Edward Lowe Foundation

SpotLight

Title: Building resiliency into communities

Summary: The foundation recently expanded the breadth of its leader retreat program with two community-development workshops. Read the full story here.

Building resiliency into communities

The foundation recently expanded the breadth of its leader retreat program with two community-development workshops.

In December 2009 approximately 30 disaster-recovery experts from around the country gathered at Big Rock Valley. Their focus: how to get small businesses back to business following a catastrophic event.

"In the past, disaster recovery has focused on rebuilding infrastructure rather than businesses," explained Stephen Jordan, senior vice president and executive director of the Business Civic Leadership Center in Washington, D.C. The idea behind the retreat was to institutionalize lessons learned from past disasters so future recovery responses don’t have to be reinvented. "It’s a difficult process," Jordan admits, "but I think we kicked the ball down the field quite a bit."

Retreat participants included representatives from emergency response departments, chambers of commerce, regional planning organizations, the U.S. Economic Development Administration and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Participants’ experience with disaster was likewise diverse, ranging from terrorist attacks to hurricanes to earthquakes.

"That diversity was important since each disaster presents its own unique challenges," pointed out J. Michael Norton, executive director of the Northwest Arkansas Economic Development District Inc. "When we first got to the retreat I think everyone was scratching their head and wondering if they should have come. Yet by the time we left, everyone had gained new insight into the business aspect of disaster recovery and felt it was well worth their time. The foundation’s facilitators did a great job of keeping us on track and determining the important issues."

Among key issues, the group discussed: what role the federal government should play to help businesses recover, what kind of pre-planning communities should do, and what steps should be taken immediately after a disaster strikes.

One of the retreat’s outcomes will be a white paper and list of best practices to help small businesses recover from catastrophes. "This is a critical issue because small businesses are the lifeblood of many rural communities and small metro areas," said Michael Bellamente, program manager at the National Association of Development Organizations.

Having the Edward Lowe Foundation facilitate the workshop was important due to the foundation’s expertise in entrepreneurship, observed Jeff Finkle, president and CEO of the International Economic Development Council in Washington, D.C. "The foundation helped us understand how entrepreneurs, especially second-stage companies, can be affected when a disaster hits communities — and how important entrepreneurs are to economic recovery."

Another recent retreat convened an eclectic group of land-use decision makers at Big Rock Valley. The host organization, People and Land (PAL), was searching for ways to enhance collaboration in its efforts to help Michigan communities increase quality of life and economic prosperity.

"PAL already had an informal type of network that existed, but our goal was to make people more aware of it, emphasize its power and see if it could be more effectively mobilized," explained Conan Smith, executive director of Michigan Suburbs Alliance who serves on PAL’s leadership council.

One of the outcomes of the retreat was creating a new organizational model for PAL. Instead of a traditional top-down or hub-and-spoke structure, the group came away with a more organic, just-in-time model for a network. "It’s still a work-in-progress, but we’re really excited about the opportunities it might lead to and how resilient it might be," said Brad Garmon, land programs director at the Michigan Environmental Council and a member of PAL’s leadership council. "It was a big experiment that could have tanked," Garmon added. "Yet both the foundation’s property and facilitators helped it be a success."

Smith agreed, noting that on the second day of the retreat, progress suddenly stopped. "Yet the facilitators helped us identify where the angst was coming from — and how to address it and move forward," Smith said. "I was really impressed. I think this was one of the most important things we’ve done as a group."

Although the foundation’s retreats typically focus on helping second-stage entrepreneurs grow their businesses, the PAL and small-business recovery workshops remain mission-centric because they revolved around community development, observed Shannon Jennings, programs services manager at the Edward Lowe Foundation.

"I think we were able to bring a new perspective to those conversations," she says. "Second-stage companies are a vital part of building resilient communities, whether we’re talking about quality of life or a community’s ability to prepare for and recover from a disaster."

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