What is Community Economic Development (CED)? April 2019

Olds Institute is a Community Economic Development organization connecting people with purpose, creating a healthy, inspired, entrepreneurial community.

A local CED organization can help individuals and organizations in a region to work together toward common goals. This can happen when community members in the region join to determine appropriate strategies and actions to address common issues in a strategic, collaborative way.

The formal structure of a CED organization can allow communities to be more efficient and make progress more quickly on collective issues and needs.

Successful CED is strongly associated with having a local organization with a clear mandate and sufficient resources to engage development issues within the community.

What can OI do for my community?

  1. Plan for the future. Plan effectively for the future and then take an active role in addressing the community’s priorities and advantages.
  2. Act as a liaison. Act as a liaison for the community on economic development issues with the media, other community organizations and government departments and contacts.
  3. Provide advocacy. Provide mentoring and advocacy for the community with regards to effective economic development recommendations and policies.
  4. Create awareness. Raise awareness, prospect for opportunities, and build key networks by creating promotions, attending trade shows and representing the community at related conferences.
  5. Support business. Provide business assistance to local entrepreneurs, develop promotions for existing business, develop and maintain a business retention and expansion program and coordinate workshops and training on business issues and programs.
  6. Create a profile. Develop a community profile for promoting the community and understanding its key strengths.
  7. Monitor growth. Monitor the growth of the community and periodically revise community strategies for growth.
  8. Access grants. Access program grants and financial support.

We welcome the community to j{OI}n us! Our Annual General Meeting takes place at the Olds College Faculty Centre on Tuesday, May 7 at 6 pm, or email us for more information.