The U.S. Economic Development Administration this week announced a $240,000 Partnership Planning grant for the Western Nevada Development District (WNDD) for FY2023 thru FY2025. This EDA planning investment supports the development and implementation of a comprehensive economic development strategy (CEDS) for the region served by WNDD, which consists of nine counties and six municipalities. The CEDS process is designed to bring together the public and private sectors in the creation of an economic development roadmap to diversify and strengthen the regional economy.
WNDD members and local stakeholders recently participated in a workshop facilitated by the University Center for Economic Development, part of the College of Business at the University of Nevada, Reno to evaluate and update WNDD’s 2020 through 2025 CEDS. These funds will help sustain these collaborative regional planning efforts.
USDA Announces Webinars on Inflation Reduction Act Programs to Advance Clean Energy Initiatives in Rural America
U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced a series of webinars to help organizations learn how to apply for financial assistance to advance clean, affordable and reliable electric energy in rural America.
USDA recently announced $10.7 billion in funding available under the USDA Powering Affordable Clean Energy (USDA PACE) and Empowering Rural America (New ERA) programs.
Eligible organizations may apply for loans, grants, loan modifications and partially forgivable loans. The Biden-Harris Administration made this historic funding possible through the Inflation Reduction Act. It will expand clean, affordable and reliable energy in rural communities, including U.S. territories and Compact of Freely Associated States.
USDA staff will host webinars via Zoom at the following dates and times:
USDA PACE Program and Eligibility Mapping Overview June 6, 2023 at 11:00 AM PT
A New ERA Program and Greenhouse Gas Calculator Overview June 8, 2023 at 11:00 AM PT
Office Hours for USDA PACE and New ERA Programs June 22, 2023 at 11:00 AM PT
Curated by: The Western Nevada Development District…
This edition of Five for Friday focuses on opportunities for economic development around the region in the areas of STEM training, technology, infrastructure, and arts and culture.
Grant Opportunities & More
Building STEM Talent Training Systems to Strengthen Regional Innovation Economies
Applications are now being accepted by the Economic Development Administration for the FY23 STEM Talent Challenge. The funding opportunity makes $4.5 million available to eligible entities to create and implement STEM talent development strategies to complement their region’s innovation economy.
Projects should include training models that provide workers with the experience and skills they need to succeed in real-world job situations and to identify opportunities in high-growth potential sectors.
This can include: • Engaging regional entrepreneurs, innovators, and the organizations that support them to assess and forecast current and future talent needs and to develop collaborative solutions with work-based programs. • Building highly skilled talent and connecting it to highly technical opportunities that foster professional development and provide continuing advanced skills training to develop the technical and scientific workforce. • Strengthening collaboration among entrepreneurs, industry leaders and employers, educational organizations, established corporations, economic and/or workforce development organizations, and the public sector to develop demand-driven workforce pipelines for the innovation economy. • Placing new employees into immediate job openings with regional employers in need of STEM talent. Competition applicants may request up to $500,000 for implementation of a 24-month program. A 1:1 funding match is required.
USDA to Help Build and Improve Water and Wastewater Infrastructure in Rural America
USDA is making grants available under two different programs with similar objectives but differing eligible groups. Nonprofit organizations may apply for funding to create lending programs to help rural homeowners build, refurbish, and service water wells and individually owned household wastewater systems. In a separate program, private nonprofits can apply for funding to help public entities build and improve water and wastewater disposal systems in rural areas. Both programs are designed for grant recipients to create revolving loan funds for water and wastewater needs in rural areas.
Applicants to the Rural Decentralized Water Systems Grant Program may receive grants to provide up to $15,000 in loans and sub-grant funds to homeowners.
Applicants to the Revolving Funds for Financing Water and Wastewater Projects program may provide up to $200,000 in loans to finance water and wastewater projects.
EDA Tech Hub Program Fact Sheet Now Available: Application Period Opens Soon
The Economic Development Administration’s Tech Hubs Program seeks to strengthen U.S. economic and national security by ensuring the industries of the future—and their good jobs—start, grow, and remain in the United States.
The Tech Hubs Program will make place-based investments in regions with the assets, resources, capacity, and potential to become globally competitive, within a reasonable period of time, in critical technologies and industries. EDA will run this competition with a focus on geographic diversity and equity. Successful proposals will demonstrate a region’s capabilities in, and focus on, its primary technological strength, and its potential for Tech Hubs investments to enable the region to become the global leader in that critical technology area within a decade.
Phase 1 Application Window: Opens late April/early May 2023 and will be open for two months.
Time for Art and Culture: Humanities Projects Funding Now Available
The National Endowment for the Humanities has just opened its next round of funding in the Public Humanities Projects. This program supports projects that bring the ideas of the humanities to life for general audiences through public programming. Projects must engage humanities scholarship to analyze significant themes in disciplines such as history, literature, ethics, and art history. Awards support projects that are intended to reach broad and diverse public audiences in non-classroom settings in the United States. Projects should engage with ideas that are accessible to the general public and employ appealing interpretive formats.
Public Humanities Projects supports projects in three categories at two funding levels (Planning and Implementation): • Exhibitions • Historic Places • Humanities Discussions Proposed projects may include complementary components: for example, a museum exhibition might be accompanied by a website or mobile app.
Planning grants up to $75,000 and implementation grants up to $400,000.
In Case Your Missed It! Nevada Builders Alliance Annual Barbecue
Nevada Builders Alliance hosted their annual barbecue “Meat and Drink 2023” on May 4th at the historic Sutro Tunnel in Dayton, NV. The event was held to support efforts by the Friends of the Sutro Tunnel and the Nevada Builders Foundation to restore the Victorian House at the Tunnel, preserve the site, and make it safe and accessible for visitors.
Over 400 guests fared the cold weather to celebrate the restoration of the first 50 feet of the Tunnel Restoration Project which was rebuilt using Tahoe lumber per Adolph Sutro’s original design. Attendees enjoyed great food, whiskey tasting, and even tried a new local craft beer, the Karma Sutro Pale Ale from the The Fox Brewery.
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Nevada Tourism and Hospitality Industry Sector Value Network and Supply Chain Symposium
Monday, May 15, 2023 9:00 am to 2:00 pm
The University Center for Economic Development and The College of Business at the University of Nevada, Reno invites you to attend a Nevada Tourism and Hospitality Industry Sector Value Network and Supply Chain Symposium on Monday, May 15, 2023 from 9:00am to 2:00pm.
Graduate students in The College’s BADM 779.1001 Spring 2023 course, Graduate Seminar in Logistics and Supply Chain Management, have completed a comprehensive assessment and mapping of the value network and supply chain of Nevada’s Tourism and Hospitality industry sector. Their findings, including an assessment of identified gaps and targeted community and economic development approaches designed to address those gaps will be presented during the symposium.
Elected and appointed officials, local, state, and federal government officials, representatives of various community and economic development organizations, private sector representatives from the broader Tourism and Hospitality sector, and even various non-profit and community-based organizations are invited to attend and participate.
When: Monday, May 15, 2023 9:00 am: Continental breakfast 10:00 to 1:00 pm: Symposium 1:00 to 2:00 pm: Luncheon
Where: Joe Crowley Student Union, UNR Main Campus The Theater (Room 309)
Cost: FREE – Space is limited. You must register. Continental breakfast, refreshments and lunch included
RSVP by Friday, May 5, 2023, 5 pm Fred Steinmann Director of the University Center for Economic Development, UNR 775.784.1655 Fred@unr.edu
Curated by: The Western Nevada Development District…
This edition of Five for Friday focuses on opportunities for economic development around the region in the areas of business cooperatives, entrepreneurship, infrastructure, cultural development and clean energy.
Grant Opportunities & More
USDA Grants to Strengthen Rural Cooperatives and Expand Access to New and Better Markets
The Rural Cooperative Development Grant program improves the economic condition of rural areas by helping individuals and businesses start, expand or improve rural cooperatives and other mutually-owned businesses through Cooperative Development Centers. Grants up to $200,000 are awarded through a national competition. Each fiscal year, applications are requested through a notice published in the Federal Register.
Nonprofit corporations and institutions of higher education are eligible to apply for this program. Public bodies, cooperatives, for-profit business and individuals are NOT eligible. A Center can be in any area, but the individuals and business assisted must be located in an eligible rural area.
Examples of technical assistance and other services the Centers provide are:
• Conducting feasibility studies • Developing business plans • Providing leadership and operational improvement training • Facilitating strategic planning
Empowering Entrepreneurship: Nevada Ecosystem Assessment and Plan April 2023
EDAWN in partnership with the Nevada Governor’s Office of Economic Development, Las Vegas Global Economic Alliance, and America’s SBDC of Nevada came together to conduct a comprehensive assessment and strategy for empowering entrepreneurship in Nevada in order to foster economic growth, vitality, and stability.
The assessment, commissioned by GOED, was conducted by Entrepreneurial Communities, a team of experts who interviewed hundreds of stakeholders across the state, including entrepreneurs, investors, policymakers, and educators, to assess the areas for improvement within the entrepreneurial ecosystem and recommend implementation strategies.
Funding Available to Help Rural Communities Improve Water and Wastewater Infrastructure
Whether you need to build, expand, or renovate your system, USDA’s Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grant Program has funds available.
Program Highlights:
• Projects must be in a rural area with a population of 10,000 or less • Eligible applicants may be public bodies, nonprofits, or Federally-recognized Tribes • Low interest rate funding can be combined with grants to keep user costs reasonable • Longer financing terms are available with typical projects financed over 40 years
Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation Grants Support Wide Range of Nonprofit Activities
The Max and Victoria Dreyfus Foundation supports worthwhile activities for which nonprofit organizations have made their best case for receiving funding. Funding is provided for specific projects/activities and operating support.
The Foundation will consider:
• Museums, cultural, and performing arts programs • Schools • Hospitals • Educational and skills training programs • Programs for youth, seniors, and the handicapped • Environmental and wildlife protection activities • Support for the homeless and other community-based organizations and their programs
Eligible applicants are IRS-qualified 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations located within the United States.
Charging and Fueling Infrastructure Grants: Community Charging
The US Department of Transportation Community Charging grants are made available annually to install electric vehicle charging and alternative fuel in locations on public roads, schools, parks, and in publicly accessible parking facilities. These grants will be prioritized for rural areas, low-and moderate-income neighborhoods, and communities with low ratios of private parking, or high ratios of multi-unit dwellings.
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$20 million in Technical Assistance Funding Available
The newly announced Broadband Technical Assistance (BTA) Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) has been published in the Federal Register. The $20 million available for BTA is made possible by funding the USDA Rural Utilities Service (RUS) received in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
BTA refers to activities that support broadband expansion into rural areas and may include:
• Project planning and community engagement • Financial sustainability • Environmental compliance • Construction planning and engineering • Accessing federal resources • Data collection and reporting
The RUS is accepting applications from broadband technical assistance providers, recipients, and entities proposing projects that would support the growth or expansion of a broadband cooperative that would serve rural communities.
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$20 million in Technical Assistance Funding is Available to Plan High-Speed Internet Projects in Rural Communities
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) has announced the $20 million Broadband Technical Assistance (BTA) grant program to deliver broadband technical assistance resources for rural communities, and to support the development and expansion of broadband cooperatives.
Funds can be used to promote broadband expansion in eligible rural areas and include activities such as project planning and community engagement, operations, financial sustainability, environmental compliance, construction and engineering planning, accessing federal resources.
Grant awards range from $50,000, to the maximum award amount of $1 million.
Who can apply?
Eligible applicants include:
• Federally recognized Tribes and Tribal entities • State or local governments, including agencies and subdivisions, among others • Territories or possessions of the United States • Institutions of higher education (including 1862 Land-Grant Institutions, 1890 Land-Grant Institutions, 1994 Land-Grant Institutions, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities) • Nonprofit organizations with 501(c)(3) IRS status • Cooperatives or mutual organizations • Corporations • Limited Liability Companies or Limited Liability Partnerships
BTA Funding Opportunity Announcement Webinar: May 8, 2023, 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM PT
BTA Funding Opportunity Announcement Webinar for Tribes and Tribal Entities: May 18, 2023, 10:00 AM to 11:00 AM PT
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