Community Based Jobs: Creating Fertile Economic Gardens and Enabling Local Resident Entrepreneurs in Tough Times

Big Ideas for Job Creation ConferenceJune 16, 2011

Increasing economic opportunity and sustainable prosperity for people, companies, and communities

Helping states, regions, and communities reimagine policies and investments that support work and learning in the 21st century

Engaging in public policy research, development, and technical assistance in the areas of education, economic, and workforce development

CSW’s Mission & Work

Big Idea for Job Creation

Growing out of work CSW has been doing in communities around the country

Engaging at the nexus of economic, workforce, and community development

Documenting the emergence of this in Detroit – Food Systems and Building Upgrades

Comparing Detroit to a few other places

Analyzing against criteria (feasibility, replicability, scalability, sustainability)

Presentation Flow

Sustainable

Economic

Development

Natural Capital

Social Capital

Economic Capital

Underlying Principles:Sustainability & Equity

Responding to untapped local market development,

Building capacity of resident entrepreneurs and local businesses

Targeting sustainability-driven sectors and clusters where TBL wealth building can happen

Focusing on industries where startup and small-to-medium businesses can thrive

Paying attention to quality of jobs and who in the industry has access to them

Creating pathways for low-income low-skilled workers

Community Based Job Creation

Engaging Residents &Building Skills

• Organizing Communities to Drive Public Demand

• Targeting Emerging Sectors

• Employing Economic Gardening

Market Developmen

t

Industry Sector & Cluster

Development

Small Business

Development

Human Capital

Development

Integrated Strategies

Detroit: Food System

Emerging cluster of activity

Community interest and demand for alternatives

Desire to organize and build a sector or cluster partnership

Skills, credentials and agreements for workers

Set of economic gardening and enterprise development efforts

Alignment of public and private sector stakeholders

Detroit: Buildings

Emerging sector creating local jobs

Taking steps to educate and organize community demand

Adapting sector strategies to address demand and supply

Unusual level of public-private-nonprofit collaboration toward sustainable industry, jobs

Stakeholder Engagement

Policies, Programs, Practices

Community Based

Organizations

Government (fed, state,

local)

Private-Sector

Labor Unions

Philanthropy

Stakeholder Roles

Making it Happen Enabling It – the policy piece

Building It – the market piece

Supporting It – the business services and capacity building piece

Supplying It – the workforce training piece

Sustaining It -- the systems building and scaling part

Testing AssumptionsPracticalityFeasibilityReplicabilityAdaptabilityScalabilitySustainability

Getting Feedback?!

Jeannine LaPrad

jmlaprad@skillework.org

Michael DiRamio

mdiramio@skilledwork.org