N.C. STEP Selection Process
N.C. STEP is designed for municipalities with fewer than 10,000 people, either within the state’s 85 rural counties or within urban counties defined as economically distressed by the N.C. Department of Commerce. Eligibility also was extended to county seats in counties with no incorporated municipality. Only those communities or their representatives were eligible to apply for participation as an N.C. STEP demonstration site. Eligible applicants included municipal governments themselves and nonprofit organizations or educational institutions designated as the lead fiscal agent or program coordinator for the community leadership team. Application deadline was January 23, 2006.
To introduce communities to N.C. STEP, the Rural Center and the UNC-Chapel Hill School of Government conducted a series of five regional, one-day training and grant workshops in December 2005. The workshops presented the guidelines and application procedures for N.C. STEP and for the Rural Center’s Building Reuse and Restoration Grants Program. The workshops also provided practical information on readiness, visioning and planning, and community leadership for small town economic development.
The Rural Center received 65 applications to become N.C. STEP demonstration sites. Selections were announced March 1, 2006. Representatives of those communities took part in a kick-off ceremony in Raleigh on March 9 at the N.C. Museum of History.
Towns selected for participation represent a broad range of characteristics, including geographical distribution, population size and diversity, and management structure (towns with a town manager/administrator and those without). The center also considered resource availability (towns with scant resources and those more fortunate) and degree of readiness (towns that have not participated in economic transition activities and those with advanced planning efforts under way). As part of the application process, each town was required to commit to forming a community leadership group to participate in the development and implementation of local projects as well as in broader demonstration activities, such as training programs, site documentation and evaluation. Each leadership team includes a local elected official and a representative of town administration.
