Through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, the NADO Research Foundation and Envision Utah are two of eight teams providing capacity building and technical assistance to HUD and EPA sustainable communities award recipients.  The capacity building teams are forming networks among the grantees to exchange ideas on successful strategies, lessons learned, and emerging tools for community and economic development.

Below are links to the workshop materials, including presentations, worksheets, and grantee background information.  If you have any questions about this workshop, these materials, or NADO’s work as a capacity building team, please contact Brett Schwartz.

Workshop Background Materials

Opening Plenary:  Regional Visioning Based on Shared Values
Robert Grow, President/Chief Executive Officer, Envision Utah 

Finding and Leveraging Competitive Advantage 
Nora Johnson, Policy Fellow, US EPA Office of Sustainable Communities
Kathy Nothstine, Associate Director, NADO 

Scenarios Planning 101 and Part 2
Christie Oostema, Planning Director, Envision Utah
Jay Baker, Countywide Planner, Cache County, Utah
Lori Haddock, Economic development professional, Bear Lake County, Idaho
Mitch Poulsen, Executive Director, Bear Lake Regional Commission

Rural Poverty and Equitable Development 
Danielle Bergstrom, Program Associate, PolicyLink
Bill Vanderwall, Capacity Building Manager, Minnesota Housing Partnership

Keynote Address:  Progress and Challenges in Place-Based Rural Policies
Chuck Fluharty, President/CEO, Rural Policy Research Institute 

Best Practices in Creating Strong Regional Economic Development Strategies
Brian Kelsey, Director of Economic Development, NADO 

Implementing a Regional Plan as an Over-arching Economic Development Strategy: Focus on Implementation Strategies and Toolkit
Christie Oostema, Planning Director, Envision Utah
Dave Conine, USDA Rural Development

Additional Materials/Links 
Sonoran Institute’s About Town research and report 
California Financial Opportunities Roundtable (CalFOR) Guidebook 

In this session, Christie Oostema (Envision Utah) explained how a rural implementation toolkit was developed based on the scenarios planning process, with a focus on economic development and innovative strategies for rural and smaller places.  The session also included a discussion led by Dave Conine (USDA Rural Development) of available USDA programs, and how rural places can access those resources to promote greater economic outcomes.

Materials:
Implementing a Regional Plan as an Over-arching Economic Development Strategy – Focus on Implementation Strategies and Toolkit Powerpoint (PDF) 

In this session, Brian Kelsey (NADO) explained how regions are developing effective economic development strategies by linking land use, transportation, and workforce development using sound data and effective communication techniques.  The session included a discussion of the Comprehensive Development Strategy (CEDS) and techniques for integrating the CEDS with other regional plans.

Materials:
Best Practices in Creating Strong Regional Economic Development Strategies Powerpoint (PDF)

In the 101 session, participants learned about gathering baseline data, developing a public involvement plan, facilitating public open houses, and creating scenarios. In Part 2, the focus was on bringing together technical teams, stakeholders, and the media to tell a compelling story that will build buy-in to implement your plan. Topics included 1) telling compelling stories through scenarios modeling and visualizations and 2) developing long-term capacity and preparing for implementation.

Presenters included:

Christie Oostema, Planning Director, Envision Utah
Jay Baker, Countywide Planner, Cache County, Utah
Lori Haddock, Economic development professional, Bear Lake County, Idaho
Mitch Poulsen, Executive Director, Bear Lake Regional Commission

Materials:
Scenarios Planning 101 Powerpoint (PDF)
Measurements that Matter:  Modeling What Relates to Community Values and Issues (PDF)
Project Data Needs Spreadsheet (Excel)
Identifying Visioning Principles from Public Input (PDF)
Identifying Data Themes and Alternative Scenarios from Public Input (PDF) 
Envision Cache Valley Final Report and Toolkit (PDF) 
Public Workshops Facilitator Guide (PDF)
Cache Valley Place Types Handout (PDF)
Bear Lake Valley Blueprint and Toolkit (PDF) 
Bear Lake Place Types Handout (PDF)

Grow discussed how visions should satisfy the values, hopes, and dreams of citizens, and how a successful visioning process includes identifying community values to find common ground, frame issues, communicate, and build consensus.  Visions that respond to core values can be implemented, because satisfying one’s values is the foundation of personal and collective decision making.  This presentation explained the importance of understanding values in visioning processes and explored options for smaller places and rural regions.

Materials:
Regional Visioning Based on Shared Values Powerpoint (PDF)  [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3]
Creating a Strategy, Framing Issues for Scenarios, Using Values in Your Communication Strategy, Inviting Stakeholders Workshop (PDF) 

1. Immediate political need and reality for EDDs to improve the appearance, marketing/presentation, accountability and metrics, and implementation of their EDA CEDS – this is essential to NADO’s ability to maintain current funding for the EDA EDD planning grant program with Congress and OMB, let alone pursue much needed funding increases in the near future.  This issue is also related to internal criticism by senior EDA policy officials and OMB budget staff.
2. Potential opportunities to gain greater recognition and value of the EDD CEDS process and document across the federal government or by other individual federal agencies beyond EDA, such as USDA Rural Development, DOT, EPA, HUD, SBA and others.  This also includes taking isolated EDD practices of integrating, coordinating and/or leveraging other federal, state and regional planning processes for transportation, workforce development, sustainability, housing and/or other economic and community development strategies with your regional EDA CEDS process and document.
3.  Pending regulatory or policy guidance changes being drafted and considered by EDA. (See NADO’s analysis of proposed rule changes at http://www.nado.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/nadosnapshot.pdf)  

As part of NADO’s preliminary efforts to promote stronger peer accountability, resource sharing, and quality controls, the association convened more than 20 EDD representatives in January 2011 to explore noteworthy practices, offer policy solutions to EDA, and discuss options for the future.  One of the event outcomes was a preliminary set of EDD Peer Standards of Excellence (PDF) that are intended to help the EDD industry take a stronger leadership role in improving the CEDS process and products. 

One idea is to use the NADO EDD Peer Standards of Excellence to help facilitate more beneficial peer exchanges as part of the EDD peer review process required by federal law every three years.  These standards could also be incorporated into NADO’s Regional Council Self-Assessment Toolkit.

In recent months, the association has partnered with EDA through the Know Your Region project (www.knowyourregion.org) to offer statewide technical assistance training and workshops, a series of webinars, and special reports.  During NADO’s annual training conference (October 13-16 in Las Vegas), we’ll be offering a special two-day workshop on the concepts of CEDS 2.0 (October 13-14). We will also be releasing a series of new reports on performance metrics, regional case studies, and lessons learned from Alabama’s statewide CEDS process.

Next Steps:

1. We invite you to share your CEDS document, products and websites with us by emailing Brian Kelsey, NADO’s Director of Economic Development, at bkelsey@nado.org.  We are looking for noteworthy practices and potential models for sharing with the full membership.
2. Review some of the current noteworthy models and examples of EDA-funded CEDS and other related regional economic development strategies as linked below.  Many of these examples are highlighted in the NADO EDA Know Your Region presentation at http://www.nado.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/edaphil2012.pdf

NADO CEDS Presentation at EDA Philadelphia regional conference

http://www.nado.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/edaphil2012.pdf

Northern Forrest Regional Strategy

http://www.nado.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/northernforest.pdf

Northland Works Partnership

http://www.nado.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/northland.pdf

Pioneer Valley Regional Council – CEDS Executive Summary

http://www.nado.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/PioneerValley.pdf

Puget Sound Regional Council’s Prosperity Partnership Executive Summary

http://www.nado.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/pugetsum.pdf

Purchase Area Development District

http://www.nado.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/purchase.pdf

Rockford EDC (IL) CEDS – Read the sections on performance metrics

http://www.nado.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/rockford.pdf

Southern Tier New York Regional CEDS – Format is modern and clean

http://www.nado.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/SoutherTier.pdf

Southern Tier Open for Business – Sample of statewide data template

http://www.nado.org/wpcontent/uploads/2012/07/SoutherTierOpenforBusiness.pdf

Share your ideas on how NADO and its membership can foster the development and implementation of more effective CEDS.  Within the next few weeks, we will be launching a new Sharepoint features on the NADO website at www.nado.org for our members to share documents, post thoughts, and connect.

Remember to mark your calendar for NADO’s annual training conference on October 13-16, 2012 at The Mirage in Las Vegas! Register today online at http://www.nado.org/events/2012-annual-training-conference/.  We also welcome ideas and suggestions for the CEDS 2.0 two-day workshop.

Get Adobe Reader to view PDF files.

Click here for a link to Presentation Slides.

At a time when trimming the federal deficit has become a primary goal of the Administration, communities and regional development organizations are identifying new approaches to accomplishing more with less.   Subjects addressed during the forum included the importance of private sector engagement, multi-regional economic development strategies and leveraging regional assets to better compete on a global stage.