Up next, a push to attract a working age population.
Did you consider moving to the small city of Fondelac 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 Fondelac, and thanks
very much for being here.
Thanks for having me.
So why the push to have people move to Fondelac?
You know, Fondelac 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.
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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 du Lac?
In Fond du Lac County we're facing a population decline which isn't unlike the rest of the
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 fine workers.
So this has been a push at Envision 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 Envision 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 Fondelac 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 Fondelac County.
So it's incredible.
It's really incredible and 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 Fondelac 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 Fondelac, 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 bit smaller.
We do have affordable homes.
We do have 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 Fondelac 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 Shaboygan 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.
Alright, 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 Fryberg.
Have a good weekend.
I've watched you for years and I love PBS.