I recently submitted an article about wealth creation to the Vermont League of Cities and Towns. It features the work of Letchworth Gateway Villages and the work happening in the Genesee Valley in New York, as an example. You can find it at this link:
https://www.vlct.org/article/using-wealth-creation-approach-support-rural-economic-development
For most of 2021, I had the pleasure of working with a wonderful team of colleagues on a rural downtown revitalization investment playbook, focused on Appalachian communities. It has now been released. It has wonderful case studies of Appalachian communities and their experiences with downtown revitalization investment. It also has a readiness assessment section, focused on helping communities understand what kinds of assets they already have and what kinds they might want to develop to be ready for investment.
The link is here:
https://locusimpactinvesting.org/file_download/inline/b085fa59-b22e-4df0-8cd8-1624222379d9
It is part of the Appalachian Investment Ecosystem Initiative. https://locusimpactinvesting.org/what-we-do/consulting-services/appalachian-investment-ecosystem-initiative.html
This year, I had the pleasure of working with colleagues at Rural Development Initiatives (RDI) in Oregon on a project in Washington’s North Olympic Peninsula. The idea was to help develop a new comprehensive economic development strategy (CEDS) using a wealth creation approach. The Economic Development Administration (EDA) has recognized the wealth creation approach as a valuable one for planning and measurement around CEDS. There are several regional development organizations using the wealth creation approach in their own CEDS documents, especially in measuring impacts of economic development strategies. The community capitals can be useful in undertaking the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis.
This work involved surveys, interviews, virtual workshops, and even some onsite workshops. Yes, the North Olympic Peninsula is beautiful and, other than flying out there, I truly enjoyed getting to explore a bit.
And our CEDS was just approved by the Economic Development Administration. You can find it here.
I’m excited to be working with the Vermont Arts Council again on a statewide creative economy action plan, along with some new partners.
“Acting Assistant to the Secretary for Rural Development Joel Baxley today announced the names of 47 rural communities and regions that will receive technical assistance (PDF, 141 KB) to help create and implement long-term economic development plans.”
Community Roots is excited to be providing technical assistance to six northeastern recipients, as a parter with the Rural Community Assistance Partnership (RCAP) team. The six recipients in the Northeast are:
Rural Outreach Center, New York
Letchworth Gateway Villages, New York
Tioga County Rural Economic Area Partnership, New York
Town of Fair Haven Economic Development Committee, Vermont
Town of Bristol, New Hampshire
The Conservation Fund, New Hampshire
For more information, see the USDA press release at https://www.usda.gov/media/press-releases/2019/06/06/usda-announces-47-rural-communities-and-regions-will-receive
I just completed my spring newsletter campaign. You can find it here:
I’ve had the pleasure of managing a number of learning journeys to interesting places, through my work with WealthWorks. The latest learning journey I’ve had the pleasure of being a part of was to the Millersburg, Kentucky area April 14-16. This was part of my work coordinating a rural learning community for NeighborWorks America focused on Building Assets: Strengthening Community in Low-Wealth Rural Areas. With members in Kentucky, Oklahoma, New Hampshire and Montana, this is a diverse group interested in having more successful outcomes in low-wealth rural areas. One member of the learning community was our host: Community Ventures Corporation (CVC), based in Lexington.
Much of our journey focused on the small community of Millersburg and the former Millersburg Military Institute (MMI), now Mustard Seed Hill, a beautiful event venue. CVC has been working on the redevelopment of MMI and has even more plans to come. Currently, a Christian day school is located in one of the buildings, with plans for a commercial kitchen/restaurant and some offices in another building, and a boarding school in another of the buildings. This was an incredible example of using an underutilized asset in rural economic development.
We also had the opportunity to visit Claiborne Farm, in Paris, which has been in operation for over 100 years. It is the birthplace of more than 75 Champions and 22 members of National Racing Museum’s Hall of Fame were foaled and/or raised at Claiborne. And we visited Hartfield & Co., also in Paris, the first bourbon distillery in Bourbon County since 1919. These visits showed the amazing assets nearby, and market demand, that development at Mustard Seed Hill can build upon.
Not all of our time was spent touring. We also spend time together discussing individual roadmaps for success in rural development, as well as a combined rural roadmap, which we’re in the process of collaboratively developing. We’ll be presenting our roadmap at a conference in September in Knoxville… more to come!
Mustard Seed Hill
Millersburg, KY
Hartfield & Co.
1st bourbon distillery in Bourbon County since 1919
Warfront
at Claiborne Farm
I’m excited to share the final report and executive summary from my work studying the creative economy last year in the Northeast Kingdom.
Building on a Legacy of Creativity: Understanding and Expanding the Creative Economy of the Northeast Kingdom has just been released by the Vermont Arts Council and the Vermont Creative Network.
The full report can be found here: http://vermontcreativenetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/NEK_C.E.REPORT.pdf
The executive summary can be found here: http://vermontcreativenetwork.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/NEK_Executive_Summary.pdf
And here is the article releasing them.
https://vermontbiz.com/news/2019/february/06/nek-creative-economy-study-provides-insights-and-actions
RCAP ANNOUNCES PARTNERSHIP WITH USDA’S REDI INITIATIVE
Washington, DC (October 16, 2018)- The Rural Community Assistance Partnership, Inc. (RCAP) and the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a new partnership through the Rural Development Innovation Center’s Rural Economic Development Innovation (REDI) initiative. The program will bring the National WealthWorks Technical Assistance Program to rural communities across the United States through a partnership with RCAP, the National Center for Development Organizations (NADO), the Aspen Institute, and the six regional WealthWorks hubs.
Assistant to the Secretary for Rural Development, Anne Hazlett, announced the partnership today at the Rural Water & Sanitation Forum in Sacramento, California, emphasizing that “setting clear economic development priorities is an essential step in building prosperity in rural communities.” RCAP, its western regional partner, the Rural Community Assistance Corporation (RCAC), and USDA Rural Development hosted the forum.
WealthWorks is a community-centered model that has a transformative impact on rural communities. The approach emphasizes increasing local ownership and connecting local assets to real market demand. The program will help communities identify and take advantage of economic development opportunities and will focus on communities facing persistent poverty and threatened livelihoods. To complete the project, RCAP will work closely with NADO, the Aspen Institute, and the six WealthWorks Hubs – RCAP’s western regional partner, RCAC, RCAP’s southern regional partner, Communities Unlimited (CU), the Central Appalachia Network, Community Roots, Region Five Development Commission, and Rural Development Initiatives, to drive economic development planning efforts and expand the WealthWorks model to additional communities across the country.
“We are thrilled to build this partnership with USDA to help rural communities across the country develop and implement economic development plans that will lead to growth and opportunity,” said Nathan Ohle, RCAP Executive Director. “By partnering, RCAP, NADO, the Aspen Institute, and the WealthWorks Hubs recognize that the future of economic development is built on collaboration and locally-led strategies for rural regions across the country.”
RCAP is a national non-profit network providing opportunity, assistance, and practical guidance to small communities in all fifty states, U.S. territories, and tribal lands to ensure access to safe drinking water, sanitary wastewater disposal, and economic prosperity for all rural America. To learn more about RCAP, visit www.rcap.org.
Happy Fall! I just sent out my latest From the Roots Up newsletter. You can find it at this link:
https://mailchi.mp/79f3610fea79/from-the-roots-up-3396081?e=[UNIQID]
To sign up to receive From the Roots Up, please fill out the below form:
As the year nears an end, I've been reflecting on how lucky I am to support small towns and rural communities around the country.
My work with the Sisseton Wapheton Sioux Tribe has been completed, and letting go is challenging. The life of a consultant is that of dropping into a place for a while and then detaching. The Tribe's tribally owned grocery store, Dakota Crossing, has been built and is open. I had the opportunity to visit it in October, during my final trip to South Dakota. This store provides some real local ownership and control of food on the reservation. The store will not only serve as a retail food market, but will also serve as an aggregation and distribution point for the tribe and its farmers and buyers.
I had the great opportunity to help design a meeting of various progressive nonprofit organizations in Vermont in November, coming together and collaborating to figure out how to support each other and survive through the current political climate.
And I'm excited to be working with Natural Capital Investment Fund again in West Virginia, supporting the redevelopment of an old abandoned elementary school in Wayne County, West Virginia to become a food aggregation and distribution facility. The local Wayne County Farmers Cooperative is working with the Wayne County Economic Development Authority and Refresh Appalachia to figure out how to use this space to support the food system in this part of West Virginia.
Happy new year!
Dakota Crossing Store
My latest travel adventures in August took me to Montana. Before the Rural LISC conference and the WealthWorks gathering, I spent a few days in Livingston with some friends exploring the Yellowstone River, Yellowstone National Park and the downtown art scene. It was spectacular. I saw bighorn, elk, bison and more wildlife than I could have imagined. And my friends took me to Fairy Lake also, which was a beautiful clear mountain lake. I met up with my friend and colleague Sulynn Creswell from the Black Belt Treasures Cultural Arts Center in Bozeman for day of galleries and delicious food.
And then we made our way to Big Sky for the conference, where I met so many wonderful people. It is always fantastic to be with the WealthWorks community, where I learned about so many innovative value chains springing up around the country, in seafood, tourism, agriculture, and more. I look forward to our work together over the coming years spreading the word and helping new value chains to emerge and grow.
The view one morning at big sky.
In late May, I had the pleasure of being back in South Dakota with the Sisseton Wahpeton Sioux Tribe. My experiences on the reservation have been wonderful. This time, since it was spring, I was able to visit more of the reservation, seeing a variety of housing complexes, the tribal orchard and garden properties, as well as the hillier part of the reservation. I visited Pickerel Lake, the deepest natural lake in South Dakota, which was beautiful. With the help of the Planning Office, we brought together a variety of potential partners in the food system work, including Head Start, the Youth Center, the agency for the elderly, Natural Resources, the casinos and others to talk about what is possible and what might come next. Patty and I will be looking at a variety of models for moving this food system work forward, including food hubs, incubator farms, partnerships with the tribal college, youth gardening, edible landscaping and more. I'm hopeful we'll have the opportunity to present our findings in person in the fall.
Happy spring! I just sent out my latest From the Roots Up #2. You can find it at this link:
http://mailchi.mp/c203b1c8f794/from-the-roots-up-2
To sign up to receive From the Roots Up, please fill out the below form:
I just launched my first email newsletter, From the Roots Up. I plan to share this newsletter every other month.
Read it at this link: http://eepurl.com/clbhF1
You can also sign up to receive From the Roots Up:
I’ve been preparing for two full-day workshops on WealthWorks and Economic Development. As I write this, I’ve just returned from the National Association of Development Organizations (NADO) Annual Training Conference in San Antonio, Texas. In a couple of weeks, I’ll be on my way to Minnesota to deliver another full-day workshop for the National Joint Powers Alliance and Region Five Development Commission. These workshops have encouraged me to consider WealthWorks in the context of traditional economic development, namely as a framework to use in thinking about Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies (CEDS).
While the workshop audiences may not be exploring or constructing WealthWorks value chains, they may want to use the framework in their planning work. The concepts of creating impact on multiple forms of wealth, encouraging local ownership and control, and engaging low-income populations does fit in with their work. In addition, these planners and economic developers may be encouraging others to build wealth creating value chains; regional development organizations may play supporting roles in a value chain.
Through other workshops I’ve done with this type of audience, I’ve found that these folks have been seeking the language that WealthWorks provides, especially around the multiple forms of wealth. In preparing for this workshop in particular, I was researching regional economic development organizations that are using this language in their CEDS documents. I came across the Land of Sky Regional Council, based in Western North Carolina; one of their staff members did attend and participate in one of the WealthWorks Trainings for Coaches and Coordinators just outside of Philadelphia. Their evaluation framework lists all the forms of wealth and their hoped-for outcomes for each.
As I’ve been preparing these presentations and thinking about how the WealthWorks framework can help inform the CEDS, it’s clear that it can really inform the whole thing:
Summary Background of economic conditions in the region. The summary background of economic conditions in the region is essentially a baseline of conditions in the region. While not all forms of wealth pertain to economic conditions, many do. Conditions can connect to capitals. Environment connects to natural capital. Culture connects to cultural capital. Workforce connects to individual capital and possibly intellectual capital.
SWOT Analysis to identify regional Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, and Threats. The capitals can also help frame strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This is essentially an inventory of capitals. How are we doing? What do we have that we can work with?
Action Plan incorporating tactics identified through planning process, other plans, and stakeholder feedback to develop the priority strategies for the region. Actions and strategies can be developed to impact multiple forms of wealth.
Evaluation Framework to identify and monitor performance measures associated with the plan. As mentioned earlier, the evaluation of impacts can be organized using the forms of wealth.
I recently had the opportunity to attend the New Economy Coalition’s CommonBound Conference in Buffalo, New York. I’ve never been to this conference, but it was one of the most diverse (in almost every way) events I’ve ever been to. Unfortunately, this conference took place after the horrific events of the July 4 week, namely the Philando Castile shooting in Minnesota, the Alton Sterling shooting in Baton Rouge, and the five police officers shot in Dallas. However, these events provided the reminder that we have a long way to go to enjoy a new economy that benefits all. I learned about some unique initiatives like the Boston Ujima Project (https://www.facebook.com/bostonujimaproject/) which is organizing, neighbors, workers, business owners and investors to create a community-controlled economy in Greater Boston.
Over the past several years, I’ve been involved in a group of caring, intelligent people moving the WealthWorks approach to economic development forward. For more information, find the WealthWorks tab on this site. At the CommonBound event, we were able to bring our network of regional hubs together to discuss the future of WealthWorks and what we can each do to move this framework forward. There were colleagues from all over the country, from places like Oregon, Utah, North Carolina, Arkansas, Maryland, Washington DC, Ohio, Minnesota, and of course Vermont. I’m excited about the progress we made and am excited to be a part of it. I’ll be hoping to spread the WealthWorks framework throughout New England.
I recently wrote an article for the Vermont Environmental Consortium (VEC) May blog. I'm the Secretary and Board Member of VEC. You can see it below.
VEC Members Collaborate To Support Disaster Resilience
VEC is an organization focused on building the environmental sector in Vermont. As such, VEC members have a variety of opportunities to collaborate on engaging projects with positive results. One of these collaborations was recently with KAS, Inc. and Community Roots, LLC. KAS is a small woman-owned enterprise in Vermont and New York State, specializing in providing high quality environmental management, civil and environmental engineering. Community Roots, LLC is a small woman-owned consulting firm focused on natural resource-based rural economic development research and facilitation. KAS and Community Roots worked together with, Fitzgerald Environmental Associates and ESPC Civil and Environmental Engineering, on a Long Term Community Recovery Strategy for the Hamlet of Au Sable Forks in Essex County, New York.
Au Sable Forks is one of those small hamlets that was built on the river, specifically at the confluence of the East Branch and the West Branch of the Ausable River. This all-too-common scenario in the Northeast is a relic of historical use of the river to power mills. Over the last century, settlement patterns in the hamlet resulted in neighborhoods developing in areas that were once used for only agriculture, resulting in many homes located on a frequently flooded bend of the river. Today, there are approximately 19 businesses found within the 100-year floodplain in the Jay-portion of the hamlet of Au Sable Forks.
The team was tasked to review the work completed to date and determine the best next steps to enhance the recovery and resiliency of Au Sable Forks. All partners brought something to the task, including environmental engineering, river dynamics, and community and economic development. The end result is a roadmap of next steps for the hamlet of Au Sable Forks, including both policy and program recommendations and flood resiliency projects. Policy and program recommendations included updating the flood regulations, flood depth mapping (which the Project Team prepared), an education program for debris removal/channel work, and emergency response training, specifically related to swift water. Flood resiliency projects included a flood wall/levee, a residential relocation plan for the two most vulnerable neighborhoods, and floodplain protection areas. The project is still being finalized, but the experience was a positive collaboration, utilizing each firm's complementary special skills.
I recently had the opportunity to travel to Clarksdale, Mississippi once again. I’m working with the Lower Mississippi River Foundation (LMRF), a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting stewardship of the Lower Mississippi River through deep engagement. My work with them involves strategic planning, outcome measures and financial sustainability. I’m always deeply impressed by John Ruskey, the energetic and engaging Director of the LMRF and Owner of Quapaw Canoe Company. While others are talking about getting kids outside and away from their screens, John and his team are actually doing it, through their Mighty Quapaw apprenticeship program, through trips they guide with after school programs, and with school students who come from all over the country to experience what the Lower Mississippi River has to offer.
I was also lucky enough to go with John and several others on a day-long, 30 mile paddle on the Lower Mississippi River. On the way to our starting point, we stopped at the site of Muddy Waters’ childhood home. Quapaw builds beautiful voyageur canoes that can hold up to 14 people. On this day, there were seven of us in the Ladybug canoe. The Mississippi River suffers from perceptions that it is dirty, unsafe and dangerous. Despite the chill in the air, the trip was wonderful and shattered any of those perceptions for me. The beaches were beautiful, white sand beaches, on which we saw abundant evidence of wildlife. At our first stop at Island 64, John and his crew made a beautiful fire on which to make soup for lunch, and prepared a wonderful spread of healthy food. This break provided an opportunity to rest our muscles and re-energize for the remainder of the trip. Because it was Ash Wednesday, John performed a Native American blessing for each of us on the beach.
This was a very special experience for me. I can’t quite explain what made it so special, but I think it was the combination of an amazing place and thoughtful people who care deeply about what they do. I am still sharing it with people over a month later. I can’t wait to come back with my family.
In the meantime, this was a work trip, despite the opportunity for some play. I continue to work with John and the LMRF to determine what their future holds. Unfortunately, a couple of weeks ago, after a deluge of rain, the Sunflower River, along which Quapaw and the LMRF are located, rose 25 feet in 24 hours, flooding the Quapaw and LMRF headquarters for the first and hopefully last time. This flood has devastated this small organization, but they will rebuild and continue to do what they do best.
A paper I wrote for the Rural Research Report, a publication of the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs, has been published. Titled Measuring the Impacts of Economic Development, it talks about reasons for measuring, measuring outputs vs. outcomes, measuring money vs. wealth, systems of measurement for multiple capitals, and examples from the field. The goal is to help practitioners and elected officials select measures and measurement practices that support their work and mission. You can find it at this link:
