Judging will heavily weight the Economic Impact numbers you provide us with. Please supply the projected Direct and Indirect Impact for Output, Employment, and Income. These are standard calculations produced by economic impact modeling (typically using RIMS II, IMPLAN, or REMI modeling systems). Very often the impact is measured at the state level, but these impacts can also be calculated for city, metropolitan, county, regional, or even national levels. — Direct impact refers to the output, wages, or jobs generated by the project itself — Indirect refers to impacts resulting from the first level of economic links to the project, such as spending, wages, and jobs created at suppliers to the project

A third party (including experts from universities or accounting firms) may be engaged to assist a location in preparing the Economic Impact statistics for their entries, provided the third party is identified in the submission.

The remainder of your score will be based on a subjective analysis of economic development efforts by our panel of expert, independent judges. You will need to submit a short (1-2 pages) narrative with your application to complete your entry.

Rules for the entry narrative

Please begin the narrative with the title you’ve selected for this entry as entered above, so that we know which entry it corresponds to.

Judges appreciate narratives that are clear, filled only with relevant information, and back up statements with numbers or facts. Judges will be able to view your impact numbers filled out above.

You can include graphs, charts, and photographs if you feel they help make your point.

The narrative should address the following points: The likely impact the project will have upon the local community. It’s important to show what reasons you have to believe that the impact will be as significant as you state (for example, quotations from an economic impact study performed by a local university, or comparisons to communities that were beneficiaries of a similar project).

Entries should include detail of the anticipated growth potential inherent in the project, including the development of primary and secondary suppliers and new industry clusters. Please make sure to include a timeline specifying key benchmarks in the project, including groundbreaking, construction and completion dates, and, if applicable, when the new facility is expected to be operating at full capacity.

The unique challenges this project presented. Was it more difficult to make happen than most projects, and if so, why? Did the project present a challenge unlike others your organization (and partner organizations) had been faced with previously?

The originality and extraordinary nature of the methods and efforts used by the economic development organizations involved to secure the deal. Be sure to highlight new partnerships formed between organizations, ways that traditional methods of operation were revised, how bureaucracy was dealt with, and incentives and/or grants provided to secure the project and any new or existing programs implemented to facilitate the project, such as workforce training.

It helps to provide specific examples and details wherever possible. Outside perspectives, such as statements by key executives at the company on the other end of the project, might be helpful as well.

Avoid overloading your entry narrative with extraneous appendices, but be sure to include enough quantitative detail about jobs, salaries, benefits, incentives, investment, etc. to give our judges a sense of the scale of the project being entered. While larger projects will by their nature have a greater impact economically, they do not necessarily have an advantage over smaller projects. Judges will be looking for projects that tell a convincing story about your location and your innovative efforts to secure the deal.

Judging

Entries will be judged by our panel of independent experts from the corporate relocation field (a final list of judges won’t be made public until we print the winning entries). Judges with a personal or professional connection to any projects entered will recuse themselves from rating such entries. Your score from each Judge will be from 0-100. We will calculate the average score given by each Judge, and your final score will be the sum of your entry’s distance from the average score of each Judge.

All submissions are considered final when received by Business Facilities and may not be amended after submission.

Entries will be judged on (1) the likely impact the project will have upon the local community or region; and (2) the originality and extraordinary nature of the methods and efforts used by the economic development organizations involved (including the entering organization and any others it partnered with) to secure the deal; part of judging the second factor will be an evaluation of the adversity that had to be overcome and how it was handled. Judges will be instructed to take special note of any factors or outcomes that exceed normal expectations, such as (but not limited to) the speed with which red tape was cut to make the project happen; overcoming what seemed to be long odds going into a project; and other measures out of the ordinary, such as passing new laws to ensure the outcome of the project. Judges will also take note of, in the case of projects that have been signed but which are not yet complete or operational, how likely it is that the company will carry through on its job creation and investment projections and commitments.

Thank you, and good luck!

The Editors of Business Facilities