Working Communities Challenge

The Vermont Working Communities Challenge advances local collaborative efforts that build strong, healthy economies and communities in Vermont’s rural towns, regions, and smaller cities. Launched in 2019 by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston (FRBB), the initiative supports diverse, local teams of leaders as they tackle complex challenges facing their communities. With a focus on economic opportunity for communities and residents with low incomes, this unique three-year program is supported by the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, the State of Vermont, national and local philanthropy, and private sector employers.

To build a stronger economy, we need housing. To fill a workforce, we need new Vermonters. To build community vitality, we need an easy way for people to get from one side of town to another. The Working Communities Challenge creates cross-sector leadership, and empowered voices of lived experience, as foundational aspects of ways in which the program was designed. With these as cornerstones of the program, eight communities and regions in Vermont were awarded implementation grants through a competitive application process as they tackle some of the biggest, most complex problems facing this and future generations of workers and their families.