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NCGrowth Report: Measuring the Economic Impact of The Impact Center

What is the value to a community when one citizen is kept out of the prison system, or is helped to manage a chronic health condition and stay out of the emergency room, or when one child is supported in a way that they can thrive?
These are the difficult questions that students in Professor Bill Lester’s Economic Development Workshop at UNC’s Department for City and Regional Planning waded into when NCGrowth partnered with the workshop to provide recommendations to The Impact Center, a faith-based social service organization, on how to measure their economic impacts.
The Impact Center in Rocky Mount, NC was spun out of Word Tabernacle Church – a 3,000 member church led by Pastor James D Gailliard.  The Impact Center is a volunteer run non-profit that provides direct programming and connections to local social service providers. Resources include counseling and case management, childcare, job training and emergency assistance.
The final analysis used IMPLAN, an economic modeling software, to estimate the impact of direct expenditures associated with facility and program operations on the regional economy.  Students also developed and presented methodologies that the Center can use going forward to track and quantify the impacts from their many programs.
Learn more about this project from two DCRP students, Chris Bendix and Rachel Wexler, on the Carolina Angles Blog.
Please contact Carolyn Fryberger for a copy of this report.

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