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BR & E APPENDIX D: SAMPLE PRESS RELEASES NEWS RELEASE: APPLYING FOR THE PROGRAM Instructions: Simply fill in names of local leaders, cities, etc. Revise the rest of the text as necessary. (sponsoring agency)has applied for acceptance to a state economic development program,according to nam , president of(sponsoring agency) . The program,the Business Retention and Expansion Visitation Program,is designed to stimulate economic development and growth by assisting existing industry. The program is sponsored by the (name of state sponsor) . "Helping our existing firms is the primary objective of the program. This program differs from other business retention and expansion efforts in that the(name of snonsor)provides extensive technical and research assistance. Other communities have had very good results with this program,"said(coordinator)-of (cL . If the application is accepted,the program will begin in month according to (coordinator) . He/she expects to hear from the research team in a few weeks. "While our community has done a Business Retention and Expansion Program in e r ,we have never done one as large and with as much research and technical assistance as this one. Before applying for this program we talked to community leaders in several other areas that have used this particular approach to business retention and expansion. They were very positive about the results,"said (member ofLeadership Team) . For example,in (name o community) the BR&E Visitation Program lead to: (outline the sped c example of success based on the telephone interviews). Another example of the benefits of this approach to business retention and expansion was given by leaders in nam counCE or region) . One of their successes was(outline the success). According to(name of BR&E state sponsor) before a community can assist its existing industry it must identify the industry's needs,concerns,and problems. Under the BR&E Visitation,local volunteers visit businesses and gather this information. The local leaders running this program then try to solve those problems or better meet those needs identified by the businesses. "A key aspect of this program is confi- dentiality,"according to (extension educator) . "We do not publish any information on individual firms. The program is very careful about this confidentiality issue." The information gathered from the visits is compiled and analyzed at the(name of research organization) . The (coordi- nator and the Task Force members review this analysis and then write recommendations for future economic development initiatives for(name ofcommunity or county) . "One of the reasons for the popularity of the program is that it not only provides a long range plan for the community,but also yields some short range tangible results,"said (name of BR&E state ons r . 24 -- Local Leadership Team Manual