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With the Support of the Federal
Economic Development Agency
for Southern Ontario

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Community Economic Development

From the Canadian CED Network, the following definition of CED and creating vibrant, resilient and sustainable local economies:

Community Economic Development (CED) is action by people locally to create economic opportunities and better social conditions, particularly for those who are most disadvantaged.

CED is an approach that recognizes that economic, environmental and social challenges are interdependent, complex and ever-changing.

To be effective, solutions must be rooted in local knowledge and led by community members. CED promotes holistic approaches, addressing individual, community and regional levels, recognizing that these levels are interconnected.

Further, from the Canadian Centre for Community Renewal:

CED is the process by which local people build organizations and partnerships that interconnect profitable business with other interests and values - for example, skills and education, health, housing, and the environment. In CED a lot more people get involved, describing how the community should change. A lot more organizations look for ways to make their actions and investments reinforce the wishes and intentions of the whole community. Business becomes a means to accumulate wealth and to make the local way of life more creative, inclusive, and sustainable - now and 20 or 30 years from now.

At its most effective, CED is characterized by

  • a multi-functional, comprehensive strategy of on-going activities, in contrast to individual economic development projects or other isolated attempts at community betterment.
  • an integration or merging of economic and social goals to bring about more far-reaching community revitalization.
  • a base of operating principles that enable a broad range of residents to assume responsibility in the governance of development organizations and in the community as a whole.
  • a process guided by strategic planning and analysis, in contrast to opportunistic and unsystematic tactics.
  • a businesslike financial management approach that builds both ownership of assets and a diverse range of financial and other partners and supporters.
  • an organizational format that is non-profit, independent, and non-governmental, even though for-profit

CED activities occur under core funding from FedDev.  The organization engages with the community in a number of projects defined as CED. For example:
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