In the wake of industry transitions like mill closures, curtailments, fisheries moratoria, and main street downturns, most communities are left scrambling for some sort of economic sustainability. They face multiple cascading issues like job losses, shrinking tax bases, families leaving the region, lost supports for youth and elderly, and other core disruptions. In times like these, communities need to know all of their options to chart a way forward for economic diversification and resurgence.
SFU Community Economic Development (SFU CED) supports communities through rapid deployments of CED assessment teams. We bring together experts in community economic development, usually in rural and small municipal contexts, and deploy them to impacted communities to evaluate community economic development opportunities, and provide recommendations for short-term investment and capacity building. These assessments are vital for planning processes, as well as providing the data foundation for grant proposals and requests for support from other sources.
SFU CED partners directly with community leaders to customize the assessment process. Generally, this includes the following roles:
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