Up next, a push to attract
a working age population.
Would you consider moving to the
small city of Fond du Lac to work?
There's an incentive for that.
Actually, two.
One offers $9,500 to
individuals from out of state to
move to the city and maintain their
remote jobs.
The other helps employers recruit
employees from areas at
least 100 miles away and
helps them offer prospective workers
a $15,000 hiring bonus.
Here to explain the program is
Sadie Howell of Envision Greater
Fond du Lac and thanks very much for
being here.
Thanks for having me.
So why the push to have people move
to Fond de Lac?
You know, Fond du Lac County is
facing a population decline,
not unlike most of Wisconsin,
actually.
And at Envision, we
are a combined chamber of
commerce and economic development
organization.
And we hear from our
businesses over and over for
the past several years that
it's really hard to
find workers.
Oops, I'm sorry.
They just told me something.
Did I up cut the lead?
There was something happened,
technically, and if you guys could
be sure to pull that livestream
right away.
Sorry, you started
right out of the shoot, it's great.
So we're gonna try it
again. There was some technical
thing that happened that we were not
aware of.
It must have been bad, folks, or we
wouldn't...
Thank you.
Up next, a push to attract
a working-age population.
Would you consider moving to the
small city of Fond du Lac to work?
There's an incentive for that.
Actually, two.
One offers $9,500 to
individuals from out of state to
move to the city and maintain their
remote jobs.
The other helps employers recruit
employees from areas at least
100 miles away and helps
them offer prospective workers a
$15,000 hiring bonus.
Here to explain the program is Sadie
Howell of Envision Greater Fond du
Lac, and thanks very much for being
here.
Thanks for having me.
So why the push to
help people move to Fond de Lac?
In Fond du Lac County, we're facing
a population decline,
which isn't unlike the rest of the
state, most of the State of
Wisconsin.
And at Envision, we are
the combined Chamber of Commerce
and Economic Development
Organization.
And so we have heard from our
members and businesses for years
that it's really hard to attract
talent and find workers.
So this has been a push at
En vision and our strategic plan.
On talent attraction campaigns.
The $15,000 one you
referenced we've had for quite a
few years, and then most
recently we launched
a talent attraction
with Make My Move
due to a grant from
the state of Wisconsin.
So how bad is that population
decline?
I would say we're pretty stagnant
right now.
So in Fond du Lac County, it has
been about a 1%
population growth.
We don't have a lot of natural
birth, but we do
have net in migration.
And so we do an okay job
of attracting people from different
counties in Wisconsin and
from out of the state.
However, we're facing two really
big.
Years.
2030 is when a lot
of the baby boomers will retire
and in 2040 is
when our population is
really expected to start to
decline quite a bit
and in preparation for that
we wanted to make sure that we
were starting to attract people
before 2030 into
2040.
How many new residents and workers
are you hoping to lure to your city?
With the grant program.
So that was from the state
legislature put $5 million
into a new
grant through the Wisconsin Economic
Development Corporation.
And in vision applied, we
received $346,000
from WEDC.
Envision's board of directors is
putting about 100,000
towards it and with that
money we are partnering with
Make My Move.
They are a national platform that
helps relocate individuals
that are looking for a new
place to call home and
our goal is 32 families.
So for both programs,
individuals or employers have to
fill out applications.
What is interest looking like right
now?
For our make my move platform
is pretty crazy.
We actually just got our new
statistics yesterday
and 1700 people
from around the country have
expressed interest.
900 of them have applied
to move to Fond
du Lac County. And then from
those it's trickled down a little
bit. We have six
accepted movers already.
We launched this May
14th.
So about a month and a half,
two months almost in, we have
six people already moving,
one person already purchased a
home in Fond du Lac County.
So it's, it's incredible.
It's really incredible.
What Make My Move does
and why they have been a great
partner, we've been
working with them for about six to
nine months on creating all
of the storytelling of why
would somebody want to live in Fond
du Lac County.
So they sell the community
first and then
people apply.
So we are resonating
with an incredible number of people
from around the country who want to
come and live here.
So if you were trying,
as you are, to entice
someone to move to Fond du Lac, what
are its selling points?
It's not a lot of different than
what I think you would probably hear
from other communities that
come on.
We have a little bit slower pace
of life. We are a little smaller.
We do have affordable
homes.
We do a
wonderful mix of private
and public schools.
We have three institutions
of higher learning in our
county.
And a plethora
of careers.
So there, you will
have no problem
trying to find your right
career here.
It's really, do you like outdoor
recreation?
Do you still like to
talk to your neighbors and find
a place that you call community
where nonprofits are
looking for volunteers?
That's the kind of community that
still exists in Fond du Lac County.
So briefly here, this obviously
really works, this incentive
program that you've set up.
Are other cities across the state
looking at something similar?
Yeah, so we were one of
17 communities that actually
received this grant from
WEDC.
So our neighbors to the
east, Sheboygan, and two
of our neighbors to the north,
Oshkosh and the city of Appleton,
both received similar grants.
Now their programs look a little bit
different than ours,
but all of us had to follow
the same basic guidelines
when we received the grant.
All right, well, Sadie Howell,
thanks very much for joining us.
Thank you.
For more on this and other issues
facing Wisconsin, visit our website
at PBSWisconsin.org
and then click on the news tab.
That's our program for tonight.
I'm Frederica Freiberg.
Have a good weekend.
I've watched you for years, and I
love PBS.