About Applied America
Rebuilding American productive capacity, project by project.
Applied America is a nonprofit division of CEFA and a national platform for developing the industrial, infrastructure, energy, and technology projects the country needs — and carrying them from priority to implementation.
- Projects in the national pipeline framework
- 275
- Flagship initiatives in active development
- 7
- Strategic sectors under coordination
- 6
Our purpose
A national platform, built for delivery.
Applied America exists to close the distance between economic priorities and the projects that realize them. The country does not lack ambition or capital; it lacks the institutional connective tissue that moves a promising opportunity through feasibility, structuring, partnership, and financing to the point where it can be built.
We operate as a developer, convener, and standard-setter — not a lender or investor. We identify where coordinated projects can strengthen American capacity, define those projects with institutional discipline, and assemble the public, private, financial, and technical participants required to deliver them.
Why this matters
The industrial base that built the country has thinned.
For much of the twentieth century the United States was the world’s workshop. That share has fallen by more than two-thirds — with consequences for supply chains, regional economies, and national resilience.
Sources: Bairoch, industrialization levels; UN Statistics Division; Statista.
Manufacturing’s share of U.S. GDP, down from roughly 28% in the early 1950s.
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
Americans employed in manufacturing, below the 1979 peak of about 19.5 million.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
U.S. infrastructure investment gap identified in the 2025 national report card, up from $2.6T in 2021.
American Society of Civil Engineers, 2025
Applied America’s role
From a structural problem to projects that move.
Capacity has eroded
Over two generations, the United States moved from producing roughly half the world’s manufactured goods to under a fifth. Supply chains, industrial know-how, and regional economies thinned alongside it.
Good projects stall early
Many viable industrial, infrastructure, and energy projects never reach implementation — not for lack of merit, but for lack of structuring, coordination, and a credible path from concept to capital.
A development platform
Applied America convenes government, industry, finance, and technical institutions to identify priorities and carry specific projects through feasibility, structuring, and delivery readiness.
Projects that move
The aim is a visible pipeline of well-structured projects — with defined sponsors, partners, and financing pathways — that strengthen American productive capacity where it is built.
How it works
Identify, structure, develop, prepare, deliver.
Every project follows the same disciplined path — from the first assessment of a development need to the tracking of outcomes as it is built.
Identify
We work with regions, agencies, industries, and institutions to surface development needs and screen each candidate for public purpose, deliverability, and fit before development resources are committed.
Structure
The opportunity acquires a sponsor to own it, is defined — need, location, beneficiaries, market case, and intended outcomes — and is given a delivery architecture of scope, governance, risk allocation, and milestones.
Develop
We coordinate the market, technical, economic, and site analysis that tests feasibility, and assemble the public, private, financial, and technical participants the project needs to advance.
Prepare
Documentation, capital requirements, and financial assumptions are brought to the standard capital providers expect, then matched to the right grants, lenders, investors, and development-finance pathways by stage and risk.
Deliver
As projects advance toward approvals, procurement, and construction, we track milestones, partner commitments, and the economic outcomes they were created to produce — closing the loop back to the originating priority.
Scale of the mandate
The stakes, in numbers.
How to engage
Ways to work with Applied America.
Government, industry, finance, communities, and technical experts each enter the work at a different point. Choose the pathway that fits your organization.
Common questions
What to know about Applied America.
Applied America is a nonprofit division of the Center for Economics & Foreign Affairs (CEFA). It operates as a national project-development platform, bringing government, industry, finance, and technical institutions together to turn economic priorities into structured projects with a path toward implementation.
CEFA conducts research and policy work on economics and foreign affairs. Applied America translates those priorities into defined initiatives and projects, connecting analysis to development. It operates under CEFA’s governance as a nonprofit division.
No. Applied America does not act as a lender or investor and does not offer securities. It structures and prepares projects and helps connect them with appropriate grants, lenders, investors, foundations, and development-finance institutions. Nothing on this site is an offer, solicitation, or investment advice.
Projects in sectors essential to American productive capacity — advanced manufacturing, critical minerals and materials, energy and infrastructure, technology and defense-adjacent industries, and regional and community development.
Government bodies, companies, financial institutions, and technical experts each have an entry point. You can submit a project, become a project or finance partner, or contribute expertise as a fellow or advisor. Every submission receives a preliminary review.
America 275 is Applied America’s flagship national platform: a framework for identifying, developing, and advancing a pipeline of transformative projects across American industry, infrastructure, energy, technology, and regional development.
Have a project, a mandate, or expertise to contribute?
Bring us an opportunity, register as a partner, or start a conversation. Every submission receives a preliminary institutional review.