About Applied America
Rebuilding American productive capacity, project by project.
Applied America is a nonprofit division of CEFA that develops the industrial, infrastructure, energy, and technology projects the country needs, brings the capital, and carries each one from priority to implementation.
- Transformative projects targeted under America 275
- 275
- Flagship initiatives in active development
- 9
- Strategic sectors under coordination
- 6
Our purpose
A nonprofit developer of public-priority projects.
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 that brings the capital. 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. Its share of world manufacturing has fallen since, with consequences for supply chains, regional economies, and national resilience.
Sources: Bairoch, industrialization levels; UN Statistics Division; World Bank; Statista.
Manufacturing’s share of U.S. value added in 2025, down from roughly 28% in the early 1950s.
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis, via FRED (VAPGDPMA)
Americans employed in manufacturing, below the 1979 peak of about 19.5 million.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2025
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
The United States now makes a far smaller share of the world’s manufactured goods than it did two generations ago. 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 project developer
Applied America convenes government, industry, finance, and technical institutions to identify priorities, brings the capital, and carries specific projects through feasibility, structuring, financing, and delivery.
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
We settle who owns the opportunity — its sponsor — and write down its definition: need, location, beneficiaries, market case, and intended outcomes, so that everyone who evaluates it is looking at the same project.
Develop
We test feasibility through market, technical, economic, and site analysis, give the project its delivery architecture of scope, governance, risk allocation, and milestones, and assemble the public, private, financial, and technical participants it needs to advance.
Prepare
We bring the documentation, capital requirements, and financial assumptions to the standard capital providers expect, then assemble the capital stack — grants, lenders, investors, foundations, and development-finance pathways, each matched to the stage and risk it carries.
Deliver
We carry each project through approvals, procurement, construction, and handover into operation, tracking milestones, partner commitments, and the economic outcomes it was created to produce — and report them against the priority that started it.
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 division of the Center for Economics & Foreign Affairs (CEFA), a Delaware nonprofit corporation exempt from federal income tax under section 501(c)(3); it is not a separate legal entity. It develops industrial, infrastructure, energy, and technology projects: it convenes government, industry, finance, and technical institutions, brings the capital, and carries each project from priority to delivery.
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.
Yes. Applied America brings the capital: it assembles and commits the capital stack behind each project it develops — grants, lenders, investors, foundations, and development-finance institutions — and carries the project through delivery. It is not a broker, dealer, or investment adviser; it does not place securities; and 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 national framework for identifying, developing, and advancing a pipeline of transformative projects across American industry, infrastructure, energy, technology, and regional development.
Have a priority or a project?
Economic-development offices bring a priority; sponsors bring a project. Every submission receives a preliminary institutional review.