Common Questions & Answers

about Resolution Fund & our Renewal Capacity Program

How much does the Renewal Capacity Program cost?

There's no fee for enrolling in the program.  All Educational and Action workshops cost $9850 (US) each. 

The instructor's travel expenses are included in that price within North America, Central America, and the Caribbean, and are extra elsewhere in the world.  

Each workshop enrollment is a separate transaction.  You are never obligated to purchase another workshop. You are under no  obligation to complete the program at any particular pace.  Nor are you under any obligation to complete the program at all.  Enrolling in the program should be seen as exploring the option of creating a Renewal Engine for your community, not as committing to doing so.

Who actually purchases the workshops for a community?

The education and action workshops in Phases One and Two can be offered to the community by any public or private entity wishing to enhance the community's capacity for renewal.  Since workshops are purchased individually, each could even have a different sponsor.

• A college or university could offer the workshops as part of any ongoing lecture series. 

• A non-profit or foundation could sponsor a single workshop--or the entire series--to enhance an existing initiative, or to launch a new one. 

• An economic development agency, community development corporation, or planning agency could use the workshops to better engage the community and build integration among programs. 

• A local business or private individual could offer one or more workshops as a community service.

• A federal, state, or provincial agency could subsidize the program in order to increase the capacity of communities to follow-through on regional economic development plans or strategies. For instance, they could offer to pay 50% of the workshop fees, or could get them started by offering to pay for the first few workshops.

When should a community enroll in the Renewal Capacity Program,

and how far apart should the workshops be spaced?

Every community's situation is unique.  Some are in a state of emergency, and need to revitalize as quickly as possible.  Some are comfortable, an simply wish to enhance their quality of life on an ongoing basis, but with no real urgency.  Some see a possible downturn on the horizon and wish to take preventive action. As Storm Cunningham says in his new book, ReWealth! (McGraw-Hill, May 2008), "chance favors the prepared community."

Some are strapped for cash, and will only be able to bring in the workshops when the money is available.  [Note: If your community is in this last category, contact us: we might be able to help you find a sponsor who will underwrite all or part of the cost of your workshops, and maybe even your entire program.]

Such factors affect not only when you enroll, but how rapidly you complete the initial workshop series.   You could do all seven workshops in one year, or one per year, or do each spontaneously...whenever the timing is right.  Note: While you can offer the workshops to your community at whatever pace you wish, they must be conducted in the order we prescribe.

Where do the workshops take place, and how many attendees can we bring?

The workshops take place in your community, in a venue of your choosing.  You can invite as many people as you wish. 

How long does each workshop last?

About five hours.  The recommended format is from 10am to 3pm.  10:00am to noon has 90 minutes of lecture and 30 minutes of questions and answers.  After a lunch break from 12:00 to 1:00 (during which one or more local leaders should address the group), the first hour in the afternoon is an open discussion of how the concepts just learned might be applied to the community or region. In the final hour, attendees identify and agree on follow-up meetings or activities.

Is Resolution Fund a managed investment fund?

Despite the word “fund” in our name, Resolution Fund, LLC has no internally-managed portfolio. No single fund can't address the broad diversity of restorative needs in the world’s 200 or so countries. Instead, we are building a global network of private redevelopers and investors (individual and institutional) who wish to revitalize communities and natural resources.

We function as matchmakers, connecting the right funding sources to the right communities at the right time.  We might thus be said to "manage" a global "portfolio" of funders, rather than funds.  Our goal is to have $1 trillion ($100,000,000,000) represented in this portfolio by 2012.  Granted, this is only 1% of the estimated $100 trillion backlog of global restoration/renovation needs, but it's a start.  [See this Booz Allen Hamilton article about the estimated $41 trillion backlog of infrastructure renewal needs.  Infrastructure is just one of the twelve sectors of restorative development.]

Will the Renewal Capacity Program disrupt initiatives or projects already underway?

The Renewal Capacity Program is specifically designed to enhance, rather than interfere, with your current renewal efforts.  This is one reason we offer it in discrete components, rather than as a rigid, scheduled program.  This allows you to use it strategically, fitting the workshops in where they will do the most good.

How can Resolution Fund serve both the public and the private sector?

Private investors and redevelopers work with us because they see our client communities as better places to invest. They seek partnerships with communities that will provide three essential factors:

• Safety: They want your stakeholders to be behind your renewal strategy. They don’t want expensive delays from groups who were left out of the vision and strategy process, and who learned of the project at the last minute.

• Speed: They want to work in an environment where revitalization and redevelopment are supported by policy. They also want local bureaucratic processes to be geared towards fast-tracking restorative projects and slow-tracking destructive (sprawl) projects.

• Profit: They want to work within a community or regional revitalization plan that integrates the renewal of natural, built, and socioeconomic assets. This further enhances efficiency, and produces powerful synergies, both of which increase profitability. In other words, they want their project to contribute to your renewal, and they want their project to benefit from your other renewal projects: they don’t want to work in “silos”.

Communities, regions, and nations work with us because they are seeking those same factors. They want safety: private partners they can trust to protect the public good. They want speed: rapid results that inspire confidence in the citizens (voters!) that the community is on the path to renewal. They want "profit": property value and tax revenue enhancement that will finance further revitalization. 

There is no shortage of funding available for renovating infrastructure, regenerating historic districts, remediating and redeveloping brownfields, restoring agricultural productivity, or revitalizing natural resources such as fisheries, ecosystems, and watersheds. But, the smart money comes with strings attached: they want safety, speed, and profit.  With a well-designed, properly-function renewal engine, you can offer them all three.

Why do so many expensive, professionally-design revitalization plans fail,

and how is the Renewal Capacity Program different?

It's no secret that most urban disasters were professionally planned (not purposely, of course).  It's also no secret that a huge percentage of very expensive plans just get filed on a shelf, and are never implemented. This almost never happens in communities that have properly-designed renewal engines.

Most communities think their major problem is a lack of natural or built assets, or lack of investment, or lack of good planning. In actual fact, their major problem is ignorance of the basic rules, processes, and models that contribute to revitalization success.

What's more, most failed plans aren't the fault of the planners.  Too many communities plan in a strategy vacuum, and strategize in a vision vacuum. Why? Because most communities don’t understand the relationship of visions, strategies, plans, and projects. This is why the first job of your renewal engine will be to create a shared vision of your community’s future.

• A strategy is how that vision is implemented.

• A plan is how that strategy is implemented.

• A renewal engine helps fund, implement, & monitor the projects in that plan. By being a permanent entity, it also helps shield your vision from being disrupted by changes of administration, or hijacked by outside interests.

What's the significance of the word "resolution" in our name? 

It's partly a pun.  Since the most successful (and most sustainable) economic growth strategies are based primarily on restoration, remediation, reuse, redevelopment, renovation, and other "re" words, then "re" is the "solution" to your growth challenges.

The other significance has to do with the 3 Renewal Rules we use as the basis of our services.  Those rules integrate the renewal of natural, built, and socioeconomic assets in such a way as to resolve many related problems, such as hunger, disease, poverty, crime, and even armed conflict.  This holistic approach can be the resolution to many seemingly intractable problems.

We're ready to enroll our community in the Renewal Capacity Program. 

How do we get started?

Call us at 1-202-204-3040 (Washington, DC), or email Storm Cunningham at storm@ResolutionFund.com to schedule your first workshop.  Once we agree on a date, we will email an invoice to you, and the date will be held for you for 72 hours.  A check or wire transfer for $9850 is all it takes to enroll in the program, pay for Workshop #1, and lock-in the date.  If you are outside of North or Central America and the Caribbean, travel expenses will be billed for reimbursement after the workshop.  Within North & Central America and the Caribbean, the $9850 fee includes the instructor's travel costs.  All logistical costs of putting on the workshop (promotion, food, meeting room, etc.) are your responsibility. 

If you have additional questions,

call Storm Cunningham at 202-204-3040, or email him at storm@resolutionfund.com.