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.

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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.