Shane Farthing & Associates (SF&A) helps communities build vision and capacity, align resources, and deliver sustainable results. We serve local governments, organizations, congregations, and institutions.

Our Offerings:

• We offer scalable, experienced, professional EDO/CDO services in both fractional and project-based formats to fit your needs. We can serve as your community’s economic and community development advisor, managing the strategy and execution in consultation with leadership. Or, you can contract a particular task or project element to us.

• Through the Fellowship for Economic & Community Development Leadership, we solve the recruitment crisis by training internal staff into professional EDO/CDO roles. We support and grow local talent to lead, manage, and deliver economic and community development outcomes.

• We value nonprofits, associations, and congregations as key community members and partners. We help them design effective, intelligent programs and coherent theories of change that generate the resources to do the work their missions demand.

• We act as the strategic bridge, layering federal/state grants with private capital and local incentives. We manage the "messy middle" of P3 brokerage, regulatory de-risking, and federal compliance as your delivery architect for complexity transactions and public-private partnerships.

• We lend professional support to local institutions, ensuring that the smaller communities we love have the technical integrity to secure funding and the operational capacity to create a lasting quality of place.

Our Specialties:

While SF&A serves communities of all shapes, sizes, and needs, or specific areas of expertise include:

• Small, rural, and under-resourced communities. We specialize in communities of under 50,000 residents, where the gap between local goals and professional execution is often widest. We have leveraged various federal grant programs (EDA, USDA, DOT, HUD CDBG, CMAQ, EPA) and local economic development tools to help revitalize and sustain small communities;

• Infrastructure-workforce linkages. Communities must provide infrastructure to be successful, but how they provide that infrastructure can determine its long-term sustainability. We help communities deliver infrastructure that supports quality-of-life while also providing jobs and ancillary benefits—often through workforce development grants and partnerships associated with construction, monitoring, and maintenance.

• Place-based needs management. Communities are not “one-size fits all” and the “best practices” from a Zoom call won’t always fit. We understand local conditions, patterns of investment and disinvestment; historic effects on communities; geographic, geologic, and climate-based challenges; and the specific difficulties of serving a place-based community.

  • Active transportation. We have supported the build-out of hundreds of miles of trails and helped communities build their trail economies through strategic planning, projects design, destination marketing, and community program design. We have built Trail Ranger, Downtown Ambassador, and similar engagement and marketing strategies to support successful trail towns and trail-based businesses across the nation.

  • Project-based place-making. More specific than our community-scale revitalization, SF&A offers place-making and activation support for specific project locations. We use art, design, event marketing, online integration, and innovative strategies to help you see a part of your community brought to life with visitation and engagement.

  • Alignment and advocacy. When a community-serving project is undermined by local permitting, regulatory, or hidden hurdles, SF&A can efficiently assess the situation, advise leaders on alignment and risk-mitigation strategies, and advocate for the best results.

• Governance, training, policies, and procedures. We help organizations acquire and use resources appropriately and sustainably, and to document the proper use of their power and resources align with community goals.