Seeking Economic Development Practitioners to Volunteer Professional Services for Disaster Impacted Communities

Many members have asked IEDC how they can help to assist communities recently impacted by Hurricane Sandy. There are also requests from communities still in the long-term recovery phase from disasters that occurred in 2010 and 2011. In response, IEDC is sending out a call for members to volunteer their professional expertise in economic recovery to disaster-impacted communities. Opportunities could include serving as a panel team of advisors to provide technical assistance services, being deployed for a week stint to work on a particular recovery task, speaking on a webinar, or providing training assistance. Volunteers could be asked to serve as little as a few hours from their home base or up to 1 to 2 weeks in a community – depending on the assignment. IEDC or our partners will cover the cost of travel expenses. Volunteers have the opportunity to provide valuable peer-review and practitioner-oriented advice to these severely impacted communities. These volunteers also help to play a key role in expanding capacity at a time when organizational resources are exhausted. For those who have a CEcD, volunteering your time for an assignment could mean you are eligible to receive CEcD credit of Level II recertification points. For those interested, please click here to complete a brief online survey where you can provide details of your expertise and interest. Completing this survey does not obligate you to provide any volunteer assistance but helps IEDC to follow up. Thank you for your generosity and concern.