Pickaway Progress Partnership Working to Secure a Minimum of $7.5 Million in New Grants
Circleville, Ohio - The leadership of the Pickaway Progress Partnership (P3) has used the power of grants to ensure continued job growth for this county located in central Ohio. Over the past 3 years alone, P3 has generated $2,650,000 in new grant money to Pickaway County. These grants have been used for a range of vital transportation, infrastructure and environmental projects that have created constructive economic development in the county.

The grants have been used to improve the Smurfit facility ($950,000) and the P3 Spec Building ($1,000,000). In addition, grants from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency were used for Brownfield assessments ($400,000) and to study the Rickenbacker Intermodal East- West Connector ($300,000). Nate Green, P3 Economic Development Director, stated, "Grants are and continue to be a great tool to spur economic development. P3 is committed to making sure we make our case and secure these significant grants. Within the next five years we anticipate, at a minimum, doubling the amount of grants that P3 can bring back into the county." 

Grant opportunities are possible from a number of federal and state agencies. Some of the grants being pursued by P3 include: a Job Ready Sites grant for the Pickaway Progress Park (formerly the Thompson facility); U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Brownfield redevelopment grants; Clean Ohio Brownfield grants totaling; U.S. Economic Development Administration grants; as well as, grants to develop an additional spec building improve broadband internet access and federal earmarks for the for the Rickenbacker Intermodal East-West Connector.  

Mark Leatherwood, P3 President stated, "As we have seen over the last three years, grants have proven to be a winning vehicle to create jobs and opportunities. Even if we are only half as successful as we believe we can be in securing these grants, these grants will still lead to $7,500,000 coming to improve the economic vitality of Pickaway County."  

Pickaway Progress Partnership (P3) is the economic development agent for Pickaway County and its municipalities. P3 has three main objectives: new business attraction and marketing; existing industry support; and product development. P3 is a non- profit corporation with a board of directors comprised of leaders from the public and private sectors. P3 is headed by its Economic Development Director, Nate Green.

The City of Statesboro, Georgia, home to the RDG-Southeast office, has nearly completed its 20 year Comprehensive Plan development process.  The purpose of the Comprehensive Plan is to provide a framework for Statesboro public officials to operate within over the next two decades as they manage long term growth, development and quality of life issues. 

In addition to input obtained through one-on- one interviews, focus groups, public workshops and surveys a Steering Committee comprised of 15 citizens was formed to guide the process.  The purpose of the Steering Committee was to analyze challenges and opportunities in eight key categories over a seven month period.  The categories are:

• Natural and Cultural Resources
• Facilities and Services
• Economic Development
• Housing
• Land Use
• Transportation
• Intergovernmental Cooperation
• Quality of Life

RDG Partner, and Statesboro resident, Clint Nessmith was named as one of the 15 Steering Committee members.  "It has been an honor to be included in this very important process, said Nessmith. "As a partner with RDG I have been fortunate to witness many excellent programs, strategies and best practices of our clients and their communities.  It has been exciting to be able to share my collective experiences with this committee to help shape the future of my home town.  I am really pleased with the end result! " 

For more information on Statesboro or to view the Comprehensive Plan please visit www.sboro.net  

Clint has over 10 years of fundraising experience and is currently managing a funding campaign for Greater New Orleans, Inc.  He resides in Statesboro with his wife, Elizabeth, and their two daughters.

"If you are 100 percent publicly funded, 'long-term' is the date of the next election, and if you're lucky, that's two years down the road," said Robert Radcliff, principal of the fundraising firm Resource Development Group. "But 'long-term' in economic development is a lot longer than two years."  

Recent IEDC research into the funding streams of five private, non-profit EDOs - each serving micropolitan regions that ranged from 43,000 to 238,000 people - found that the percent of public funds in total EDO budgets varied from 20 percent to 80 percent (see graph below). The annual budgets of the groups surveyed span from $250,000 to $1 million, and the number of public partners ranged from two to 12. No correlation was found between population and amount of public funding; however, the EDOs with the fewest contributing public entities have higher percentages of public funding compared to EDOs with more public contributors.

None of the EDOs surveyed had standardized formulas for public funding in place. Instead, public contributions were set amounts determined loosely by the public partner's capacity to invest and the annual budgetary needs of the EDO, with hub cities typically paying significantly more than other public partners. Four of the five EDOs surveyed had no method or formula for incrementally raising public contributions year over year. At the fifth EDO (which has two public contributors, a county and a city), the city's annual contribution is indexed to cost of living and inflation, while the county's is not.  

Moving to a public-private model. In smaller communities where an EDO begins solely as a public entity, often it's a crisis, such as a 25 to 30 percent budget cut, that drives the transition to a public- private model.  

But getting there, according to Radcliff, requires enlisting a private-sector champion, creating a plan and building relationships. Business leaders have more influence with public officials than the head of an EDO. Yet to be effective, any private champion must have participated in creating the vision, which ideally is a stakeholder-based plan with metrics. Leaders who have contributed to the plan will feel an obligation and responsibility to fund it and carry it forward, and can enlist more supporters for the community or regional vision than the head of an EDO can.  

Moving to a public-private model also involves changing the culture. Government-implemented economic development is different from private-sector economic development, Radcliff noted, in which return on investment is key. A government-based culture has to change to one in which the primary drivers are efficiency, implementation and value. Rebuilding an EDO's organizational structure and governing board may be key to tapping a different way of thinking and gaining that capacity.  

While it's likely that private operating dollars will be more stable than government funding, there's no guarantee. But apart from the issue of reliability, Radcliff noted, it's good to avoid a high percentage of government funds for operations because EDOs need other public money to get deals done - for incentive dollars or infrastructure, for example.  

An ideal ratio of public-to-private funds? Radcliff believes that public funding shouldn't exceed 50 percent of an EDO's total budget, and lower is even better. But the smaller the market, the more difficult that is to achieve, he acknowledges. In terms of stability and equity, a per capita formula should determine contributions from the cities, townships and counties served by the EDO.  

But ideally, said Radcliff, an EDO would build its budget by backing into public funding from the private side. The starting point, not just relative to public funding but to overall funding need, is figuring out what's needed to implement a plan - what you want to do and how much it will cost. From there, an EDO would market-test what it can generate privately, and back into the public side of it with equitable contributions from the government entities serving the region.  

A challenge match can be another good way to approach fundraising. That can start in the private sector, which pledges a certain amount and challenges the public sector to collectively build a budget, or public money can be used as seed money that the private sector is asked to match. Radcliff predicts that over the next 24 months, the public sector is more likely to be the driver.  

Advice for EDOs in tough budget times. Beyond working a solid business retention program, Radcliff advises communicating effectively with constituents. "If you are public-private, make sure you are communicating with government and private stakeholders. If you are only public and want to contemplate going semi-private, start communicating with those people now - almost a branding exercise before you are in front of them asking for support with capital," he said. It's not brain surgery, but it's the simple stuff that people can lose track of.

An upside to the current suffering? Radcliff worked in Lorain County, Ohio, in the early 1980s, when major employers US Steel, GM and Ford either closed or cut thousands of jobs, and unemployment rose to 39 percent for a short time. But that difficult time led, as all recessions do, to great innovations.  

"It's going to be painful, it's going to be hard, people are going to have to make difficult decisions, but it will force innovation in many industries," Radcliff said. "No longer is [economic development] only about the traditional things like infrastructure and incentives; it's about quality of life, because now you can live anywhere and work anywhere. That paradigm changes the whole nature of economic development. This recession is going to speed up that evolution, so when you get to the end of the recession, the developers that understand that fundamental shift in this industry are the ones who are going to survive and prosper."