Case Study
Hope Enterprise Corporation, with a commitment from Goldman Sachs, partnered with seven cities and nine historically Black colleges and universities to launch the Deep South Economic Mobility Collaborative (DSEMC). These include Alabama State University, Miles College, Philander Smith College, Southern University and A&M College, Dillard University, Xavier University of Louisiana, Jackson State University, Tougaloo College, and LeMoyne-Owen College. This collaborative formed to stabilize and strengthen businesses and communities devastated by the economic crisis. DSEMC invests in small businesses and entrepreneurs in the Deep South, particularly those from underserved and under-resourced communities. As a member of this collaborative, Alabama State University will expand its work to provide more technical assistance, business support and procurement opportunities to local businesses. The ASU Small Business Development Center (SBDC) has helped to launch and support hundreds of small and minority-owned businesses and its involvement in DSEMC allows the SBDC to continue to build their capacity to support the growth and advancement of community businesses.
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Case Study
Hope Enterprise Corporation, with a commitment from Goldman Sachs, partnered with seven cities and nine historically Black colleges and universities to launch the Deep South Economic Mobility Collaborative (DSEMC). These include Alabama State University, Miles College, Philander Smith College, Southern University and A&M College, Dillard University, Xavier University of Louisiana, Jackson State University, Tougaloo College, and LeMoyne-Owen College. This collaborative formed to stabilize and strengthen businesses and communities devastated by the economic crisis. DSEMC invests in small businesses and entrepreneurs in the Deep South, particularly those from underserved and under-resourced communities. As a member of this collaborative, Alabama State University will expand its work to provide more technical assistance, business support and procurement opportunities to local businesses. The ASU Small Business Development Center (SBDC) has helped to launch and support hundreds of small and minority-owned businesses and its involvement in DSEMC allows the SBDC to continue to build their capacity to support the growth and advancement of community businesses.
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Case Study
As Rowan began to increase its capital spending locally, the city of Glassboro saw a unique opportunity to leverage the Rowan investments by developing a plan for the transformation of the downtown area leading to the university. This plan ultimately became the $476 million, mixed-use development of Rowan Boulevard. In the city of Glassboro more than 30 percent of school-aged children qualified for the free lunch program and 20 percent of families earn under the poverty line. The growth that was transforming Rowan was noticed by the former mayor of Glassboro and the business community. Policy and business leaders were encouraged by the growing student market for retail services, housing and food coupled with the university’s strategic focus on becoming an “engine of growth” for Southern New Jersey. In 2008, the town purchased and demolished rundown properties to make way for the development. The Rowan Boulevard design plan generated significant interest by developers, in part because it included lease-back arrangements with the university for student housing and academic buildings.
The South Jersey Technology Park at Rowan University is located approximately one mile from the Rowan campus. According to Dr. Beena Sukumaran, who directed the management of the park for Rowan, the growth of business and investment in the Glassboro area was initiated in partnership with a local philanthropist, Sam Jones, who donated $1 million in 2006 for the establishment of the technology park. According to university literature, “The mission of the Technology Park is to establish a technology based entrepreneurial economy; expand and strengthen the unique research and learning environment of Rowan University; and create value for its surrounding communities in their economic, physical and social development.”
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St. Joseph’s accreditation was suspended in 2019 because of financial concerns. Now, the college’s space and land is being evaluated for potentially becoming an innovation center for the surrounding community. The creation of the CSJ Center for Excellence & Innovation as a community-focused Opportunity Zone project will “align, engage, and partner local government and institutions with private capital and philanthropy to address the challenges of job creation and building scalable businesses in Rutland.” Goals for the CSJ Center for Excellence and Innovation are to serve the community by “providing certificate programs, workforce training, co-working spaces, and start-up support.”
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Using a $1.25M grant from the Economic Development Administration and matching local OZ funds, the University plans to expand its efactory business incubator in Springfield, MO. According to Missouri State, this investment is expected to create “360 jobs and spur $27 million in private investment.” The efactory opened in March 2013 with the goal of serving entrepreneurs and business owners in southwest Missouri. Their programming includes providing support to large and small businesses through mentorship, accelerator programs, and networking opportunities.
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Livable City Year program is a partnership between cities in Washington state and UW’s faculty and students from various disciplines to strategize solutions to the specific community’s needs. Since 2016, this university program has produced numerous projects for the cities of Auburn, Tacoma, and Bellevue including enhancing Startup 425, a program that provides value-adding services to local startups and neighborhood planning projects.
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The university serves as an anchor in The Dayton Arcade project which restored a 9-building complex in downtown Dayton. The project includes affordable and market-rate units, University of Dayton and the Entrepreneurs Center’s Arcade Innovation Hub, leasable office and retail space, and event space. The Arcade is part of a larger plan by the City of Dayton to bring residents, jobs, and visitors back to the downtown. Across the street from the Arcade is the new Levitt Pavilion – an outdoor live music venue that offers 50 free concerts each year. The Levitt is at the center of “The Nine”, a nine-block redevelopment strategy led by the city that builds on existing underutilized assets to build a premiere downtown urban neighborhood centered around a central park.
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The Resource Amplification & Management Program within Seattle University lives in its Albers School of Business and Economics and serves local underserved businesses. A team of faculty, staff and students works with the particular business for a year or more in order to encourage growth through business coaching, resource connections, business planning, technical support, and project management. The university has built connections with local neighborhoods in Seattle with more than 2,000 hours of coaching over 150 businesses since 2016.
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Ohio University is very active in community development throughout Appalachian Ohio. They work with a network of regional entrepreneurship partners including a business incubator they run, an Angel Fund, a public VC Fund, several non-profit development orgs, and are very engaged in OZ work in Southern Ohio. Some of the focus areas include food systems, health, energy. Ohio University’s Voinovich School of Leadership and Public Affairs was awarded a $2.2 million investment from the U.S. Department of Commerce Economic Development Administration to accelerate the region’s transition from a coal economy through a new initiative called Resilience Initiative for Southeastern and Eastern Ohio (RISE Ohio).
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UVA-Wise is the lead partner for an Opportunity Appalachia program in the State. They are a leader in Southwest Virginia in community and economic development, with tremendous connections to community leaders across the region and to state government. They have a strong track record in downtown development and rural entrepreneurship efforts in +20 communities. The broader Opportunity Appalachia program involves a partnership between Appalachian Community Capital, which received an Appalachian Regional Commission grant to develop a program that attracts investment funding to federally designated Opportunity Zones located in Central Appalachia, and local organizations like UVA-Wise. UVA Wise was selected for this unique initiative because it has built a vertically integrated system of partnership that includes the Commonwealth of Virginia, state-funded higher-education institutions, regional development initiatives, and private companies. UVA-Wise has helped to identify and scale the OZ projects in Southwest Virginia that were a part of the Opportunity Appalachia Program. In 2016, a group of local leaders donated a former senior center to UVA Wise. Redeveloped and renamed the Oxbow Center, the building was converted from a space that was not in use to one that is adding value as business incubation & technology center – and is part of a broader sustainable redevelopment initiative.