Rather than the normal Editorial or Guest Article in this spot, I’m simply going to reprint a March 16, 2020 Press Release that has been issued by RECONOMICS Institute. The title of the release is “RECONOMICS Institute launches global program to certify professionals who create revitalized, resilient places.”
If you publish a magazine, newsletter or blog, please feel free to use this release to create your own news article.
REVITALIZATION readers will also be happy to know that they qualify for a $100 discount on their tuition for the complete Revitalization & Resilience Facilitator training and certification program. Use the coupon code REV100 on the checkout page when you enroll at reconomics.org/certification.
Here’s the March 16, 2020 Press Release:
WASHINGTON, DC – RECONOMICS Institute™ today announced the launch of its training program for Certified Revitalization & Resilience Facilitators™ (RRFac™, for short). It plugs one of the most crucial gaps in local, state and national governance.
Hundreds of billions of dollars are currently budgeted worldwide by local and national governments on crisis recovery, economic revitalization and climate resilience. For this not to trigger an economic debacle, it’s essential that recovery and resilience investments also revitalize economies. Linking recovery and revitalization with resilience has the fringe benefit of increasing funding for all three. But such work requires training that, until now, hasn’t been available.
A premier example of the global micro-credential trend, the Revitalization & Resilience Facilitator certification is primarily an add-on credential for those who are already trained in some aspect of managing communities, regions or nations. These include planners, mayors, policymakers, public works directors, economic developers, and private developers.
The training is also of value to foundations, non-profits and social entrepreneurs who want their projects or organizations to regenerate communities, help them recover from crisis and/or make them more resilient.
Graduates will display “RE” after their name, similar to how professional engineers display “PE” after their names. This reflects the fact that most of their focus is on “re” activities: redevelopment, restoration, remediation, reuse, repurposing, renewing, reconnecting, etc.
The goal is to have Revitalization & Resilience Facilitators in every community on the planet. To achieve this, the Revitalization & Resilience Facilitator program is only delivered online, at https://reconomics.org. (The world already has too much carbon in the atmosphere, without thousands of people flying to Washington, DC for knowledge they can just as easily obtain in their office or home.)
The Revitalization & Resilience Facilitator program comprises three courses, with 42 tests totaling 750 questions. The text for Course Three is Storm Cunningham’s new book, RECONOMICS: The Path To Resilient Prosperity, published in January of 2020, and available here on Amazon.com.
RECONOMICS is the first book on how to boost economic growth and resilience simultaneously. Economic revitalization and community resilience should be two sides of the same coin: the same investment can achieve both. RECONOMICS is also the first book to reveal the zero-cost factor that triples the ROI of revitalization efforts, but sabotages them when it’s missing.
It’s being hailed by public and private leaders wordwide. Rick Finc, Principal, RFA Development Planning in Edinburgh, Scotland says “RECONOMICS should be mandatory reading for all Mayors, Chief Executives and Directors of Planning in cities and regions.” And Nalin Seneviratne, Director of City Centre Development, Sheffield City Council, Sheffield, England says “RECONOMICS hits the nail on the head!”
In North America, Eric Bonham, P.Eng, Former Director of BC Ministry of Environment and the BC Ministry of Municipal Affairs in British Columbia, Canada says “Storm Cunningham’s RECONOMICS Process raises the bar for community and regional revitalization. It’s a powerful package, succinctly capturing the process that we have doggedly tried to identify over time, not always knowing the next step. The RECONOMICS Process brings a holistic dimension to redevelopment, inextricably linking vision and task.”
Here in the U.S., Kevin L. Maevers, D.Mgmt., AICP; President, Arivitas Strategies, LLC, La Quinta, CA; and Vice Director of Policy, IES, American Planning Association (CA) says “RECONOMICS is a must-read for every mayor, resilience activist, planning commissioner and urban redevelopment professional who has been frustrated in their attempts to revitalize a place. It succinctly describes why most revitalization plans fail, analyzes what’s missing, and provides a simple, easy-to-follow strategic process for success.”
Storm Cunningham. Photo by Dave Marcmann.
Cunningham is the Executive Director of RECONOMICS Institute, and has been a leading author, consultant, lecturer and workshop leader on revitalization and resilience since 2002, when his first book, The Restoration Economy, was published (Berrett-Koehler). His second book, reWealth, was published in 2008 by McGraw-Hill.
George Ochs, Managing Director of Real Assets, JP Morgan says “Storm Cunningham is the world’s thought leader on community revitalization and natural resource restoration.” In September of 2019, Sarah Sieloff, Executive Director, Center for Creative Land Recycling said “Storm Cunningham is so far ahead of the community revitalization game, I’m in awe.”
With this knowledge, graduates of the Revitalization & Resilience Facilitator program can rejuvenate an established career, or launch themselves in an entirely new direction. A graduate could remain focused on whatever they are currently doing, which might have little of nothing to do with managing places. But being a Revitalization & Resilience Facilitators better–positions them for leadership, making them the person at the table who understands how to create local revitalization and/or resilience. This is a surprisingly rare trait.
Cunningham explains, “Despite the fact the revitalization and resilience are fairly universal goals in communities all around the planet, few actually have a process for reliably creating resilient, inclusive economic growth. Most just have the usual vision, plan and projects. But the reliable production of ANYTHING—crops, cars or clothing—requires a process. Everyone knows this…except community leaders. That’s why over 95% of community revitalization and resilience projects fail to achieve their goals, and a shocking percentage fail outright.”
The reason is usually the lack of a complete renewal process. There’s always at least one crucial element of the process missing. Since most leaders don’t know what the minimum viable process is, they can’t fill the gap.
RECONOMICS Institute teaches that complete strategic renewal process—and much more—in their new Revitalization Resilience Facilitator program. That RECONOMICS Process™ can be applied at the community, regional or national levels. Resilient prosperity for all is the intended result.
RECONOMICS Institute is also the publisher of REVITALIZATION: The Journal of Economic and Environmental Resilience, which is published on the 1st and 15th of every month at https://revitalization.org. There are currently over 7200 articles in the journal’s five-year archives.
Media Contact: Storm Cunningham, storm@reconomics.org 1-202-684-6815
RECONOMICS Institute, 1629 K St. NW, Suite 300, Washington, DC 20006, USA