If you are unaware of the Economic Development Council of the Bloomington-Normal Area’s One Voice program, you may be missing out on a very important opportunity. One Voice is our government advocacy program in which we support local projects in their quests for federal funding. Each year, the One Voice task force (comprised of local government, business, education, labor and other community leaders) convenes several meetings where local municipalities/educational institutions/other community organizations present projects for which they are requesting federal appropriations. The One Voice task force chooses 4-6 projects to officially support for the year. Each March, the EDC and a group of 30+ community leaders travel together to Washington, D.C. in order to present these projects to our elected officials and advocate for their financial support.

One Voice, now entering its 5^th year, has become well-known by our congressional delegation and is often referred to as a “best practice” for seeking federal appropriations. To date, we have helped local entities secure over $2.5 million in federal funding (over $24.5 million with the recent TIGER grant allocated to the Town of Normal for the Multi-Modal Transportation Center).

Due to the rising popularity of this program, we are changing the way we manage the One Voice project submittal process. For the 2011 One Voice program and beyond, all applicant projects will need to go through a screening and development process in conjunction with the EDC. EDC staff will now be working with each entity submitting a project to develop a rigorous and objective “argument” for every project. This argument will include a full analysis of the project’s potential economic development impacts, its risks, feasibility and financial picture. The outcome will be a comparative report for each proposed project for the One Voice Task Force’s review. The EDC believes our new process will ultimately provide our elected officials with better-vetted projects with stronger arguments and objective metrics.

Because this process will be much more involved than in prior years, the deadline for project submission has been moved forward. The EDC highly recommends that all entities seeking to submit a project for the 2011 year attend an informational session to be held on Wednesday, April 14^th, 2010 from 8:30-10:30 a.m. in the Heartland Bank & Trust (formerly Bank of Illinois) Community Room (200 W. College Ave., Uptown Normal – Parking is available in the deck next to the building.) This session will detail the steps required by the new process and will give potential applicants a chance to ask questions of EDC staff. All potential One Voice projects must be submitted to the EDC by August 1, 2010 in order to be considered for the 2011 Washington, D.C. trip – NO EXCEPTIONS.

Please RSVP for the informational session to Brooke Weishaupt at brooke@bnbiz.org or 309-452-8437 by Monday, April 12^th.