Go Virginia

On Thursday, August 24, 2017, the GO Northern Virginia Council authorized submission of its Economic Growth and Diversity Plan to the GO Virginia State Board for consideration and approval.  This Plan is a requirement of every regional GO Virginia Council. The Plan includes three goals against which its strategies have been developed:  

1. Strengthening Northern Virginia’s technology workforce, 

2. Accelerating the development of ‘growth’ companies, and 

3. Enhance technology transfer and the commercialization of intellectual property from the region’s research centers and institutions. 

The Plan was reviewed against criteria provided each Region by the GO Virginia State Board.  

The GO Northern Virginia Council’s Plan was used as a guide to evaluate Letters of Interest from groups with projects proposed to receive a portion of the $3.1 million the Council has for regional grants.  The Council’s goal is to ask select projects to complete comprehensive applications by sometime in October.  The Council will review these applications, and then plans to select 3 to be submitted to the GO Virginia State Board for approval in November of December.  The timeline is aggressive; however, the Council is confident that Northern Virginia’s private, government, and education sectors are well prepared to collaborate in putting together projects that will meet the Council’s overall goal of enhancing the region’s workforce ready to fill jobs to provide incomes above the current median annual income of $70,000.  

Projects funded will address one or more of the Council’s three broad goals:

• Grow and strengthen Northern Virginia’s technology workforce,
• Support the expansion of small and medium sized growth companies, and
• Increase technology transfer and commercialization activities from research centersand institutions

Projects supported by GO Virginia Funding must:

• Involve industries that pay average annual wages greater than $70,000 in 2016 (see Attachment 1 for a list of qualifying industries),
• Benefit two or more jurisdictions (county or independent city) in Region 7, or at least one Region 7 jurisdiction and a jurisdiction located elsewhere in Virginia,
• Commit non-state sources of matching funds (50/50), including participation by included jurisdictions. “Non-state sources” means funding that is public (local or federal not state funding), private funding, or quantified in-kind
• Generate new spending to Northern Virginia (not just recirculating local spending)