Photo: Rockingham Town Meeting 2026 taken by BDCC Staff
Brattleboro, VT – Town Meeting season has wrapped up and communities across Windham County continue to demonstrate strong, collective commitment to regional economic development through municipal investment in the Southeastern Vermont Economic Development Strategies (SeVEDS) initiative.
Each year, staff from BDCC attend Select Board and town meetings across the region to update selectboards on regional activity and programs that have previously received municipal investment. Staff speak to a funding request of $3.00 per full time resident of each town in the Windham Region to support regional economic development. This collaborative funding model enables BDCC to provide strategic, coordinated efforts that strengthen the regional economy, support local businesses, and expand workforce opportunities.
Town appropriations directly support key initiatives such as the Pipelines and Pathways program, which provides career education to all five of the regional high schools and some of the elementary and middle schools; regional BizConnect meetings that help local small businesses connect with resources and support, and the Southern Vermont Economy Project, which provides technical support and training for locally driven projects and organizations.
Funding requests for fiscal year 2027 were approved at March 2026 Town Meetings in the towns of Athens, Brookline, Dover, Dummerston, Halifax, Jamaica, Londonderry, Marlboro, Newfane, Putney, Readsboro, Rockingham, Stratton, Townshend, Vernon, Wardsboro, Weston, Whitingham, and Winhall. The Brattleboro and Wilmington Select Boards separately approved funding requests from designated economic development funds.
For a grassroots organization like SeVEDS, the support across the region is critical. Broad municipal funding helps create a regional approach, where programs can help solve economic and community development issues that are beyond the ability of a single municipality to address alone. Partner organization Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC) leverages the annual funds raised by SeVEDs many times over by matching municipal support with philanthropic, private, state and federal dollars, in addition to funding from BDCC revenues.
Thank you to each of the towns who supported SeVEDs this year.
For more information on BDCC & SeVEDS programs please visit https://brattleborodevelopment.com/; for information on the Southern Vermont Zone and CEDS visit https://www.sovermontzone.com/
About Southeastern Vermont Economic Development Strategies (SeVEDS)
Southeastern Vermont Economic Development Strategies (SeVEDS), a nonprofit 501(c)3, is an affiliate of Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC) that grew from a 2008 grassroots effort, initiated by BDCC, to understand and create long-term strategies needed to reverse the economic decline of the Windham Region and plan for the economic impacts from the closure of the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. In 2014, after multiple years of regional input, education and data gathering, SeVEDS received federal approval for the Windham Region’s federally recognized S.M.A.R.T. Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS). SeVEDS has subsequently partnered with Bennington’s Regional Economic Development Group to develop the 2019 and 2024 Southern Vermont Zone CEDS. For more information visit: www.seveds.com.
About BDCC
Brattleboro Development Credit Corporation (BDCC) is a private, nonprofit economic development organization with the mission of investing in the drivers of the regional economy so that people, businesses, and communities in Southern Vermont can thrive. In addition to its private nonprofit leadership role in regional business acceleration and expansion programs and projects, economic, workforce, and community development programming, BDCC is also contracted to carry out the work of one of the twelve the State of Vermont’s certified Regional Development Corporations (RDC) for the greater Windham County area (including Windham County and the towns of Readsboro, Searsburg, Winhall, and Weston). BDCC’s activity is made possible in part by a grant from the State of Vermont through the Agency of Commerce and Community Development. For more information, visit: https://brattleborodevelopment.com/
