Every year, the Chamber & Economic Development of the Rutland Region (CEDRR) works with the State of Vermont to produce a list of Priority Projects for Rutland County. This work is completed in partnership with the Rutland Regional Planning Commission (RRPC) and is designed to help the State prioritize which projects receive funding from a variety of sources. Each project is reviewed by a committee made of CEDRR and RRPC representatives and scored based on a set of criteria determined by the State. As we are soliciting economic development projects, the criteria are in place to assess the potential economic impact and those projects providing the greatest economic impact will receive higher scoring.
To help you demonstrate the economic impact of your project, the following are the criteria for scoring each of the sections of the application:
- Project purpose and Benefits: The degree to which the project builds capacity within the region for improved regional development, including advancing workforce development; expanding entrepreneurship efforts; supporting or enhancing existing business clusters within the region. (Other economic and community development project types are welcome, but these categories will score the highest for this criteria.)
- Project Timeline, Milestones, and Status: The degree to which the project is prepared to get underway, including factors such as site control, engineering, and design; permitting, and funding identification and commitment. Please provide documentation that demonstrates the status to move forward and the timeline of the project for which the application seeks funding.
- Project Principal Experience: The degree to which project principals have successfully executed previous projects, managed grant funds, or developed successful business models.
- Project Support and Regional Need: The degree to which the project is consistent with identified goals and strategies in local and regional plans, advances regional needs identified in reports, plans, and public forums, and has community support and engagement. Please provide any plans/reports that demonstrate support/need and public process for the project.
- Project Cost, Identified and Committed Funds/Financing, and Funding Gap: Degree to which information includes total project cost, a simple sources and uses chart, a description of the amount of funds/financing that have been identified, and a clear status of the funds (Received, committed, applied for, identified, etc.), the dates of receipt, commitment, application, expected distribution, etc, and clearly identifies any funding gap.
- The degree to which the project is compatible with the requirements and goals of available funding sources
- Job Creation: Number of full-time jobs directly created or retained by the project; quality of benefits and overall benefits package to accompany jobs to be created/retained; and wages compared to the region. Regional data for wages is available online through the Department of Labor’s website.
Submission deadline is December 16th, 2022. Please contact Tyler Richardson if you have any questions.
