Fulfilling the Vision - A Five Year Campaign for Economic Vitality. One Mission - One Focus - One Voice

Great Cedar Valley Alliance - Be part of something greater. The Cedar Valley of Iowa

The Challenge

Over 10,000 economic development organizations pursue growth opportunities in the U.S. alone, and many metro areas now benchmark themselves against other nations. In this context, The Cedar Valley must create a world-class economic development program that can insert The Cedar Valley into the global flow of capital investment as a logical, competitive business and institutional location.

The Cedar Valley has indeed proven to be attractive to business investment, and some international capital has flowed into the region. However, additional resources are needed to ensure that we can successfully build our regional economy. Our growth in population has been too slow to fund the community we want for our employees and our children.

Over the past several years, we have watched our economy benefit from a strong and healthy diversification of business. Regional employment growth has done well in numbers, but we have not kept pace in wages. Today, our community faces unprecedented competition from around the world. Capital is mobile and we no longer compete only with cities within a few hundred miles. Rather, metro areas and regions throughout the U.S., North America, Europe and some Pacific Rim locations compete with The Cedar Valley of Iowa for new investment. Our challenge is to respond effectively, with intensity, to the competition. Failure to plan and act together with adequate resources could deeply damage our region’s economic future.

America’s highly regarded business management guru Peter Drucker compels us, The Cedar Valley – its businesses, institutions and governments – to act now. Over the past two years, The Cedar Valley’s economic development approach has been transformed. It has new leadership, a new energy, and a new name: The Greater Cedar Valley Alliance. The mission of The Alliance is to increase economic vitality and job creation in The Cedar Valley of Iowa.

To achieve this mission, The Alliance is pursuing an exciting and aggressive approach: Fulfilling the Vision … A Five-Year Campaign for Economic Vitality.

“The future will not just happen if one wishes hard enough. It requires decision–now. It imposes risk–now. It requires action–now. It demands allocation of resources, and above all, human resources–now.”

Peter Drucker