Big Impacts, Small Towns

Outdoor recreation is multi-faceted and encompasses activities, events, and the businesses that support people being active outside. Economies can be strengthened by capitalizing on outdoor recreation for non-resident travel, entrepreneurship opportunities, and quality of life focused workforce and business recruitment. Great Falls, Montana, is rich with outdoor recreation opportunities and...

Investments in early childhood development (ECD) programs can have a substantial impact on economic development and children’s future. Long-term research studies show that investments in high-quality ECD programs can yield annual inflation-adjusted returns as high as $16 returned for every $1 invested, particularly for children from disadvantaged environments. In addition,...

Traditional blight removal programs often operate separately and in isolation from overall economic development efforts. Although valuable, such programs gain limited impact from their investment. Economic development and blight removal programs that work in collaboration, especially those that include and sustain wealth building tactics over several years, are found to...