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
The Herman J. Russell Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is a 50,000 SF campus in one of Atlanta’s fast growing downtown neighborhoods that is focused on black entrepreneurship. The program will involve professors from local universities like Emory, Morehouse, Georgia Tech, Kennesaw State, and Georgia State. The Russell Center is an incubator for tech companies and operating businesses with physical products or content through its Launch Pad Innovation Studio. Four thousand square feet of the building will be reserved so entrepreneurs can host banks, institutional investors, angels and government entities. Along with financing from the Russell family and a grant from the EDA, the center will be sustainable through offering memberships.
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Case Study
Between 1996 and 2003, the University of Pennsylvania tripled the dollar amount of goods and services purchased from West Philadelphia businesses through their Economic Inclusion Initiative. They continue to focus on local purchasing and aim to award 20 percent of all construction contracts to minority or women-owned businesses. The University has also made great investments in Philadelphia’s neighborhoods by adding 3,800 new street trees and 850 new pedestrian street lights to residential and commercial streets. Penn supports public education by contributing over $800,000 to the neighboring Sadie Alexander Mossell Elementary School and providing landscaping services and security & expertise from Penn’s Graduate School of Education. Penn supports a variety of programs towards preparing Philadelphia’s future workforce, including training minorities to apprentice with local building trade unions and investing in the West Philadelphia Skills Initiative to align unemployed West Philadelphians with opportunities in local anchor institutions. The University funds forgivable loans enabling 1,000 participants to homes in the neighborhood near the school. By investing $150 million in retail development, Penn attracted approximately $1 billion in private investment from the real estate sector. This investment has established vibrant, pedestrian-friendly retail corridors consisting of 450,000 square feet of large and small businesses and created connections between the campus and neighborhood.
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Case Study
Northeastern launched the region’s first university-supported loan program for women- and minority-owned businesses. The initiative, called the Impact Lending program, enables local small-business owners to secure loans, at below-market interest rates, to acquire crucial resources to expand their businesses. Northeastern has committed $2.5 million in seed funding, which will allow for a revolving fund of $6.5 million in loans. The university has partnered with Local Initiatives Support Corporation (LISC), a nonprofit that provides loans and advisory services to underserved small businesses.
Links to relevant articles:
- More universities and colleges reach out to boost their home communities – The Hechinger Report
- Northeastern, city, and community leaders hail new loan program for local businesses
- Northeastern launches loan program for women and minority entrepreneurs
- Community Impact
- Northeastern’s “Impact Lending” program shows how universities can support inner city businesses and bolster
Case Study
Arizona State moved its schools of nursing and journalism and other programs into a once-blighted section of Phoenix in a project that includes student housing and private development. Part of the anchor institution model is to invest in a suite of different programs and initiatives meant to connect them with the community. At ASU, the building of the Downtown Phoenix campus helped to revitalize the area and spur continued growth. “ASU does work in this anchor institution model but we’re a little different. Take the Downtown Phoenix campus for instance. We built a whole brand new campus. That’s not happening at a lot of institutions. So we’re engaging in those revitalization efforts in part by building brand new campuses, and when we’re doing that, we’re also investing in things like Civic Space Park, which is public, but it’s still connected to the campus because we have very open boundaries. ASU is growing in a polycentric model, which means we have multiple campuses and little hubs but we’re one institution.” Meagan Ehlenz
ASU hosted Impact Experience to lead a collaboration experience in March of 2019 amongst tribal leaders, university leaders, fund managers, philanthropists, and community leaders to discuss potential equitable and inclusive strategies for Opportunity Zones in Arizona. The conversation focused on finding solutions across sectors to encourage collaboration and ensure inclusive and equitable economic development that focuses on the social and environmental impact of Opportunity Zones in Arizona. This collaboration was highlighted in Forbes in September of 2019.