Shenandoah Valley Partnership launches capital campaign

Shenandoah Valley Partnership (SVP) is raising $1.7 million through its first capital campaign, Forward2028, to fund a five-year plan aimed at business and workforce attraction and retention.

The region’s manufacturing sector alone has 3,100 job openings due to older workers retiring and companies ramping up production, says Jay Langston, executive director of the economic development marketing organization, which covers 12 localities from Rockbridge County to Shenandoah County. “Businesses can’t grow unless they have people to put in those positions,” he says. 

The partnership’s five-year plan calls for building relationships with commercial real estate brokers and site selection firms to attract new businesses, as well as creating an SVP web portal listing job openings and where to get relevant education or training, says Langston.

The region’s community colleges and universities produce about 9,500 graduates per year, he says: “If we were to capture just 900, or 10% of that number, think about the impact that would have on our economy.”

Chris Ellis, a senior vice president at Truist Financial Corp. in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County who serves on the campaign committee, says, “Growth and retention are so important. Not only do we need the workforce, but obviously the healthier the economy, the better it is for [Truist] and the services we’re able to provide.”

Currently, 120 companies and individuals invest in SVP to help fund its business and marketing activities. The partnership launched the quiet phase of its capital campaign in October 2022, says campaign chair Greg Godsey, a commercial market executive at Atlantic Union Bank in Harrisonburg.

Besides attraction and retention, the plan’s priorities include performing due diligence on undeveloped industrial sites and helping match them with developers; improved marketing of the region’s sites and infrastructure; and exploring the creation of a regional industrial development authority.

“That’s resonated well,” he says. “A lot of [investors] doubled … what they’d given in the past.” The campaign, which officially kicked off Jan. 31, raised a little over $1.5 million by mid-April through donations from hospitals, financial institutions and other businesses. Godsey expected to reach the campaign’s $1.7 million goal before June 1.

“It’s been gratifying,” he says. “The partnership is well-known and respected. We want to take it to the next level to compete with others in Virginia and surrounding states.”