North Olympic Peninsula CEDS Completed

This year, I had the pleasure of working with colleagues at Rural Development Initiatives (RDI) in Oregon on a project in Washington’s North Olympic Peninsula. The idea was to help develop a new comprehensive economic development strategy (CEDS) using a wealth creation approach. The Economic Development Administration (EDA) has recognized the wealth creation approach as a valuable one for planning and measurement around CEDS. There are several regional development organizations using the wealth creation approach in their own CEDS documents, especially in measuring impacts of economic development strategies. The community capitals can be useful in undertaking the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats) analysis.

This work involved surveys, interviews, virtual workshops, and even some onsite workshops. Yes, the North Olympic Peninsula is beautiful and, other than flying out there, I truly enjoyed getting to explore a bit.

And our CEDS was just approved by the Economic Development Administration. You can find it here.