Last month, NACCED held its 48th Annual Educational Conference and Training in Salt Lake County, Utah. Local government community development professionals from across the country gathered for three days of education and networking at NACCED’s highest-attended annual conference in over a decade.
Before the conference kicked off, first time attendees enjoyed meeting each other and NACCED’s Board leadership during a first timers’ coffee reception. There, the first-timers and Board members were divided by time zones and got to meet and greet their nearby neighbors, learning more about the conference, as well as opportunities for year-round involvement in NACCED. That evening, attendees had the fun and educational experience of attending a brewery tour organized by Salt Lake City, featuring small businesses which received Salt Lake’s façade improvement grants. It gave everyone an opportunity to mingle and break the ice before the main events while building relationships with colleagues from across the country.
When #NACCED23 officially began on Tuesday, September 19, members received a welcome from Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson, who spoke of the county’s investments in economic development and housing. The program continued with a briefing with Washington, DC HUD staff, including Office of Affordable Housing Programs Director Ginny Sardone and Office of Block Grant Assistance Deputy Director Duncan Yetman. View a recap of the HUD briefing here.
The morning continued with a presentation sponsored by The Cloudburst Group, Innovations in Housing Affordability Across the US, featuring speakers from Ivory Innovations, the Utah Preservation Fund, The Dearfield Fund. The presentation focused on a joint initiative to create homeownership opportunities for black families.
After attendees enjoyed seeing downtown Salt Lake during lunchtime, the conference resumed with breakout sessions including Creating a Community for Healing and Purposeful Living for the Chronically Homeless, Past, Present and Future Impacts of ARPA, and The Mystery of Policies and Procedures: Unraveling Common Findings and Uncovering Best Practices.
Afterwards, the conference resumed its annual tradition of “Passport to Win,” a special break where attendees got to meet exhibitors and be entered to win a variety of prizes, including airline credit and a Visa gift card.
The afternoon’s breakout sessions included The Promise of Manufactured Housing: Perspectives from the Manufactured Housing Institute and Fannie Mae, How do You Build a Facade Improvement Program?, and Advancing Equity in Community Development: The Importance of Meaningful Stakeholder Engagement.
The first day of the conference concluded with the always-popular John C. Murphy Scholarship Fund reception and silent auction, sponsored by ZoomGrants. Attendees enjoyed food and drinks while socializing, and bid on great items including Utah artwork, gift baskets featuring items of interest from around the country, hotel gift cards, sports memorabilia, and more. The silent auction raised $2,000 toward the scholarship fund.
On Wednesday, September 20, the conference kicked off with two general sessions. First, Comcast and local nonprofit Neighborhood House discussed their partnership for adult care in the region, and the ways Comcast invests in local communities across the country through broadband initiatives. Following the opening session, attendees received a Washington Update from NACCED and National Association of Counties staff focused on the looming federal government budget deadline, upcoming elections, and potential upcoming rules and regulations.
The morning’s breakout sessions included Strategies for Advancing Local Housing Affordability, Spice Kitchen: Entrepreneurial Training in Food Service for Refugees, and Lessons Learned: Sharing the Successes of the CDBG Program.
Wednesday afternoon brought the apex of the week’s event, the Keynote, Awards Luncheon and Business Meeting.
Keynote speakers Andres Marquez-Lara, founder of facilitation consultancy UFacilitate, gave a talk entitled, Facilitation as Leadership: A Paradigm Shift. His talk demonstrated how in their everyday professional lives, local government community development professionals lead by facilitation: in public engagement, in mediating between parties, in interacting with elected officials, and in serving the public. While prior paradigms are focused on top-down approaches to leadership, Andres showed how today’s world requires more equal and engaged methods of calling others to action.
During the Awards portion of the event, Salt Lake County was honored for their work as conference hosts. Additionally, six NACCED members won Awards of Excellence in a variety of categories related to housing and community development. Winners included Chester County, PA, City of Vancouver, WA, Cuyahoga County, OH, Henrico County, VA, Orange County, FL, and Westchester County, NY.
Each year at the Annual Business Meeting, NACCED’s election of leadership occurs. This year, outgoing President Tonja West-Hafner (Hennepin County, MN) thanked the membership for the opportunity to serve and outlined her successful priorities around membership and education. Past President Jim Johnston (Allegheny County, PA), Chair of the Nominating Committee, thanked Susan Aue (Tarrant County, TX) and Crystal LaTier (El Paso County, CO) for their two terms of service. He then announced that Linda Jenkins (Los Angeles County, CA) had been nominated to the presidency, David Sacks (Henrico County, VA), to the role of Vice-President, and Jennifer Daniels (Arlington County, VA) to Secretary/Treasurer. Additionally, Paul Herdeg (Cuyahoga County, OH), Julie Hamlin (DuPage County, IL) and Nicole Andersen (Orange County, NY) were nominated to serve a two-year term on the Board at-large. View more information about the candidates here. The membership voted unanimously to elect the slate.
New president Linda Jenkins gave her remarks, looking forward to the year ahead and continuing to work with the leadership to grow the organization. After calling out the winners of the Passport to win, 2024 conference host Claudia Brierre took the podium to share information about next year’s conference, to be held September 16-19 in Tulsa County, Oklahoma.
On Wednesday evening, attendees celebrated a successful conference “under the stars” at the Clark Planetarium in downtown Salt Lake County, UT, where they viewed and interacted with the out-of-this-world exhibits like a Mars simulation, while mingling with colleagues. The Salt Lake County team outdid themselves with the thoughtfulness they put into this year’s program.
Thursday morning, September 21, closed the conference with the annual tour of local housing and community development projects. Attendees stopped by three locations: a high rise affordable housing complex in downtown, a hotel converted to housing for homeless seniors, and a local restaurant, part of the Spice Kitchen incubator, which teaches refugees small business skills in retail and restaurants.
NACCED is grateful to all sponsors, exhibitors, speakers, members, and attendees that made this historic event possible. We look forward to seeing everyone in Tulsa County next year!
For pictures of the event, check out our Facebook page here.
