ED Now

The Economic Recovery Corps page is now live on IEDC’s website. IEDC and partners will receive $30 million from EDA over four-and-a-half years to create the Economic Recovery Corps—65 fellows who will be embedded in distressed regions throughout the United States to help lead efforts to increase the capacity of regional economic development ecosystems and provide guidance to support local economic developers. The ERC program will help communities accelerate their economic recovery, develop and deliver effective regional strategies to promote resilience and competitiveness, and create sustainable and equitable opportunities for all. Prospective fellows and host organizations should fill out the Economic Recovery Corps Interest ...

The U.S. Economic Development Administration is announcing a $30-million cooperative agreement with IEDC and its partners to create an Economic Recovery Corps (ERC) program. This project is funded by the CARES Act, which provided EDA with $1.5 billion for economic assistance programs to help communities prevent, prepare for, and respond to the pandemic. “President Biden is committed to unleashing the full power of the federal government to ensure our nation not only recovers from the pandemic but builds back stronger,” said Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “The Economic Recovery Corps will strengthen the connectivity and capacity of regional economic development ecosystems, resulting in a stronger national economic ...

This month IEDC President and CEO Nathan Ohle hosted U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Economic Development Alejandra Castillo for IEDC’s first Economic Development Session. The sessions will be a series of fireside chats between Ohle and leading economic development officials, thought leaders, and experts. The conversation with Castillo centered around how EDA is focusing on long-term and equitable growth, and how unique this approach is in the agency’s history. The emphasis on long-term development is a departure from previous administrations’ focus on episodic projects and funding, and possible due to the CARES Act and ARPA which provided EDA with more than $4 billion to work with. Castillo talked about how ...

As Polk County’s economic development partnership, the Central Florida Development Council (CFDC)’s mission is to support local business expansions, attract new businesses to the county, and market our ports, airports, roads, rails, central location, and access to 10 million consumers within 100 miles to decision-makers around the world. Much like many other economic development organizations, our mission has been tested by the COVID-19 pandemic. The CFDC continued its mission during the pandemic, adding more than 2,000 new jobs in the last 24 months, which helped reduce a 20 percent pandemic unemployment rate to the now 5 percent. That’s only slightly higher than the 3.7 percent rate before COVID-19 forever changed the ...

At the start of the pandemic, the Pierce County (Wash.) Economic Development Department quickly pivoted its focus to assist small businesses that were struggling to survive. Those efforts resulted in effective and efficient distribution of $46.5 million in CARES Act funding to thousands of small businesses and entrepreneurs of which 76 percent were BIPOC-, women-, and veteran-owned. More than 99 percent of these resources went to direct business support and more than 90 percent of applications were approved. By leveraging existing networks in the community, the department was able to provide information and resources to many businesses we would not normally have reached. However, recovery is showing us there is much more to do. In ...

Next week, Nashville will host IEDC’s 2021 Annual Conference with the theme Creative Economic Development, Tourism, Transportation & Technology. ED Now takes a look at Tennessee’s tourism industry, which benefits from the state’s unique history and geography.

By Jacob Gottlieb, IEDC intern The Wall Street Journal reported that new data from the SBA shows that, as of August, more than half of the $522 million dollars authorized for PPP loans went to about 600 large corporations. Only about 28 percent of PPP funding went to small businesses (businesses seeking less than $150,000 in loans). The maximum $10 million loan amount went to companies like Engage Brands (the parent company for Boston Market), law firms, and even a church. Data about loan recipients was guarded by the SBA until Judge James E. Boasberg of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ordered that it be released. These findings have led community leaders to question whether the SBA is prioritizing small businesses ...

By Colton Campbell, IEDC intern The initial CARES Act’s $150 billion Coronavirus Relief Fund provided assistance to state, local, and tribal governments. The deadline for governments to apply for this aid was April 17, 2020, one short month after COVID-19 began to spread across the United States, and many places did not have much time to evaluate data to analyze how best to use this funding. This has led to a variety of creative uses for CARES Act funding. State-level uses In Vermont, the Vermont State Colleges Initiative used $2.3 million in federal funds to offer free higher education courses to any Vermont resident who experienced job loss due to the pandemic. More than 100 courses were offered at four schools in the state. ...