Community Development / Venture Capital Investment Fund

The City is creating a Community Development / Venture Capital Investment Fund to stimulate economic recovery in John Day and the surrounding communities. The fund opened in July 2017. The fund will have a net investment from the City of John Day of $600,000 over a ten-year period. 

Currently, the fund is seeding investments in Main Street buildings and rehabilitating property to encourage private sector investment.

What is Community Development Venture Capital (CDVC) Investing?

CDVC is relatively new form of public private partnership between a local government agency and the private sector. It uses a portfolio management approach to guide investment decision-making by leveraging both public and private resources. These resources include financial capital, human capital and community engagement.

CDVC funds may be used to provide equity capital to businesses in under-invested markets, to stimulate job creation, wealth and entrepreneurial capacity, and to revitalize unimproved and under-utilized land, buildings and community assets.

Why are we creating it?

A community development fund will give us options for more creative financing of public improvements, including the use of private equity capital, and will also allow for the direct investment of public dollars in municipal enterprises to stimulate business development in John Day.

Our community has experienced several decades of socio-economic decline that has reduced the City's capacity to invest in infrastructure projects and capital improvements. The initial cause of this decline was the loss of timber, ranching and natural-resource industry revenue and the subsequent closure of businesses dependent on those industries that began in the early 1990's.

These trends have continued in John Day largely because of our failure to adapt to the increased regulatory environment and to diversify our economy by taking advantage of new markets and opportunities.

Creating a community development venture capital investment fund will allow the City to work more closely and effectively with private businesses and investors to begin revitalizing our economy through a deliberate deal-making process that seeks a competitive rate of return for investments in community development projects and local businesses. It will also allow the city to establish Public-Private Partnerships to address large-scale public infrastructure challenges that cannot be addressed by the public sector or private sector acting alone.

Interested in participating?

The City Manager provided information to the City Council and the John Day Budget Committee in early 2017 on the establishment of the fund. On April 4th, the Budget Committee approved the creation of the fund with an initial investment of $60,000. Residents and business owners interested in participating in the process or who would like to contribute financially should contact City Hall for more information.