Establish a Great America Accelerator for Small Business Growth and Continuity
The Challenge
The changing market perpetually requires a great deal of innovation to drive businesses forward and bolster city economies. Funds for research and development, technical assistance and loans for demonstration projects can be in short supply, especially for small businesses. At the same time, resources for business continuity planning (to prepare for continued operation in case of shocks) are often non-existent. Nationwide Insurance found that 68% of small businesses did not have a disaster plan in place.
While the Federal Government’s and philanthropy’s continued emphasis on resilience will enable businesses to better prepare for the worst, even the combination of available resources from the Federal Government and philanthropic organizations is insufficient to reach all businesses in a timely manner. As the Department of Housing and Urban Development and The Rockefeller Foundation demonstrated with the National Disaster Resilience Competition, when the span of the Federal Government combines with the flexibility of philanthropy, communities can realize a far greater benefit than when the two act separately.
The Opportunity
Increasing resilience by creating a diversified city economy and generating new industries can drive economic development, strengthen existing service base and create growth and opportunities for cities.
A Great America Accelerator economic development program, led by the White House National Economic Council in partnership with philanthropic organizations, could increase economic growth within cities by leveraging and coordinating an array of services to support business continuity and disaster preparedness, and post-disaster recovery for businesses. This joint effort would result in a set of best practices that the Federal Government could promote through its existing programs. The Great America Accelerator would be an interagency coordinator of the many small business-related agency programs led by the Federal Government in tandem with philanthropically-funded competitive grant program for small businesses. Benefits to philanthropic organizations would include targeted access to businesses identified by the government as physically and economically vulnerable, in addition to creating opportunities for philanthropic work to be amplified nationally by the Federal Government and inspire local or regional investments in second-generation projects. Philanthropic organizations and the Federal Government should come together to:
- Fund a range of eligible activities with private dollars, including market research, small/disadvantaged business technical assistance support, and specific projects designed to improve business resilience and economic development. Projects that are aligned with the Economic Development Agency’s Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) roadmap should be prioritized, as well as those that have been created through public and private sector collaboration and that have defined ways to strengthen and diversify regional economies.
- Prioritize economic development efforts in blighted city commercial corridors and vacant areas that will help bolster vulnerable city communities.
- Create a revolving loan fund for sector specific economic development for resilience.
- Include guidance, tools and support for improving and streamlining small business disaster recovery, such as new mobile internet connectivity hubs after a community-wide disaster.
Action Steps
Executive
The White House should task agencies with identifying businesses and locations vulnerable to business loss, and convene a roundtable with state and local elected officials, businesses and philanthropic organizations to examine opportunities to test and highlight innovative resilience initiatives.
Economic Development Administration should include resilience as a key theme in Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) roadmaps.
