Funding campaign helps ADC fund growth mission

Each January, Aurora Development Corporation begins our annual funding campaign like a variety of other local organizations do. Many businesses and individuals already financially support our efforts to strengthen the community financially, but I would suspect there are still many who don’t know what we do, let alone how we operate. 
When Aurora Development Corporation began 60 years ago, it started as a for-profit corporation, a designation we still hold today. In a basic sense, that means that our organization pays income tax, and we have shareholders who are owners in the company. Currently, there are 221 shareholders who collectively own 3,875 shares. These shareholders are comprised of local businesses and individuals who care about the community and want to see it grow. 
Over the years as Aurora Development Corporation grew, the money raised through the sale of shares has been used to invest in and develop property around our community. As those properties sold, those funds were reinvested to the next development project to continue to grow the community. As a result, shareholders and the board of directors have never been paid a dividend, so those funds can continue to generate growth.  
As you look around the community you can see this in the industrial parks, in several housing subdivisions and currently with the new developments south of Aurora. 
When Aurora Development Corporation set out to hire a new director in 2019, board members decided that they didn’t want to hold back the growth that was generated by reinvesting funds from shareholders. This led them to develop a secondary revenue stream through an annual funding campaign to fund the operating expenses each year, such as staff, training, office expenses, etc. 
Those who don’t currently support Aurora Development Corporation or don’t know how we operate might be wondering why an individual or business would support our organization’s funding campaign. Knowing that I bring a completely biased opinion to the discussion, I see a variety of reasons that businesses and individuals support our organization, which can be grouped into direct and indirect benefits. 
The direct benefits are services that you can see and experience. Examples of this are business retention and expansion interviews, supporting the downtown revitalization grant efforts, specialized support for a business’s unique needs, sending out a monthly business update, community feedback sessions, and much more.  
Direct benefits are typically what people want to know about when they are considering supporting an organization and while they are important, the indirect benefits in economic development are just as important because they benefit everyone in the community. The hard part about indirect benefits is that they are much harder to explain or describe because you can’t always see them, and it is hard to know if they were created by accident or on purpose.  
As an example, one of the projects that I had the pleasure of working on over the past year was supporting a local business as they explored options for expansion. This is work that very few people saw and even less people will realize Aurora Development Corporation was involved in when it comes to fruition. But, recognition isn’t what is important. What is important is the newly created lasting growth in the community with new jobs, adding more sales and services to the community, growing the tax base and other small ripples that lead to more houses being built, more customers in our local businesses, access to more services closer to home and so on and so forth.  These are the indirect benefits that this work will create.  
Is Aurora Development Corporation involved in every development that happens in Aurora and throughout Hamilton County? Certainly not, and our goal has always been to let the private sector lead development efforts. However, we are always willing to be a partner and support these development projects when we can. If economic development and growth is something that you want to see continue in our area, we would be happy to accept your support whether it is financially, through partnership, or volunteer efforts. We are also deeply thankful for the businesses and individuals who support our funding campaign, so that we have the resources to provide help when it is needed.   
 KELSEY BERGEN serves as executive director of the Aurora Development Corporation. She can be reached at kelsey@growaurora.com