Community Economic Development Tools

What is community economic development? Many people ask the question, but few receive a clear answer. Some receive confusing answers while others do not wait for an answer. Still others, simply write it off as "left wing" or "socialist" or "communist."

Really, in simple terms, community economic development (CED) is economic development +. It is economic development, but not just that. It is much more than that. CED encompasses all aspects of a community, just as in reality, our lives do as well.

That being said, I find it somewhat disheartening when people talk about CED in terms of "business development" and "entrepreneurship" only. I believe that this narrows and limits our thinking and opportunities for innovation. This narrow focus also takes away from more collective solutions and encourages a strong focus on self rather than broader community.

There are many examples of communities that have been largely bankrupted by the classical approach to economic development. I won’t list them here, but you can do a search on the Internet for communities who have had their economies devastated by the presence of Walmart (or other large corporations), or by the closing of mining operations, saw mills, or the recent collapse of the manufacturing economy in Canada.

In each of these cases, the focus was placed on attracting large employers (corporations) to ride into the community as a hero and offer jobs and ‘economic development’. Usually this was accomplished through incentives. In every case, the communities became dependent upon these big businesses and failed to develop their own capacity for economic development within the community.

There are many communities and thinkers now realizing this and investing in research and projects that aim to develop the concepts of economic development +. You can find some of this research at www.communityeconomies.org. In fact, there are many other websites with this research occurring as well.

However, I want to focus on the fact that many communities and people interested in CED often miss out on some valuable resources available to them. I will list a few of them here:

• Government of Manitoba free CED Capacity Assessment tool: http://www.gov.mb.ca/ana/interest/ced.html
• Ontario’s list of resources: http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/rural/edr/index.html
• Free online community Database (Canada): http://www.cid-bdc.ca/welcome-bienvenue
• The HR Council has many resources to help non-profits develop or improve their HR situation (or at least, get pointed in the right direction): http://hrcouncil.ca/home.cfm 
• Additionally, I am working with partners in the delivery of HR reviews and assessments with a tool that I built with input from many long standing HR professionals: HR Capacity Assessment. Beyond that, I also offer consulting support in the area of planning and strategies. My first suggestion, though, is to start with some of the free resources above first as these will help you define exactly what you would like from a consultant (me or otherwise).

There are many other resources, I am sure, but these are just a few to get you started. It also helps to know that resources do exist.

Ken