CENTRAL BEDEQUE — While countless other regional development corporations across Canada have fallen by the wayside over the past year, the Central Development Corporation here is trying to build a new future for itself.
CDC launched a new business model this week that will see it start to charge a nominal fee for its services. The money generated by these fees will replace money from the Atlantic Canada Opportunity Agency that was cut off last year.
Shane MacDougall, CDC general manager, said this new model is a homegrown approach that should ensure the organization’s future.
There will be an initial adjustment period for the organizations seeking to use CDC’s services, he added, but he believes the new business model is a good balance between making sure the organization survives and not becoming a burden on its clients.
“Our fee is based on the project. So if the project doesn’t get funded, we don’t get paid,” said MacDougall.
“So that’s kind of the difference between before and now – we wouldn’t discriminate before – whether we thought (the project) could get funded or not. But now we’re going to have to say ‘OK, does this project have a good chance of being funded,’ before we get involved. So when we say that we’re looking at things with a sharper lens, that’s what we mean,” he said.
“Part of our process was that we looked back over the years,” he said.
“And when we looked back, and took this model and applied it over the last 10 years – taking our management fee that we would have received – every year we would have received more (money) than we actually did.”
In some past years, CDC would have received as much as double its base funding level it was getting from ACOA, if it had been charging for services, he said.
The organization realizes the economy has slumped since those banner years, however, the hope is that with the markets starting to climb upwards again, there will be more than enough local activity to sustain CDC and its services, he added.
“We’re optimistic. If we weren’t optimistic we would have just said ‘OK, let’s just strip the organization down; we’ll just become a real estate company and manage the properties we have.’
“But the board really felt that there is a lot of value in what we’ve done and that there was potential there,” he said.
Established in 1995, the CDC is based at the Wm. Callbeck Business Centre in Central Bedeque.
It provides business consulting services for local organizations and groups seeking funding for various projects and it manages several economic and community properties in the region.
CDC has four full-time employees and two staff who are on contract.
Wayne Thompson, chairman of the CDC board of directors, said that CDC has been involved in more than 400 projects, with a combined value of more than $90 million, since its creation.
“When the board saw these numbers, we thought, what would the region look like if this investment was not made,” he said.
The answer, he added, is that the area would not be as well off economically or socially as it is now.
In addition to its new funding model, CDC also announced on Wednesday that it would be combining its three holding companies, which were used to manage its various properties, into one organization called Central Properties Management.
It also announced that as part of this restructuring, three new community development funds have also been established.
Credit: The Guardian