Committees
Community and Economic Development
The Community and Economic Development (CED) Committee connects EDEN with Cooperative Extension professionals working in community planning, economic resilience, and disaster readiness across all phases of disasters.
Committee focus areas include:
Supporting disaster preparedness, response, recovery, and mitigation in communities
Promoting best practices in disaster planning and community engagement
Facilitating all-hazard planning and integrating disaster education into community and economic development programming
Supporting tools and initiatives such as Ready Business, Ready Community, and Community Organizations Active in Disasters (COADs)
Enhancing impact reporting through shared resources and evaluation tools
Accomplishments
Over the past several years, the Community and Economic Development Committee has worked together to share, expand, and create programming in disaster education. Focusing on the strengths of committee membership, programs have linked to Regional and National Extension Programming Models to ensure that EDEN delegates who use the materials will be able to report impacts consistent with federal reporting requirements.
CED Committee members have been active in delivering many disaster preparedness workshops, including the EDEN Curriculum, “Ready Business.” This workshop was developed in partnership with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and can be delivered in a 2-3 hour timeframe. Designed for small businesses, the content can also be used for not-for-profit agencies, and it walks participants through the process of developing a continuity of operations disaster plan. This program can be delivered as a stand-alone program or as part of a larger community effort in disaster preparedness.
Since many CED Committee members are well versed in participatory planning processes, it is natural for the CED Committee to have many related activities in their repertoire. These include the “Ready Community” process for community planning; Extension-led development of Community Organizations Active in Disasters (COADS); and many other localized planning processes. Information on these programs are available on the EDEN website, with the localized planning processes shared as a courtesy among PAWG Members.
With the large number of disaster related activities and programs going on across the nation tied to CED work, the CED Committee developed a tool to collect impact measures across the EDEN CED delegates. Designed specifically for CED processes and programs, this tool allows the CED Committee to aggregate the impact delegates contribute on a national scale. The impact indicators align with regional indicators, but they also expand to include both population and geographic numbers to indicate the magnitude of planning processes.
Membership
The Community and Economic Development Committee invites any Extension professional with an interest in community and economic development to join our group. To join, send an email to the CED Committee Chair, the National EDEN Project Coordinator, your state Point of Contact, or any other EDEN delegate. We will add you to the email group, and you will be set. If you are not a delegate yet, contact your state POC to get that process started; you can join the conversation before becoming an official delegate.
