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Monday Mailing

Year 22 • Issue 27 28 March 2016 1.

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National Small Business Week - Virtual Conference, May 1-3rd.

OMB Publishes Free Online Grants Management Training Top 5 takeaways from Smart Cities Connect 2018 How Blockchain Technology Could Make Zoning Work for People TGM Education and Outreach Grants Strategic 5 Ways Nonprofits Struggle (And How to Overcome Them) Eleven Signs a City Will Succeed Pedestrian & Bicyclist Safety Information Search Tool Change Food Video Library Building a Connected City from the Ground Up Announcements of Federal Funding & Assistance Available

1. National Small Business Week - Virtual Conference, May 1-3rd.

The U.S. Small Business Administration and SCORE Association will host a free, 3-Day Virtual Conference during National Small Business Week. The conference will take place Tuesday, May 1 – Thursday, May 3 between 12:30 pm ET - 6:30 pm ET each day. Registration is free to the public. A schedule of live events will be sent to registrants via email.

Participate in this free, online conference to listen to practiced advice on current business strategies, meet other business owners, and chat with industry experts! The Virtual Conference offers all the best parts of an in-person conference, but without the hassle of traveling.

Quote of the Week: "They always say time changes things, but you actually have to change them yourself." ~Andy Warhol Oregon Fast Fact: The total elevation, in feet, of the Three Sisters is 30,490 feet. Each of the three peaks is over 10,000 feet in elevation. The South Sister is the tallest at 10,358 feet, while the Middle and North Sisters are 10,047 and 10,085 feet respectively.

For session information and registration, click here.

2. OMB Publishes Free Online Grants Management Training Do you want the grants training for federal grant managers? The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) initially developed the Grants 101 Training for federal government employees, but now these eLearning modules are available as a resource for you.

This grants training is comprised of five modules, most of which contain multiple online lessons: 1.

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Laws, Regulations, and Guidance Financial Assistance Mechanisms Uniform Guidance Administrative Requirements Cost Principles Risk Management and Single Audit

To access the Grants 101 Training, click here.

3. Top 5 takeaways from Smart Cities Connect 2018 The 2018 Smart Cities Connect conference in Kansas City, MO brought together officials from various levels of government as well as those in business and academia, all to discuss the evolution of smart cities and what communities can do to stay at the forefront of that evolution.

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Organizers estimated nearly 2,000 attendees joined the discussion over three days, with more than 400 cities from the United States and across the world represented. They listened to keynote addresses and panel discussions on a variety of topics, including autonomous vehicles (AVs), data, blockchain and infrastructure. And businesses had the chance to showcase their smart city technology, both in the conference’s expo and on stage with live demonstrations.

Here are five trends Smart Cities Dive identified from the speeches and panel discussions at the event, as well as from interviews with stakeholders.

To access the full story, click here.

4. How Blockchain Technology Could Make Zoning Work for People Picture this: A developer owns a plot of land in a gentrifying neighborhood. Under current zoning codes, and with current market incentives, the best bang they could get for their buck is to build high-rise luxury apartments. But this neighborhood doesn’t need luxury apartments. It needs a supermarket, and affordable housing for current, low-income residents. The existing zoning code isn’t designed to consider those needs. It just states that this plot is zoned residential.

Now, a group of researchers are working on a vision for a new type of zoning and a different incentive system that might be able to respond more dynamically to communities’ needs — using machine-learning algorithms, big data, and blockchain, the same technology underlying Bitcoin.

To access the full story, click here.

5. TGM Education and Outreach Grants 1. rolling deadline: TGM Education and Outreach services usually consist of workshops, lecture series, conferences and other public forums. These services are provided at no cost to local governments.

Workshops are tailored to individual communities and address a variety of transportation and landuse issues, including topics like: Active Transportation (health impacts of urban design and transportation networks) • Community design concepts to support economically vibrant, walkable, and livable neighborhoods and downtowns • Complete Street options for making communities more pedestrian-, bicycle-, and transitfriendly • Main Street and downtown revitalization • Parking management TGM also sponsors lecture series and conferences to educate the public and specialized audiences about ways to improve transportation options and community livability. If your community would like to arrange for a TGM workshop or other event, please send TGM a short letter (1-2 pages) covering the following points: • Describe the specific issue or problem that you want the workshop/lecture to address • Provide a brief background statement explaining the context for the proposed workshop/lecture (The statement might identify recent or imminent planning initiatives, recent problems or new challenges, and geographical areas within the community to receive focus.)

• Explain what you want the event to accomplish • Explain how you plan to promote attendance at the workshop, lecture, or other event • Include a letter or resolution from local decision makers -- e.g., planning commission chair, city council, mayor -- showing support for the proposed event

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Send your request to Evan Manvel (evan.manvel@state.or.us). While there are no matching funds required for communities wishing to host an event, communities are asked to do the following: • Provide a location and food/refreshments for the workshop, lecture series, or conference – preferably in or close to downtown – that can accommodate desired audiences and handle PowerPoint or similar presentations • Provide relevant background materials – e.g., local maps, planning documents, etc. – to the TGM consultants.

• Promote the event by putting notices in local newspapers, distributing flyers and through other means.

6. 5 Ways Nonprofits Struggle (And How to Overcome Them) Over a decade ago, Kathleen Kelly Janus, a lecturer with Stanford University’s social entrepreneurship program, cofounded Spark, a San Francisco-based nonprofit aimed at encouraging millennials to crowdsource grants and offer pro bono professional services and investment connections to grassroots women’s organizations. It’s since grown to comprise a donor base of over 10,000 supporters.

But then Kelly, who is also a lawyer who’s done social justice work, spotted another disparity: “We had all this success and we hit a wall, and we couldn’t get the funding that we needed to grow to the next level, to expand to other cities and to deepen our impact in San Francisco,” she says. She researched the concept and realized that about two-thirds of nonprofits encounter a similar roadblock because their annual budgets get stalled below the $500,000 or greater level.

To access the full story, click here.

7. Eleven Signs a City Will Succeed By the time we had been to half a dozen cities, we had developed an informal checklist of the traits that distinguished a place where things seemed to work. These items are obviously different in nature, most of them are subjective, and some of them overlap. But if you tell us how a town measures up based on these standards, we can guess a lot of other things about it. In our experiences, these things were true of the cities, large or small, that were working best: 1. Divisive national politics seem a distant concern. We first traveled during the run-up to the bitter midterm elections of 2014, then while the Supreme Court was ruling on same-sex marriage and Obamacare, and then as the 2016 presidential campaign was gathering steam. Given the places we were visiting, I imagine that many of the people we interviewed were Donald Trump supporters.

But the presidential race just didn’t come up. Cable TV was often playing in the background, most frequently Fox News; if people had stopped to talk about what was on, they might have disagreed with one another and with us. But overwhelmingly the focus in successful towns was not on national divisions but on practical problems that a community could address. The more often national politics came into local discussions, the worse shape the town was in.

To access the full story, click here.

8. Pedestrian & Bicyclist Safety Information Search Tool Welcome to the FHWA Pedestrian & Bicyclist Safety Information Search Tool. By typing in keywords or selecting from the Popular Topics popup, you can search for information from more than 100 reports, guidebooks, and training documents, each of which meets FHWA’s standards of quality. Every page of each resource has been cross-referenced to the search and filter options below. Once you’ve generated a list of resources about your chosen topic, click the “plus” button beside the title to see an overview of the reference and a link to the original source. A quick reference of frequently used acronyms and synonyms Page 3 of 6

is available to help you hone in on the best keywords. A list of all resources in the database is also available. Questions or suggestions? Contact Tamara Redmon, tamara.redmon@dot.gov, (202) 366-4077.

To access the search tool, click here.

9. Change Food Video Library The Change Food Video Library consists of the best short-length videos covering both problems and solutions to food and farming today. Find out more about the video library, or learn how to host your own screening. Want us to consider your video for the library? Email us at changefood@changefood.org.

To access the video library, click here.

10. Building a Connected City from the Ground Up WEYMOUTH, Mass. — Kyle Corkum imagines a “smart city” with futuristic amenities like driverless shuttle services, heated sidewalks and a super-resilient energy grid that keeps humming through the harshest of storms.

As chief executive of LStar Ventures, a developer of planned communities, he has a chance to build the neighborhood of his dreams from the ground up on the site of a long-shuttered naval air station in this town just 12 miles south of Boston’s booming technology hub.

LStar, based in Raleigh, N.C., has enlisted General Electric as its partner. Because they are starting from scratch, Mr. Corkum said, the companies can embed smart technology into the energy, water, lighting and transportation systems that will serve the community.

The project comes at a time when the tech industry is under intense scrutiny. Facebook is struggling with revelations that Cambridge Analytica, a political data firm, improperly harvested private information from 50 million of the social network’s users. And Uber’s travails include a pedestrian death caused by one of its autonomous vehicles last month.

To access the full story, click here.

11. Announcements of Federal Funding & Assistance Available NEW Rural Broadband - USDA Now Accepting Applications for FY 2018 Rural Broadband Access Loans and Loan Guarantees Program On a Rolling Basis.

USDA’s Rural Utilities Service (March 28) announced it is accepting applications for fiscal year (FY) 2018 for the Rural Broadband Access Loans and Loan Guarantees Program (the Broadband Program). RUS will publish on its website https://www.rd.usda.gov/newsroom/notices-solicitationapplications-nosas. RUS is now accepting applications on a rolling basis throughout FY 2018.

Applications will be processed on a first come, first served basis. Every ninety (90) days, RUS will conduct an evaluation of the submitted applications. During the evaluation period, applications will be ranked based on the percentage of unserved households that the applicant proposes to serve. RUS anticipates that it will conduct at least two evaluation periods for FY 2018. Applications can only be submitted online through the RD Apply website at https://www.rd.usda.gov/programs-services/rdapply through September 30, 2018.

Full background man be found at https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2018-03-28/pdf/201806175.pdf NEW Brownfields and Capacity Building : Groundwork USA Funding Opportunity to Assist with Brownfields and Environmental Challenges. Apply by Apr 30

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Groundwork USA, in partnership with NPS and EPA, is now accepting Letters of Interest from communities wishing to begin the process of applying for Groundwork USA program funding and technical assistance and to join the Groundwork Network. The Groundwork Program of the National Park Service (NPS) builds community capacity to improve the environmental, economic and social conditions in communities impacted by brownfields and derelict lands. NPS partners with Groundwork USA to provide the funds to successful applicants and works with Groundwork USA to provide technical assistance to help selected communities create and sustain Trusts. For complete details on the application and selection process, including eligibility requirements, submission details, and evaluation criteria, click here. Applications due April 30, 2018 NEW Innovation and Disaster Resilience - USDA Announces 2019 National Urban and Community Forestry Grant Program –Apply by Apr 30: The U.S. Forest Service anticipates approximately $900,000 in grant funds to be awarded through the 2019 National Urban and Community Forestry Challenge Cost-Share Grant Program. Funds are to support national urban and community forestry projects on nonfederal public land that have a national or multi-state impact and application. This Request for Proposals is to address priority issues within the research needs of the action plan: D: Prepare for Pests, Threats, Natural Disasters and Associated Changes and Risks. More information available here. The grant opportunity number is USDA-FSUCF-01-2019. Applications due April 30, 2018 NEW International Trade : SBA Announces Funding Available to States for Trade Expansion (STEP) – Apply by May 2 SBA’s Office of International Trade (OIT) invite proposals for funding under the FY18 State Trade Expansion Program (STEP), from eligible state entities interested in and capable of providing assistance and guidance to eligible small business concerns to increase the number of such firms that export and the value of small business exports. The objective of STEP is to increase the number of US small businesses that export, to increase the dollar value of exports, and new export opportunities. Applicants can apply for awards ranging from $100,000 (minimum) to $900,000 (maximum). Details on funding allocations, match requirements, eligible activities and other instructions are posted at Grants.gov under Funding Opportunity Number: OIT-STEP-2018-01

Rural Energy - USDA Announces Funds Available for Rural Energy for America (REAP)

Program. Disaster Areas Eligible. Apply by Apr 30.

The Rural Business-Cooperative Service within the Department of Agriculture has issued a Solicitation of Applications (NOSA) prior to passage of a final appropriations act to allow potential applicants time to submit applications for financial assistance under Rural Energy for America Program (REAP) for Federal Fiscal Year (FY) 2018, and give the Agency time to process applications within the current fiscal year.

The REAP has two types of funding assistance: (1) Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficiency Improvements Assistance, and (2) Energy Audit and Renewable Energy Development Assistance Grants.

The Renewable Energy Systems and Energy Efficiency Improvement Assistance provides grants and guaranteed loans to agricultural producers and rural small businesses to purchase and install renewable energy systems and make energy efficiency improvements to their operations. Noted among the criteria for selection: • Projects owned by a veteran; • Projects owned by a member of a socially-disadvantaged group including Federally declared disaster areas; • The proposed project is located in an impoverished area, has experienced long-term population decline, or loss of employment.

The application closing date for this cycle is April 30. Application materials may be obtained by contacting one of Rural Development’s Energy Coordinators, as identified via the following link:

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https://www.rd.usda.gov/files/RBS_StateEnergyCoordinators.pdf. For more information, see: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2018-03-13/pdf/2018-05008.pdf Or view Funding Opportunity Number RDBCP-REAP-EEI-2018 on Grants.gov.

Rural Utilities - USDA’s Rural Utilities Service (RUS) Invites Applications for FY18 Community Connect Grants. Proposals Due May 14.

The purpose of the Community Connect Grant Program is to provide financial assistance in the form of grants to eligible applicants that will provide service at the Broadband Grant Speed to all premises in currently unserved, lower-income, and extremely rural areas. RUS will give priority to rural areas that demonstrate the greatest need for broadband services, based on defined criteria. The Agency will publish the amount of funding received in any continuing resolution or the final appropriations act on its website at https://www.rd.usda.gov/newsroom/notices-solicitation-applications-nosas.

The deadline for proposals is May 14. View announcement in Grants.gov at: RDRUS-CC-2018 See: https://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2018-03-15/pdf/2018-05200.pdf Rural Businesses - USDA Announces $89M in Grants Available to Support Specialty Crops,

Local Food Systems and New Markets for Farmers and Ranchers. Apply by May 24 USDA’s Agricultural Marketing Service (AMS) has announced nearly $89 million in available funding to support specialty crop growers, strengthen local and regional food systems, and explore new market opportunities for farmers and ranchers.

• $72M avail under the Specialty Crop Block Grant Program (SCBGP). States must submit SCBGP applications electronically through www.grants.gov by May 24, 2018.

• $26M avail under the Farmers Market (FMPP) and Local Food Promotion Programs (LFPP).

Applications for FMPP and LFPP must be submitted by May 7, 2018.

• $1M avail under the Federal-State Marketing Improvement Program (FSMIP). Applications due by May 7 2018.

For more information about these programs, visit the AMS Grants & Opportunities web page and learn more about eligibility and grant uses at What AMS Grant is Right for Me?

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