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GFDA Wins 3 National Impact Awards
Great Falls Development Alliance has been recognized with three 2025 Impact Awards from the National Association of Development Organizations, a Washington, DC-based membership association of regional development organizations that promotes programs and policies that strengthen local governments, communities, and economies.
Presented annually, the NADO Impact Awards honor regional development organizations and their partners for strengthening communities, building regional resilience, and enhancing local economies through innovative approaches to economic and community development. GFDA is the only economic development organization in Montana to win NADO Impact Awards this year, recognizing the successes of GFDA and its partners in Great Falls Housing Production, Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine Great Falls Montana, and GFDA State Small Business Credit Initiative 2.0 Partnership.
Thank you and congratulations to our amazing staff team, partners, investors and clients!
Great Falls Housing Production
The Great Falls Development Alliance has creatively worked with partners to help produce over 1,100 new homes in the Great Falls Montana commute shed. Partners included in the award are NeighborWorks Great Falls, NeighborWorks Montana, Great Falls Association of Realtors, Home Builders Association of Great Falls, City of Great Falls and Benefis Health System.
GFDA has had a long commitment to attracting, enabling and supporting investment in quality housing in the Great Falls Montana area. With the adoption of GFDA’s Economic Development Strategy focusing on key priorities that improve quality of life, retain and attract skilled workforce needed by local employers, and close the gap between wage earnings and cost of living, GFDA began to treat housing production as a target industry and developed loan capital that could be used to provide gap and bridge financing for housing development.
GFDA has a dedicated Business Development Officer focused on housing production as a target industry and has made over $14 million in gap and bridge loans to support housing developments. We have commissioned two housing market demand assessments to support data-driven decisions about the housing need in Great Falls; strengthened partnerships locally, statewide and with the Idaho/Montana Chapter of the Urban Land Institute; hosted numerous housing production, trainings and investment events to share ideas and tools for helping developers bring their projects to fruition; and worked with City planning and public works staff to solve zoning and infrastructure challenges to housing development.
In addition, GFDA has made two predevelopment loans - one for a 163 starter-home modular housing project and one for an apartment project anticipated to include over 300 units. Four additional major housing developments cultivated by GFDA’s efforts have been announced totaling over 1,000 new future homes.
Touro College of Osteopathic Medicine Great Falls Montana
The Great Falls Development Alliance worked with Benefis Health System and many other partners to attract and support the first non-profit medical school to Montana. Partners included in the award are Touro University, Benefis Health System, and the City of Great Falls.
Over a decade ago, Benefis Health System and the Great Falls Development Alliance set a joint goal of attracting a world-class university to open a medical school in Great Falls that would focus on educating new doctors interested in providing primary and specialty care in rural and tribal communities. Through persistence, targeted outreach to leading class Universities, and cultivation of rural residency opportunities across northern tier western states, we attracted the interest of Touro University leadership - which had already opened a successful Osteopathic School of Medicine in rural New York state.
Benefis and GFDA worked with Touro University leaders to cultivate interest. Many community and state partners helped to turn the concept into a viable plan. GFDA committed to providing welcoming support to faculty and students. Benefis committed to build a 268-unit apartment complex next to the school site to provide student housing. The City of Great Falls committed to expedite permitting. And Sletten Construction, a locally headquartered commercial general contraction ESOP with extensive education and medical experience, committed to a fast construction schedule to meet accreditation schedules.
The medical school was constructed on time and on budget, welcoming its first class of 128 students in the summer of 2023. GFDA followed through on its commitment to Touro, raising donations from local businesses and organizations worth over $500 for each student, helping faculty and students find housing, and hosting multiple special events including an evening at a Great Falls Voyagers baseball game, a hootenanny, and downtown events.
The school has been a huge success, attracting the full complement of 130 students for its second class that began in summer of 2024. This spring the first class started residencies at over a dozen rural and tribal locations, including a new residency program at Benefis Hospital. Touro also started a one-year masters program starting with 20 students and building up to 75 students. Students who successfully complete the masters program above a specified grade point average are automatically accepted into Touro medical school. Touro has also begun developing more professional health programs to offer at the school. The Touro students have organized several community health care service projects benefiting the community and region. Touro has invested over $70 million in the Great Falls campus.
GFDA State Small Business Credit Initiative 2.0 Partnership
The Great Falls Development Alliance have worked with public and private partners to close 18 SSBCI 2.0 loan participations, all of which have been SEDI designated loans. Partners included in the award are the Montana Department of Commerce and multiple banks in our region.
Montana is among the first states to fully deploy all three tranches of SSBCI 2.0 funding, building on the success of SSBCI 1.0 through partnerships between the Montana Department of Commerce and regional organizations like the Great Falls Development Alliance (GFDA). To date, GFDA have closed 18 SSBCI 2.0 loan participations totaling $6.6 million, leveraging over $32 million in business investment. All loans qualified as SEDI, and as a CDFI, GFDA has used its own capital alongside SSBCI funds to provide subordinate financing—making it one of Montana’s top EDO organizations for SSBCI leveraged funds.
GFDA-supported projects span a wide range of industries, including the expansion of a childcare center that added 40+ new slots, a startup micro-distillery, and the growth of a local ski hill, landscaping nursery, homebuilder, and an optometrist. In Downtown Great Falls, four businesses have purchased or expanded their business properties. Other highlights include a manufacturing startup by the Little Shell Tribe, a home-based rural marketing business, a new hotel on a reclaimed riverfront brownfield site, and the local purchase of the Great Falls Voyagers baseball team—keeping this beloved community asset in Montana.
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