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Connecting community assets to market demand to build lasting livelihoods.

Trainings

Want to coordinate a training event?

We strongly recommend coordinating a training through a local hub or a hub with specialized knowledge in a specific sector. Find contact information for your local hub or a hub with your sector specialization.

If a local hub is not available, use the list on this page of organizations and individuals working on a national level.

Questions? Write us!

WealthWorks hubs and trainers are available to offer assistance to you, your organization and your community as you explore the principles and practices of WealthWorks. Trainings build on tested methodologies and tools and can be adapted to your specific situation. Here are some examples of when you might want to hold a group training:

  1. If you have identified a range of partners (for profits, businesses, agencies and local government) who are working or want to work in the same space or sector, this training would get them on the same page and help them identify who is in the room, what they bring to the table, and what is missing, and help develop ways to collaborate and communicate. Similarly, if you work with a number of organizations and/or businesses that are working independently, but could reduce individual risk and increase economies of scale, you might bring them together.
  2. If you are a community economic development organization and you want your staff to use this approach to doing economic development differently. If your staff is small, consider inviting a neighboring economic development organization or others doing community economic development work.
  3. If you want to promote economic diversification across a region build on local assets, and deep change in a place, you may hold a training for lead organizations to learn the approach and then mobilize others to engage (train the trainers).

Training Topics

WealthWorks trainings can be customized to cover a range of topics: exploring values, defining wealth, exploring assumptions, systems thinking, wealth building strategies, value chains – mapping, identifying and addressing value chain gaps, building relationships with demand, roles of coaches and coordinators, value chain selection and translating the concepts.

Get Started

  1. We strongly recommend coordinating a training through a local hub or a hub with specialized knowledge in a specific sector. Find contact information for your local hub or a hub with your sector specialization.
  2. If a local hub is not available, consider reaching out to one of these professionals:

Email:
melissa@community-roots.com

Organization:
Community Roots, LLC

Details:
Community Roots, LLC is a Vermont firm specializing in rural community and economic development consulting. Melissa Levy of Community Roots, LLC has been working with the WealthWorks framework over the past several years. She’s been a trainer, coach, workshop facilitator, and presenter in the WealthWorks community.

Email:
nylasg35@hotmail.com

Organization:
McIntosh S.E.E.D.

Details:
Works nationwide, but most in the South: Alabama, Georgia and Mississippi; Interested in agriculture, local foods, and education.

Email:
barbarawyckoff1@gmail.com

Organization:
Creative Disruptors

Details:
Barbara Wyckoff, Dynamica Consulting, provides training and consults with communities from Alaska to Wisconsin in WealthWorks. She focuses on: identifying emerging sectors, exploration of value chain systems, strategies for engaging potential partners and enhancing communications, and deep dives with social enterprises to fill gaps, including value chain coordinators.

Specialties: Local Food, Placemaking, Renewable Energy

States served: Minnesota

Additional details: Enhancing the vitality and quality of life in Cass, Crow Wing, Morrison, Todd and Wadena counties is the mission of Region Five Development Commission. Resiliency, inclusion and collaboration are guiding concepts in achieving mutually shared goals that continue to evolve with local municipalities, state, federal, philanthropic, non-profit and social advocacy agencies.

Contact: Cheryal Lee Hills, 218-894-3233

Mailing address:
200 1st Street NE, Suite 2
Staples, MN 56479

Alternative contact: Dawn Espe, 218-894-3233

Website: http://www.regionfive.org

Specialties: Food, Forestry/wood products, Tourism

States served: Idaho, Oregon, Washington

Additional details: RDI was formed in 1991 in response to the timber industry crisis facing the Pacific Northwest. Our nationally recognized programs and services help communities help themselves with effective and results-oriented training and resources necessary for individuals living in rural communities to build and sustain a better future in their communities. Our work is based upon our genuine commitment to build rural capacity through Leadership Development programs and strengthen Rural Economic Vitality through moving capacity into action.

Contact: Amy Hause, (541) 255-9590

Mailing address:
Rural Development Initiatives
91017 S Willamette St
Coburg, Oregon 97408

Alternative contact: Heidi Khokhar, (541) 684-9077 ext. 7011

Website: http://www.rdiinc.org/

Specialties: Food, Forestry/wood products, Housing, Tourism

States served: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, Wyoming

Region details: RCAC serves 13 western states including: Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Utah, Washington, and Wyoming. We also work in the U.S. territories of the Marianas Islands, Marshall Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Additional details: RCAC Value Chains, economic development and Wealth Works are embedded in RCAC’s Building Rural Economies program. With over 10 years of experience in these arenas we technically assist communities who wish to envision and create their future.

Contact:
Carol Cohen, 435-671-7068

Mailing address:
3120 Freeboard Drive
Suite 201
West Sacramento, CA 95691

Alternative contact: Ellen Drew, (575) 421-0261

Website: http://www.rcac.org/community-economic-development/wealthworks-west

Specialties: Energy efficiency

States served: Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming

Additional details: Midwest Assistance Program (MAP) has been helping communities and tribal nations find solutions to their infrastructure and development needs through information, resource management, expertise, and technical assistance since 1979.

Contact: Chris Fierrros, 660-562-2575

Mailing address:
303 N Market Street, Suite 2
Maryville, MO 64468

Website: http://www.map-inc.org

Specialties: Bio-energy, Food

States served: Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas

Region details: Communities Unlimited serves seven southern states: Arkansas, Mississippi, Tennessee. Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Alabama. This is an area that includes 60% of this country’s persistently poor counties, including large percentages of African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans.

Additional details: Communities Unlimited has 40 years of community economic development experience in the South. It seeks to move rural and under-resourced places toward prosperity by identifying a community’s assets and the market demand for the products or services created from those. We then build value chain collaboratives based on WealthWorks principles to create new economic opportunities. Since 2013, we are demonstrating the success of this approach through a farm-to-fuel value chain in the Arkansas Delta.

Primary Contact:
Martha Claire Bullen, 479-443-2700

Alternative Contact:
Ines Polonius

Mailing address:
3 East Colt Square Drive
Fayetteville, AR 72703

Alternative contact: Debbie Luther, 870-509-1331

Website: https://www.communitiesu.org

Specialties: Arts, Food, Forestry/wood products, Tourism

States served: Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Vermont

Additional details: Community Roots, LLC is a Vermont firm specializing in rural community and economic development consulting. Melissa Levy of Community Roots, LLC has been working with the WealthWorks framework over the past several years. She’s been a trainer, coach, workshop facilitator, and presenter in the WealthWorks community.

Contact: Melissa Levy, 802-318-1720

Location: Hinesburg, VT

Website: http://www.community-roots.com/wealthworks

Specialties: Arts, Energy efficiency, Food, Forestry/wood products, Manufacturing, Tourism

States served: Kentucky, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia

Additional details: The Central Appalachian Network is a regional network of six anchor organizations that pursue collective sustainable economic development strategies across the Appalachian region of Ohio, West Virginia, Kentucky, Virginia, and Tennessee. CAN builds regional partnerships and also works deeply at the sub-regional level around sectors and opportunities including local food value chains, forestry, new energy, small business development, social enterprise, recycling/upcycling, implementation-focused research, advocacy, and organizational capacity-building. CAN’s members are Appalachian Center for Economic Networks (ACEnet), Appalachian Sustainable Development (ASD), Coalfield Development Corporation, Community Farm Alliance (CFA), Mountain Association for Community Economic Development (MACED), Natural Capital Investment Fund (NCIF), and Rural Action.

Contact: Leslie Schaller, 740-592-3854

Mailing address:
1456 C Patton Avenue
Asheville, NC 28806

Website: https://www.cannetwork.org