Community Financial Issues
There are currently over 3,270 Pennsylvania agriculture businesses listed on AgMap. Market your Pennsylvania agricultural business over the web for free!
The Building Strong Communities program offers training and education for citizens about local government, how it works, and how citizens can make their voices heard in decision-making. For those citizens interested in becoming local elected officials, the program teaches them how to run for local office and provides support through their tenures as local officials with training that focuses on local governance. Starting with a basic civics lesson on Pennsylvania local government, the program addresses broader issues such as engaging citizens in discussions of policy and understanding community and regional trends.
A tool that local citizens can use to build consensus for planning their community's future. The program brings community leaders and interested citizens together who are willing to commit time and energy toward discovering their vision and a plan of action to achieve it.
Becoming entrepreneurially-friendly means a community is able to identify a collective vision for the community; assess long-term opportunities and threats to that vision; mobilize assets to address those opportunities and threats, and to carry out a successful implementation strategy. The resources provide here are intended to help you learn more about, and address these issues effectively in your community.
'First Impressions' is a community development program which enhances the future vision of a community, main street, travel corridor, or fairs and festivals. Using a structured but anonymous visit by 'outsiders,' the program gives local citizens a lay person's first impression of the issue, allowing them to better identifies issues of concern.
This website is intended to help citizens better understand local taxation in Pennsylvania, some of the arguments for and against local tax reform, the options available, and the potential impact of those options.
More than 10,000 Pennsylvanians serve on 1,700 municipal and county planning commissions. Another 6,000-7,000 serve on zoning hearing boards or are involved in the day-to-day administration of some 1,600 municipal zoning ordinances. These dedicated volunteers are the foundation of planning in the Commonwealth, but there are very few places where they can learn the planning skills and knowledge necessary for them to avoid potentially costly mistakes in their his role. Education is a key in preparing them to be leaders capable of effectively carrying out planning and land use regulations in their communities.
The Pennsylvania Office of Rural Health was established at Penn State in 1991. It is a joint effort of the Colleges of Health and Human Development and Penn State Outreach and Penn State Cooperative Extension and is administratively located in the Department of Health Policy and Administration.
Is your local organization not performing as productively as you’d hope or expect? Is membership falling? Do you struggle to find or manage resources? Do members complain that meetings are boring? Does the group feel like it is going in too many directions, or no direction at all?
