Impact of Vermont Futures Project Data

We are pleased to recognize other initiatives utilizing Vermont Futures Project data to guide their work, and promote shared goals:

Lyle Jepson and Mary Cohen of the Rutland Regional Marketing Initiative report, “The Vermont Futures Project has been instrumental in informing us about the dire need to attract people to our region. It is because of this important data that we have formalized a plan to address the declining population. To do this we launched our RealRutland marketing initiative.”

The Vermont Legislature relied upon our data in their work on last year’s Economic Development Bill addressing housing and workforce (S.135) and this year’s effort to create an Older Vermonters Act working group (H.608). The Agency of Commerce and Community Development highlighted the Vermont Futures Project’s data dashboard in the State’s Economic Development Marketing Plan (pg. 55).

Jane Campbell, the Executive Director of Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility said, “The Vermont Futures Project provides critical benchmarks for Vermont’s workforce supply gap. Without sound data to compare against, analysis of VBSR’s workforce development initiatives and programs is without context. VBSR supports the work of the Vermont Futures Project to develop and monitor metrics as we work toward sustainable economic growth for the state and prosperity for all Vermonters.”

Executive Director of the Vermont Sustainable Jobs Fund, Ellen Kahler, cited Vermont Futures Project data in a recent Burlington Free Press op-ed (also available through VSJB’s newsfeed) highlighting how the lack of Vermont workers is impacting our food networks. Ellen also offered her endorsement of our work during the Vermont Chamber’s Economic Conference, stating, “By diving deep into hard data and then ground truthing that data with hundreds of business owners and economic development professionals, the Vermont Futures Project has helped to focus our collective attention on the magnitude and urgency of our current labor force development challenge. Grounding public policy discussions in good data is so important. And their dashboard will help us to visually monitor our progress over time.”

Amanda Dagg O’Brien and Laura Pierce highlighted Vermont Futures Project data in their opening remarks for the 2017 Vermont Young Professionals Summit back in September. Amanda commented, “Our goal with this year’s Summit is to help build even more momentum around initiatives that will help young professionals thrive in Vermont today, as well as foster sustainable economic growth for Vermont tomorrow. One group that we wanted to draw your attention to is the Vermont Futures Project. With rigor and enthusiasm they have worked to highlight and quantify the demographic challenges Vermont faces. They estimate 10,000 new workers will be needed annually to maintain economic growth in the state. They have also set ambitious targets to help plan for a sustainable and prosperous future—such as growing the number of mid-sized businesses by 25% and getting Vermont to the Top 10 for median household income. Our hope is that events like today will serve as one step towards achieving those targets, by sending you back to your personal and professional communities with actionable strategies to help reach these goals.”