BRATTLEBORO — I want to correct some major inaccuracies in Jason Jensen's Viewpoint piece [“Ignoring the talent in our own backyard,” May 15].
The funding available for the Southern Vermont Sustainable Marketing Program is $100,000. It is a portion of a $474,000 grant from the U.S. Economic Development Administration (EDA) to the Windham Regional Commission and the Bennington County Regional Commission for long-term flood recovery work.
The grant was prepared in collaboration with Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC), and the regional commissions have an agreement with BDCC to assist with flood recovery in southern Vermont.
The grant contains funding for three parts:
1) Coordinating Business Resource Service Centers in the two counties, a program that includes hiring two flood recovery officers working for 18 months with businesses to evaluate various needs and direct them to appropriate resources.
2) Assisting with village and downtown business district revitalization through continued long-term recovery planning and identifying resources to move those projects forward.
3) Creation of the Southern Vermont Sustainable Marketing Program (SVSMP).
The SVSMP is a collaboration of the two regional planning commissions, BDCC, and four Chambers of Commerce: Brattleboro, Mount Snow, Bennington, and Manchester.
The goal is to create a sustainable marketing program for southern Vermont to attract tourists, as we continually hear tourism-related businesses need more customers; attract hard-to-find talent, as we continually hear employers cannot find the trained and highly-skilled talent they need; and to attract new business to the region, as we know there is a need for new entrepreneurs and better-paying job opportunities in both counties.
The program has many elements and will result in creating a larger marketing umbrella brand for the two counties. It will also create a cooperative sustainable funding mechanism to assure this is not a one-hit wonder.
The effort extends well beyond the creation of a website or a video but something that is comprehensive and sustainable. And it extends beyond Brattleboro.
This work is linked with the Southeastern Vermont Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (SeVEDS), which, among other goals, seeks to enhance opportunities to improve and grow our local workforce; create more opportunities for our young people to stay or come back to Windham County; and create more opportunities for local entrepreneurs to start, grow, and thrive.
I hope if someone is going to take shots at the only comprehensive, regional, collaborative effort for economic development and sustainable marketing, one might start by getting the facts right.
Further, there is one reason and one reason only why an out-of-state firm was selected: this firm provided the best proposal. They responded completely to the request for proposals (RFP) and demonstrated expertise in this type of work. It is unfortunate an in-state or local firm was not selected, given the talent and expertise we have.
But of the seven proposals received, the out-of-state proposal was the best.
To help provide more opportunities for local firms and individuals in the future, BDCC will be sponsoring, sometime before the end of the year, a workshop on how to effectively respond to request for proposals.
Overall, funding is harder to come by and the competition for those limited resources is significant. We want to help local and regional firms better understand how to effectively manage an RFP process.
Lastly, we want to grow our economy to help create a bigger economic pie so there are more pieces for more folks.