Vermont Council on Rural Development
A VCRD Community Director will coordinate community efforts by providing on-the-ground leadership in communications, building local community teams and implementing priority projects.
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The Vermont Council on Rural Development is leading a team of eight other non-profits who will work with rural communities around the state to improve the ways they use broadband, for everything from strengthening business plans to engaging more citizens in local government. The approach in Vermont is unique, it combines:
- Helping towns choose priority projects that will engage all community members in using broadband. All Vermont Council on Rural Development projects are community-led.
- Bringing in teams of resource people to help implement those priorities.
- Developing local programs and services that offer compelling reasons for Vermonters to subscribe, and stay subscribed, when broadband becomes available.
- Building a better business case for broadband in rural areas by proving that these regions can have high subscription rates.
The Vermont Council on Rural Development (VCRD) draws on more than a decade of experience in community organizing to achieve e-Vermont goals. In the past, VCRD has led community visits, which address a broad range of community issues, as well as targeted programs for particular aspects of rural life, such as the creative economy. The e-Vermont Community Broadband Project blends the models developed in this earlier work with a new phase of leading partner organizations through implementation of projects selected as community priorities. VCRD also has broadband-specific experience through years of work on aggregation models to bring affordable high speed access to the Northeast Kingdom with the Rural Broadband Project.
As the lead partner in the e-Vermont project, VCRD has a variety of responsibilities.
- Two e-Vermont Community Directors work directly with e-Vermont communities to establish priority projects then move forward with implementation, coordinating with the services of partner organizations. Each director will work with a total of 12 communities over the two years.
- The e-Vermont Project Director manages the overall process and is responsible for ensuring that all of the goals established in the federal grant are completed on time.
- VCRD staff also manage the finances of the project and, through a contract with Flywheel Communications, pursue an aggressive outreach campaign.
The Vermont Council on Rural Development is excited to be leading a team of strong partners in a project that will shape the future of broadband in Vermont.
