Start with the community.
Regional and Tribal plans already contain priorities, investments, and goals that can help guide institutional action. Colleges can use CEDS, workforce plans, comprehensive plans, and Tribal strategies to align education and economic-development efforts with community-defined priorities.
Why it matters: The U.S. Economic Development Administration describes a CEDS as a “strategy-driven plan for regional economic development” built through a regionally owned process.
This focus area includes an introduction to a compilation of economic-development related community-derived documents and the respective partners that contribute to these documents. Community-derived documents in this context refers to Comprehensive and General Plans, Regional Land Use & Transportation Plans, Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies (federal document for regional planning), city and county economic development plans, state-based commerce and economic development plans, Local Area Workforce Development Plans (federally required), and regional plans out of economic development collaboratives. The majority of these local and regional planning documents are democratically derived by host agencies, cities and counties.
The data included in these documents is curated by the host staff and subject matter experts, with policy goals informed by participatory processes. Each rural region and state will have a variety of these documents available through multiple agencies.
Focus Area Examples
Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) are required by the US Department of Commerce on a county- or regional-level basis. The document contains four sections 1) economic and socio-demographic data 2) a regional SWOT analysis 30 a set of regional development priorities, and 4) a set of performance metrics. RPIs and TCUs don’t need to reinvent the wheel, these documents already prioritize talent pipelines and workforce development pathways that will support economic development goals and activities. RPIs and TCUs can also benefit by listing potential CTE capital projects which will qualify institutions for a cash match for capital projects. These documents are typically hosted by regional economic development collaboratives and may be found through a search engine.
Sample Regional Plan (go to Appendix B, page 296, for the list of policy goals)
Similar to a CEDS, sample regional plans contain a large amount of economic and socio-demographic data, community goals and strategies pertaining to economic development and infrastructure, and a set of performance indicators. Unlike the CEDS, these documents are more expansive, looking at community priorities across housing, economic development, preservation and conservation, water use, land use, transportation, and many more elements of community development.
Institutional Lead
Recommended institutional leads include:
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VP of Advancement
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VP Academic Affairs
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President’s Office
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Institutional Research
Institutional Support Partners
Potential partners include:
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College Economic and Workforce Development Offices
Suggested Institutional Action
Every institution should be able to answer:
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Which regional and community plans should guide our work?
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What priorities show up most consistently across those plans?
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Which partners helped shape those priorities?
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How do those priorities connect to our programs and services?
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Where are the biggest gaps between community priorities and institutional action?
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For TCUs: How are Tribal plans and community-defined priorities reflected in our decisions?
Learning Outcome
This focus area will focus on building capacity within the institutions to locate and interpret these documents. Using democratically-derived strategy documents supports RPIs and TCUs in moving from a traditional closed system to open system reflective of community-driven economic and workforce development goals.