial for stronger, more resilient communities in our nation’s rural areas. It’s important to know how our new federal transportation bill (MAP-21) has changed the way communities can access transportation dollars and what these funds can be used for.

Panelists for this discussion include:

• Commissioner Kathy Rinaldi, Teton County, Idaho
• Charles W. Fluharty, President and CEO, Rural Policy Research Institute (RUPRI)
• Chris Zeilinger, Director of Policy Development, Community Transportation Association of America Community Transportation Association of America (CTAA)
• Georgia Gann, Deputy Director of Government Affairs, Transportation for America
• John Robert Smith, President and CEO, Reconnecting America and Former Mayor of Meridian, MS (moderator)

Webinar logistics:

• Title: How to use the 2012 federal transportation bill to strengthen rural economies
• Date: Wednesday, February 27, 1 p.m. Eastern/10 a.m. Pacific
• Click here to register

AFI projects help participants save earned income in matched savings accounts called Individual Development Accounts (IDAs) with the goal of helping participants to purchase a first home, capitalize a small business, or obtain postsecondary education or vocational training.   More than 350 organizations across the country currently offer IDA programs, including many in rural and small metro areas. AFI projects are structured so that they are carried out by local organizations or as a regional network project and work well as a complementary program to a range of other community development activities.

IDAs have been used as a tool for economic self-sufficiency in a number of communities for several years.  The rationale for IDAs lies in the proposition that income transfers have eased the hardship of the poor but have been less effective in enabling low-income families to become economically self-sufficient.  An alternative view that emerged in the early 1990s was that to promote economic advancement and self-sufficiency—as well as to encourage socially positive behaviors—policies should focus on asset accumulation, in combination with income support.

AFI itself has supported the establishment of IDA programs since 1999, and it has made over 400 grants to local organizations for their work.  As a result, over 60,000 individual participants have opened accounts.  Those participants have saved $45-million.  About 24,000 savers have already used their accounts to purchase assets, including homes, educational offerings, or to open small businesses.  About 80 percent of the AFI-assisted savers are women.

IDAs have been found to be effective ways of helping many different types of community betterment programs.  For example, a number of community development organizations have used IDAs to help low-income residents save money to buy homes, start businesses, or fund educational programs that expand their job skills or broaden their economic outlook.   This use of IDAs has helped some families stay in the communities they have long called home.  Effective IDA sponsors have included community action agencies, local or state governments, public housing authorities, community development corporations, Urban League chapters, United Ways, community development financial institutions (CDFIs), and others.

Tacoma Housing Authority Uses IDAs to Help Tenants Buy New Homes

In 2002, when the Tacoma Housing Authority kicked off its first IDA program, one of its main motivations was to help some of its low-income tenants become homeowners.  Moreover, it had a large number of tenants who were soon to lose their apartments in the redevelopment of the Salishan public housing community in Tacoma, and all would need new homes.

Salishan was a complex of over 850 apartments originally built for World War II workers and their families in east Tacoma.  But the site had become run down and dangerous by the time the Housing Authority won a $35-million HOPE VI grant from HUD to redevelop Salishan in 2000.  To accomplish the redevelopment—which will result in over 1,200 units of mixed income housing and other amenities by 2012 or so—every tenant had to be moved, at least temporarily.

Like each of the 600 HOPE VI projects nationwide, the new Salishan will include both sales and rental housing, all to accommodate a mix of incomes.  Every tenant will be allowed back, and one-quarter of the sales units will be specifically priced at a level affordable to tenants.

Of course, though, not every tenant can become a home owner.  But to increase the odds, the Tacoma Housing Authority started its IDA program.  It won a HUD Homeownership Support Services grant in 2002 to, among other activities, begin helping tenants become owners.  “It has been a long-term process of helping tenants to overcome barriers to solve their credit problems, get better jobs and otherwise achieve their goals of homeownership in the new project,” says authority director of community services Nancy Vignec.

The authority’s program has always emphasized bundling counseling and education with the matched savings.  It helps participants learn about budgeting, improving credit, financial literacy, and using mainstream financial institutions.  Part of the difficulty on this last issue, Vignec points out, is that no banks have had branches at Salishan.  The authority wants to attract a bank to its new retail center to be built at the site.

The authority’s intensive work with tenants has worked.  Over 40 program participants have bought homes and 36 more families are currently active in building their IDAs.  Some graduates have used their savings to buy within the new Salishan, and others bought homes elsewhere.  It has helped the savers that Tacoma housing prices did not experience either severe increases or decreases over the years, and one can find a decent home for less than $200,000—far less than in nearby Seattle.

The Tacoma authority has expanded its original HUD-funded program by successfully applying for an Assets for Independence grant and receiving funds from the state of Washington’s department of Commerce, Trade and Economic Development.

The state has been an important partner for the authority and IDAs in the area.  As Vignec says, “It has a holistic approach to improving the financial situation of residents over the long run.”  The state has supported the creation of an asset building coalition in the Tacoma area, bringing together a broad set of partners for the authority.  Vignec points out that her office doesn’t have to create programs when other organizations locally have already proven their expertise.  “We can get one of our partners to provide good credit counseling,” she says, “and we can work with our partners to expand VITA sites in the community, including one on authority property for our tenants to use.”

The authority is contemplating two new directions for its IDA work.  One is an expanded effort to help youth learn about budgeting and saving.  It has used some of its state funds for a small youth IDA component, working mostly with people aging out of foster care.  Second, it is helping some IDA participants use their money to buy educational assets, recognizing that people need new skills to find jobs in the current economy.

Still wondering if AFI is a good fit for your organization?  

Applications for AFI grants of up to $1 million are currently being accepted. Eligible applicants include:

• Non-profit organizations,
• Qualified state and local governments,
• Low-income designated credit unions,
• Community development financial institutions, and
• Other community-based organizations.

Applicants must commit a non-Federal cash contribution of an amount equal to their Federal grant size at the time of application.

Check out this fact sheet to see if the AFI program is right for you.  For more information about how your organization can get involved with AFI visit our website at idaresources.org, attend one of our prospective grantees webinars, or contact the Assets for Independence Resource Center for free information and technical assistance.

Contact Information

• Assets for Independence Resource Center
• Phone: 866-778-6037
• Email: info@idaresources.org

For more details on the RPCs’ work, read the NADO Research Foundation report Lessons Learned from Irene: Vermont RPCs Address Transportation System Recovery, which was published in July 2012.  For more information, contact Kissel at 202.624.8829 or ckissel@nado.org.

View the presentation slides below:

• The inclusion of language recognizing Regional Transportation Planning Organizations in the 2012 surface transportation authorization, Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21^st Century (MAP-21), as well as ensuring local official participation in statewide planning
• A special White House forum on “Building Blocks for Economic Development and Job Growth,” as well as testimony to the House and Senate Agriculture Committees in support of Rural Development programs
• Reaching another all-time high in membership for the sixth consecutive year
• Hosting over a dozen webinars on the federal budget and policy updates, as well as the NADO Research Foundation’s whole portfolio of research and training program areas
• Timely information and training through our annual events, including the Washington Policy Conference, Annual Training Conference, and the yearly Rural Transportation and Economic Development Finance Service Conferences
• Capacity building workshops for grantees of the Housing and Urban Development Sustainable Communities Regional Planning Grants
• Many new reports and resources from the NADO Research Foundation, including on economic development planning, small business finance, transportation, post-disaster economic recovery, and sustainable development

Watch our special video annual report here to learn more about these efforts, and find publications and resources on our website.

In addition, FHWA will hold the November seminar of its regularly scheduled series on November 14, on the topic “Freight Transportation’s Role in Economic Development.”  Registration for both webinars are available at the link above.  Receive notification about this series and other opportunities on the Freight Planning LISTSERV.

View Seager’s presentation:

Projects from regional organizations across the United States demonstrate how the fields of transportation and economic development can complement each other and create an environment for increased collaboration and aligning of resources. Achieving multiple goals with a single project offers significant benefits as budget concerns continue to impact regional planning.

In particular, this report examines transportation planning through the lens of economic development and the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS), a regional economic development plan. In 2011, the NADO Board of Directors adopted Peer Standards of Excellence for Economic Development Administration (EDA)-designated Economic Development Districts (EDDs). These principles, developed by NADO members, are intended to make the CEDS a more effective tool, beyond a compliance plan needed to access EDA funds. The Standards of Excellence promote a strategic planning and implementation framework that is results-oriented; focused on aligning and leveraging resources; inclusive of public, private, and nonprofit sector leaders; and emphasizes the importance of asset-based regional economic development.

The seven principles of CEDS Standards of Excellence are:

1. Build resilient regions and capitalize on assets.
   Build more resilient economies and communities by focusing and targeting regional strategies on the existing and potential competitive advantages of each individual region.
2. Align plans and investments.
   Foster a regional collaborative framework to strategically align public sector investments from federal, state, and local sources, as well as private, nonprofit, and philanthropic partners.
3. Focus on data and analysis.
   Use modern scenario, data, and analysis tools and planning techniques that provide policy makers, stakeholders, and the public with evidence-based and factual based information.
4. Link strategies and outcomes.
   Transform the CEDS process into a more strategy-driven planning process focused on regional visioning, priorities setting, and performance outcomes, rather than a broad-based encyclopedia or narrative of the region with a laundry list of random projects and programs.
5. Increase collaboration among regions.
   Promote and support peer reviews and exchanges of Economic Development District planning professionals and policy officials with the goal of increasing collaboration across EDD boundaries, enhancing organizational resources, and positioning regional CEDS as more effective building blocks for statewide and local strategies.
6. Adopt a communications strategy.
   Communicate in a compelling and modern communication style, including use of executive summaries, high quality print and online media, and social media.
7. Collaborate on plans and implementation.
   Engage the public, private, nonprofit and educational sectors, along with the general public, in the development and implementation of the CEDS.

A previous NADO Research Foundation report from April 2009 examined another element of the interaction between transportation and the CEDS. Role of Transportation Planning
in the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy Process presented the results of a national scan of EDDs to determine the extent to which transportation is incorporated into the CEDS. This report, Aligning Strategies to Maximize Impact provides more detail on collaboration among organizations and implementation of projects that create opportunities for linking transportation investments with economic development objectives.

Although the seven core principles of the Standards of Excellence were created with regard to the development and implementation of the CEDS, they also apply to broader regional planning processes, including transportation planning. As the case studies in this report show, investments in transportation promote numerous other goals outside of mobility, notably economic development efforts. A safe, efficient, and reliable transportation network provides essential infrastructure for a robust regional economy.

The most recent reauthorization of federal surface transportation funding reflects the increasing recognition of transportation as a means to an end, rather than an end in itself. Moving Ahead for Progress in the 21st Century (MAP-21), signed into law in July 2012, emphasizes performance and outcome-based transportation planning that makes progress towards seven national goals, including freight movement and economic vitality. (1) Performance goals for improving passenger mobility are also embedded in the restructuring of several national programs with increased support for multimodal investments.

This report features 10 case studies on diverse transportation and economic development topics such as freight movement, cluster development, ridesharing, and project prioritization.  RDOs in these 11 states are implementing initiatives with regional impact. Each case also includes valuable takeaway lessons that can serve as a resource to others hoping to promote a stronger link between transportation and economic development strategies. Throughout the report, the best practice themes embodied in the CEDS Standards of Excellence are identified where they appear in these case studies as applied to transportation as well as economic development.

Read the full report at http://www.nado.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/AligningStrategies.pdf.

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Proximity to markets and supply has made central New York a key location in Greek yogurt production. With 1,400 new jobs created by two yogurt makers alone, Chobani and FAGE USA have changed the economic landscape for the region and provided a new outlet for hundreds of dairy farms in the state and nearby areas.  Chobani was founded by an entrepreneur and had only five employees in 2007, but with a quick rise to prominence now employs 1,000 in central New York and consumes 4.5 million pounds of milk per day.  FAGE’s presence in rural New York, on the other hand, is the result of foreign direct investment as the Greek company decided to establish a North American presence rather than continue to export product from Greece.

Regardless of their differing origins, both firms, and others entering the field, rely on access to transportation and logistics systems to move goods, services, and people in a timely and cost-effective manner.  As the report says, “If ‘location, location, location’ is the mantra of real estate, ‘location, transportation, and logistics’ is the driving force in economic development.”

Read the report at http://www.nado.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/yogurt.pdf.

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