2021 Update
SCALE Joined by “Dream Team” of Food System Experts for New Consultation in Western New York – In response to an RFP issued by a consortium led by the Western New York Foundation, SCALE assembled a remarkable team of consultants to complement and expand on Anthony’s experience, which helped secure the contract for this food system assessment and plan. Joining Anthony and SCALE in this project are three long-time friends and colleagues: John Fisk, former director of the Wallace Center and instigator of the National Good Food Network; Euneika Rogers-Sipp, founder of Destination Design School of Agricultural Estates, who has also been a Loeb Fellow at Harvard and a BALLE Local Economy Fellow; and Michael Shuman, one of the leading national thinkers and global experts on building local economies and harnessing local capital and investment.
The western New York regions stretches from Chautauqua, Cattaraugus and Allegany counties on the southwestern border with Pennsylvania through Erie County and Buffalo, reaching Monroe County and Rochester at the northeastern edge. The Western New York Foundation and the Southern Tier West Development Foundation are working with the SCALE team to design and manage the process, and to help assemble both an Advisory Council and a series of targeted Working Groups.
The team began work on the 18-month long project just before the holidays and has now begun outreach to food system stakeholders across the nine-county region. A highly participatory process is being designed to ensure real and meaningful engagement across a broad diversity of people in both rural and urban communities. Stay tuned!
Sequestering Carbon, Accelerating Local Economies
SCALE — Sequestering Carbon, Accelerating Local Economies — combines a new vision for economic prosperity and resilience with tested skills and strategies to help us get there. Based on over 30 years of hands-on experience in sustainable community development, SCALE focuses on three core elements:
Building diverse, resilient economies at the local and regional level, based on local assets and better meeting local needs
Growing local “capital” and wealth, in food and farming and other natural resource-based economic sectors, that also rebuild ecological health
Catalyzing networks, of entrepreneurs, farmers, consumers and advocates that accelerate and deepen healthy local economies
Broadening the base of support for progressive economic and political policies
The central purpose of SCALE is to catalyze and accelerate economies which increase community wealth and restore or sustain the ecosystem. The services are designed for community leaders, farmers, small businesses and nonprofit practitioners who are engaged in working towards sustainable economic development initiatives.
Need a hand?
☎ CONTACT
flaccavento@ruralscale.com
(276) 698-8956
“I highly recommend SCALE, Inc. We hired Anthony to consult with our restaurant facing food hub when we had reached a key growth intersection. He is such a good communicator and was so helpful that I recommended him for a project in the Shenandoah Valley before we were even finished. Hiring a consultant can be tricky and expensive, but after working with Anthony I wished only that we had started much sooner. Our work with him led to the kind of data driven and experience based decisions that would have taken our Board months to identify. The cost for time billed was more than reasonable and we were glad to write that check.”
“Bread & Butter Rural Progressivism”
In the aftermath of Anthony’s congressional campaign, a number of things became quite clear: First, the image or ‘brand’ of Democrats, liberals and progressives is very bad in much of rural America. While there can be no doubt that right wing media, pundits and politicians have played a huge role in this shift, it is also the case that progressives and Dems have done little to help themselves in the eyes of working people and rural communities. Second, a substantial part of this image problem comes from messaging and communications that misses the boat: focused on the big issues and policy positions of national organizations, lacking empathy or understanding of rural priorities, and too many words with too little clarity and substance. And third, that unless we undertake a long term commitment – beginning now - to address these issues, we’ll never overcome the alienation and, frankly, hostility we now routinely face in rural communities.
Services
Consulting
Developing sustainable local economy plans and initiatives
Feasibility studies and business plans for bottom up economies and healthy food system
Value chain design and planning
Identifying community assets and gaps and building local capacity
Launching farmers markets, CSAs and farmer networks
Technical assistance for farmers
speaking
Rural development, ecological economics and sustainability
Tackling the “rural-urban divide”
Building community wealth and asset-based, sustainable economies
Increasing access to healthy food for lower income people
Health and ecological benefits of organic and grass-based farming
writing & analysis
On a wide range of issues and topics, from economic strategies to politics and communications. Includes strategy documents, tools and technical documents related to food and farming, communications and messaging, research and analysis of economic, rural development and other issues and more.
“There‘s no more hopeful movement in the United States than the drive towards local food, and with it strong regional economies. As he has been for so many years, Anthony Flaccavento is at the forefront of this movement; if SCALE can go to scale, we‘ll all be the better for it.”