Recommendations for Getting Started on your community economic development plan
1. Build a Community Brand
Just like a company consciously develops its brand to market its assets (its products or services), a community can develop a brand to market its community assets. Think of your favorite city or town to visit. What makes it unique? Nearly 60 million tourists visit “The Big Apple” each year to experience life in “the city that never sleeps.” New York City has been featured in countless films and books and has developed a strong brand over time that make it a popular worldwide destination. Similarly, the small community of Santa Fe attracts 1.5 million tourists each year who are drawn to its unique adobe architecture, its many galleries, and celebration of art culture.
Just as New York and Santa Fe have deliberately architected a brand, Navajo communities can too. Ask yourself and your community members: What are my community's best assets? What attracts, or could attract, people to our community? What will keep people in our community or coming back to our community? The answers to these questions are the essence of your community brand.
2. Improve the factors affecting business climate
As previously mentioned, the small business community is the backbone of any economy. Too often we assume that Walmart or big box stores will solve our economic problems. While big box stores might increase sales tax revenue in a community, key studies show that they frequently shutter local businesses. While big box stores can create jobs in the community, studies have found that big-box retailers, particularly Wal-Mart, are depressing wages and benefits for retail employees. In fact, counties that have gained Wal-Mart stores have fared worse in terms of family poverty rates.
An alternative to an investment in big box retailers is to invest in what makes your community unique – its local entrepreneurs and business owners. Here are known strategies for improving the business climate in your community.
3. Create a Welcoming Small Town Life
Focus on the quality of life that will attract and retain a workforce. Given the fact that many Navajo communities are remote, address lifestyle challenges by providing community and family amenities, community facilities, shopping opportunities, ways to access quality education, and accessible childcare.
Ask yourself and your community: What career opportunities and paths are available in our community? Can community members access reliable transit to major hubs? Is internet connectivity strong enough to foster online retail and professional service businesses?
4. Coordinate your economic plans and goals with nearby Chapters or work together at the Agency level
While your community may be too small to attract specific industries to your town, a group of Chapters working together could. As an example, the National Park Service has conducted focus groups that reveal cyclists desire a trail system on the Navajo Nation. A group of Chapters could collaborate to develop a trail system that links their communities, which would increase the exposure for each town along the trail system and create local opportunities for bike repair, bike retail, lodging, and food services.
Similarly, many communities possess buildings and structures in disrepair. Many of the buildings are inaccessible to Chapters due to jurisdiction. To redevelop or remediate these buildings and structures into community assets or commercial opportunities requires coordination at a regional, or even State level. Chapters will have a greater chance of success if they coordinate and work together.
Coordinate and align your goals and metrics for job growth or sales tax revenue with nearby Chapters. To’Nanees’Dizi Local Government and Kayenta Township currently set their own sales tax rate, which doesn’t necessarily align with the Navajo Nation sales tax rate. This creates an enormous burden on Navajo business owners, who must now collect different sales tax rates for the different communities they operate in. Similarly, Kayenta Township has a business license specific to Kayenta, but the license isn’t valid in Tuba City or on the Navajo Nation. This creates a compliance burden on business owners who want to do business in multiple communities. Coordinating your regulatory activity with Chapters to design an environment that supports business owners, instead of increasing the burden on them, will attract business to your community.
5. Build capacity to access funding to improve economic development
Improving economic development in your community will likely require a financial investment. Chapters can often run into a chicken and egg problem. Since businesses drive sales tax revenue that support community development, how can a community develop if it doesn’t derive much sales tax revenue? Chapters should anticipate that additional funds will need to be raised to achieve goals. EDA, USDA, the National Endowment of the Arts, and other federal agencies provide a number of grants each year to rural communities who seek to improve economic development. Grant amounts range from $10,000 to millions of dollars. Building your Chapter’s ability to apply for grant funding and successfully manage a grant is an imperative skill. Not only do you need a person who can write a successful grant proposal, you also need people who know how to use Grants.gov, how to complete an SF-424, and how to comply with quarterly grant reporting requirements. These are not difficult skills to learn, but it requires Chapters to make the commitment to build that capacity.
