Services for Economic Development Organizations
1. Studies
The Vercitas Group will develop market studies for EDO’s interested in call centers, customer service, back office, distribution and manufacturing industries. Studies would define strengths, weaknesses, labor, cost issues and Niche Market Opportunities. These studies will be based on the size and scope of the EDO and the market they represent.
2. Trade Show Representation
The Vercitas Group will represent your ED Organization at selected trade shows domestically or internationally. This could range from an exhibit to hosting activities for targeted companies.
3. Marketing Representation
The Vercitas Group will provide your EDO with a full time sales/marketing effort in the areas of manufacturing, distribution and customer service, call center industries. This includes all market identification, prospecting efforts, calls, visits and ultimately company visits to the contracting communities. The ultimate goal is to secure an industry to locate in the community.
4. Seven Step Community Economic Growth Action Plan
The Vercitas Group will lead your community to Action. This process takes a community from start to finish on creating a meaningful and aggressive action plan to renew, sustain and spark economic growth. It involves initial community analysis and identification of core industries (those that create the most economic drive in the local economy) or lack thereof in such industries. The analysis is based upon today's economy and how to position them to capitalize on economic opportunities and mitigate any hurdles to getting there.
This phase will involve The Vercitas Group and other site location experts' opinions to bring this home in realistic terms and it adds credibility to the opinions. Discussion on "the community vision" for succeeding and making their quality of life better for today's residents and those of tomorrow concentrating on more than just the workforce needs.
The next phase is identifying catalyst projects that will succeed and build the most widespread positive economic impact and create ancillary private sector investments into local economy. Catalyst projects in many cases address obstacles that may exist that if mitigated would unbottle economic growth as well as possibly create new markets for place based recognition. This leads to identification of best practices that support the development of an executable action plan for such projects. The final step is creating the necessary incentive policy and investment funding to carry out the project in a sustainable fashion. Creating tools to raise the funds to pay for economic development is the biggest hurdle to progress in economic development today especially in smaller communities.
5. Place Based Development
This process creates a catalyst project that will get an area noticed from the perspective of creating tourism and other niche private sector investment into community based projects. It matches unique concepts to market opportunities. It is designed by a series of community town hall type meetings and/or small group investor groups that are interested in designing a world class destination draw for their community or new business attraction asset. Communities that use this process have the greatest chance of finding major investments from within the tourism and specialized niche focused industries.
This process and proposals are customized and developed after the initial community meeting and an understanding of objectives and outcomes is understood by all parties.
6. Creating Economic Development Incentives and Capital Investment
Funding
This process will allow communities to build several pots of monies for various types of Business Retention, Attraction and Growth projects. Examples include innovative micro-credit loan programs, revolving loan programs, business retention succession funds, future funds for systemic investments that improve the community image, local venture capital funds and operating and capital funding to improve the sustainable economic development funding necessary to pay for administrative staffing and operations.
Within these concepts, a community creates innovative business retention strategies for matching business owners to entrepreneurs and also entrepreneurial funding for intellectual capital development as well as small business lending to grow existing companies. Establishment of SBIR/STR criteria and funding is also a key component for intellectual capital growth and development of entrepreneurial infrastructure.
7. Inner City Revitalization Plans and Implementation
This addresses areas of your community that may have a decaying housing stock, experiencing decreasing population, poor neighborhoods and have not been successful in attracting new investment and are quite frankly a problem. The Vercitas Group wants your toughest projects.
Through our time tested and individualized analysis and approach, we will address population decline, ordinance issues, stagnant or decreasing tax base and lack of investment. We will develop and lay out implementation steps for you to develop a newly revitalized area that participates in the total economic success of your community.
8. Workforce Housing & Strategic Buildings & Site Redevelopment
One of the greatest opportunities for addressing downtown and other redevelopment in many small and medium size communities similar to major urban communities is the redevelopment of affordable workforce housing units in conjunction with their downtown areas and in some cases historic and blighted properties. The process we use allows for the determination of market viability, site viability and review of funding opportunities in order to determine initial feasibility to utilize Tax Credits and other redevelopment funds in order to redevelop a Brownfield, historic or blighted facility or site within the various federal programs.
We then develop an executable development plan and can if necessary match the community with a viable experienced tax credit developer to apply for the funding and administer and operate the facility upon completion. These targeted programs allow communities to hit several objectives with one investment (create affordable workforce housing, restore viable use of key facilities and sites and create new economic opportunity in areas in need of such). Our approach is a turn key program and all funds utilized for the due diligence are repaid from the award of tax credits to the sponsoring agency once successfully awarded an allocation or award notice.
9. Corporate Site Selection Services
The Vercitas Group understands the complexity of the site selection process. Our goal is to achieve a winning profitable outcome for your companies and community chosen.
Understanding business issues such as lowering operational costs, identifying a stable labor force, and proximity to supply chain resources are balanced with state/community resources and infrastructure.
We take the time to address community and company issues by clarifying strategies and concerns to lead the site selection team through an intensive disclosure of expectations and critical factors essential to company success.
With incentive concerns on both sides often a stumbling block, our experienced team help communities and companies negotiate sensible packages which serve the companies needs without “breaking the bank.”
An essential part of our services is to provide facility start up assistance and follow through to insure that commitments are kept and both company and community move down the path to success together.
10. U.S. Foreign Trade Zone Program
Our team has completed a diverse array of FTZ projects around the country. The customized approach seeks first to simplify the issues then if warranted undertake an integrated project. We first quantify the benefits, and then meet with community, FTZ Board and U.S. Customs and Border Protection representatives to discuss and resolve initial concerns. With an understanding in place, we prepare applications for FTZ authority, operational plans and activation strategies in order to maximize benefits both for grantees and zone participants.
A total range of FTZ services including applications, modifications, procedures, training and administrative oversight are available to our clients.
11. Strategic Analysis
Key leadership changes, plant closings and the desire to move in new directions all create the potential for dysfunction performance of an organization.
The Vercitas team has the experience and the understanding of organization management to help boards, staff and communities understand where they are, assess available resources, and plot a course to achieve their goals. Our approach is to assemble community information, conduct interviews with area leadership and design a customized presentation to address local issues.
While one or two day events are often the norm we have the ability to provide unique services such as interim leadership, conduct professional searches and provide thorough assessments of communities and their components.
12. Legislation for Economic Development Initiatives
Developing and writing legislation for economic development initiatives on the municipal, county or state level result in increasing the number and quality of the tools available for long term sustainability and development. Sales tax use for economic development, tax credits for capital expansion and job creation are examples of the tools available to create a dynamic economic atmosphere. Vercitas can assist in writing special legislation to meet your community needs.
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