Data & Tools for Understanding Our State & Our Local Economies
September 29th, 2009
University of Nevada, Reno
Simulation Scenario #6 - GRANT WRITING SCENARIO
Situation & Setting
You are a researcher for an organization that writes grants to secure funding for community and economic development efforts in Nye County in Southern Nevada. You are seeking to secure funding intended to serve areas that are lagging among income and employment indicators. For your initial grant application, you will need some visual materials that illustrate why Nye County, NV is an appropriate choice for these grant funds. The head of your organization was on vacation for the past 2 weeks, and the deadline is fast approaching. Although you should be distressed at your time pressure in this situation, REAP can greatly assist you in getting the graphics out fast.
Your Assignment
While you have the site open and at your fingertips, go through the following questions and use the site to find out the following information.
Per Capita Personal Income (PCPI) is frequently used as a measure of economic growth and performance. REAP makes it easy to depict this data in a graphic manner. This is a perfect task for the "Comparative Trends Analysis" module of the REAP website.
On the left menu, click on "Comparative Trends Analysis" followed by "Per Capita Income". Check the Nye and Nevada boxes on the right.
Scroll down to the first Figure. PCPI is growing in Nye County, but this doesn't tell the whole story. Look at Figure 2, which compares Nye with Nevada and the United States. Be sure to include Figure 2 in your presentation. (You can do this in Windows Vista by clicking on the Windows icon in the lower left corner of your screen, enter "Snipping" in the search box. Hit enter, which will open the Snipping tool, and select new rectangular snip. You can then copy and paste the snipped feature into PowerPoint). Clearly, Nye has fallen far behind in PCPI growth in recent decades. Figure 3 shows the performance of PCPI in Nye County as a share of United States PCPI. Scroll down and consider all of the other figures, choosing any that contribute to your PowerPoint presentation.
Go back and repeat the above steps but replace "Per Capita Income" with "Personal Income" and "Employment", all of which are important measures of regional economic performance. Discuss the findings of each of these with your group and select one or two additional graphics for your report from each.
LSGL (Leading, Slipping, Gaining, Lagging) Analysis: LSGL analysis will produce graphics to illustrate the performance of Nye County relative to the rest of the state. This will be especially valuable as a means of showing the relative performance (i.e. "relative need" in grant writing parlance) of Nye County for the initial grant application.
On the left menu, click on "LSGL Analysis" followed by "Population"
Click on "Nye" to the far right of the screen. Select the map of Nevada from Figure 1, and include it in your presentation.
Repeat the steps above (a-c), selecting "Total Personal Income" instead of "Population" for analysis.
Notice in Figure 1 that Nye County has experienced 6.17% annual change in total personal income from 1998-2007, outpacing that of Nevada as a whole, which experienced 5.71% annual growth. Be sure to include Figure 1 in your presentation. Figure 7 provides a recap that shows that over the long term, Nye County has surpassed state and federal personal income growth, though it fell slightly in 2007.
BRAINSTORM: (time permitting) There is a wealth of data at your fingertips on the REAP site. Browse the modules, and consider whether any of them offer additional information that could embolden your presentation.
CONSTRUCT YOUR PRESENTATION: Be sure to include the following in your presentation:
Graphics from the Graphic Trends Analysis: Include figures depicting per capita income, employment, and personal income
LSGL analysis graphics, including the Nevada State map of population change, and Figure 1 for both Population and Total Personal Income
Any other figures and materials you discovered during this scenario.
