2007-08 Diversity Program Development Initiative Grants Announced
Continuing Education, Outreach and E-Learning Extension has announced the recipients of the 2007-2008 Continuing EDvantage Grants. This program offers economic development initiative funding for programs that meet the education and training needs of working adults and support diverse communities that attract and retain talented individuals.
UW-La Crosse
Learning Community of Artists: Making a Living will offer education and management support to artists and art organizations, primarily targeting visual artists. They will teach artists to succeed in arts-related business to grow local economies from within. They hope to recruit 20 to 40 artists and provide them with professional development which will culminate in a capstone project.
Long Term Care Promotion and Recognition seeks to address workforce issues in long term care by:
- Launching a targeted recruitment effort and public awareness campaign,
- Increasing membership in the local workforce coalition, and
- Organizing a visioning roundtable for social inventors, entrepreneurs, and policy makers to explore economic and community development dimension of long term care.Â
UW-Milwaukee/UW-Parkside
Staying Ahead of the Boom will coordinate and host 10 focus groups of small business employers to develop innovative in person, online and hybrid learning opportunities specifically recognizing the needs of employers especially as they relate to the increasing number of retirements they face and the possibility of hiring recent retirees and what types of work environments and conditions those individuals will find attractive.
UW-Parkside
The Root River Environmental Education Community Center: Developing a Business Model that Connects Economic and Ecologic Revitalization of Dowtown Racine will enable UW-Parkside to participate in the revitalization of a facility located in downtown Racine into an urban environmental education and outreach center. In combination with other grants, they want to link the economic health of the city and the river in a distressed neighborhood with the hopes of using the site for environmental and educational activities focused on the river. The grant will support strategic planning, development of a business plan and continuing education programming.
UW-Platteville
âLocal Fare: Cultivating Southwest Wisconsinâs Home-Grown Networksâ will link local food producers and businesses in networks that will provide an identity and visibility that doesnât currently exist. The project will attempt to link participants in local farmerâs markets with statewide food focused networks on a sub-regional basis to explore possibilities for collaboration such as regional processing, marketing and distribution outlets.
UW-Whitewater
Community Innovation for Economic Development will support research and development of a planned Community Innovation process by the Center for Innovation and Business Development and the initiation of the implementation process in Milton, Wisconsin to allow it to prepare for highway bypass construction that will begin in 2010. Once the Community Innovation process is developed, tested and refined, it can be applied throughout Wisconsin by other SBDC service centers to strengthen the local economy.