Lessons Learned: Inclusive Economic Growth

Reflections from the Fellowship

As part of ACCE’s year-long Fellowship for Inclusive Economic Growth, 21 chamber leaders from across the U.S. were selected to help refine their inclusive economic recovery goals and ultimately help business associations nationwide build replicable programs and processes.

Fellows were challenged to consider what would need to be reimagined to achieve sustainable economic success for everyone in their communities. To guide chambers in their work, the ACCE Foundation (ACCEF) created a framework for inclusive economic growth, which stresses that the benefits of prosperity are distributed equitably across the community, and everyone has access to opportunities, both today and in the future. It highlighted ways chambers can move towards inclusive growth by focusing on messaging, policies and programs in their core areas of work, such as education and talent development, economic and community development, small business and entrepreneurship and health and wellness. ACCEF encouraged fellows to incorporate equity, partnerships and data and measurement to foster positive change. Watch submitted videos from the fellows in the playlist below.

Among the key lessons learned:

Use diversity, equity and inclusion as a lens for planning.
Get creative with workforce development.
Use data to lead the work.
Support entrepreneurship for all.

Use diversity, equity and inclusion as a lens for planning.

The Greater Topeka Partnership positively impacted its community through a five-year strategic community plan, Momentum 2022. To keep that forward motion going, the organization took on the creation of Momentum 2027. Consisting of four core goals, the plan uses equity as its lens. “We believe diversity is our strength, equity is our directive and inclusion is the spirit by which we do our work,” said Glenda Washington, the chamber’s chief equity & opportunity officer.

At the Dallas Regional Chamber, four core pillars of work guide its diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in order to align with the chamber’s community work. One of those pillars – community investment in underserved areas – is working to close the opportunity gap in Southern Dallas County by bringing living wages and accessible jobs to the area while connecting diverse talent to those employment opportunities. The chamber created a website specifically focused on the area, framing it as a guide to investment and economic development.

Greater St. Louis Inc. created the first-ever metro-wide jobs plan in the spring of 2021, which focused on inclusive growth. “The STL 2030 Jobs Plan offers a definition of inclusive growth that is grounded in the fact that Black St. Louis metro residents and other people of color have been disproportionately harmed by the region’s long history of systemic racism, racial segregation and systemic disinvestment,” the plan stated. It also calls for greater attention to other underrepresented communities in the 15-county region with its five actionable strategies.

Get creative with workforce development.

The talent crunch is not a new challenge for those in the chamber industry, but various factors over the past few years have exacerbated the problem. This challenge has led to creative thinking by chambers wanting to help both local employers and residents. The Greater San Fernando Valley Chamber hopes to be the connective resource to showcase non-traditional employment pools. By acting as the convener for businesses and nonprofits that work with groups of potential employees, the chamber wants to bring workforce solutions, track those efforts and meet business needs as they change. “Equipping and providing training opportunities to those who have traditionally been excluded raises our communities,” said Fuyumi Hashimoto, communications & special events director.

At the Greater Des Moines Partnership, a grant through ACCE’s Equitable Credential Attainment Cohort program, supported by the Lumina Foundation, allowed the chamber to create partnerships to increase credential and degree attainment for the Central Iowa region. “When you look at the African American and Latinx communities, we started to see some huge disparities,” said Marvin DeJear, senior vice president of talent development. The chamber brought together various partners, including the local community college and United Way, to work on closing the education gap.

Use data to lead the work.

Data can serve as an excellent tool to lead industry professionals to the most significant opportunities for action. But it’s not always easy to find data down to local municipalities. The Edwardsville/Glen Carbon Chamber of Commerce wants to develop unique and zip-code-specific data as a starting point for the discussion about inclusive economic development. “The desired outcome is to produce evidence-based programming informed by whatever our data collection reveals,” said Desiree Bennyhoff, CCE, president & CEO. “We want to have meaningful conversations that lead to a prosperous future for our region.”

The pandemic prompted the Greater Federal Way Chamber of Commerce to start and share an economic recovery dashboard. While starting with basic demographics, the chamber dove deeper into the numbers, like comparing top hard skills and top job titles, so the information would provide insight into what employers seek. “It really tells us what the need is. It tells us what the jobs are, what the businesses that are here are looking for,” said Becca Martin, CCE, president & CEO. The focus on data led to the chamber’s economic visioning report and will soon be followed by an economic equity assessment.

Support entrepreneurship for all.

A local restauranteur received a loan from the Joplin Capital Corporation to open Me’s Place 11 years ago. While the loan helped open the doors, the strict eligibility requirements didn’t make it easy. To provide more equitable access to capital, the Joplin Area Chamber of Commerce is working with regional partners to close the corporation and replace it with a revolving loan fund that will be easier for entrepreneurs and startups to access. “They need to have capital in the bank, ready to go when they want to start their business, and we’re trying to give them that opportunity,” said Tonya Sprenkle, vice president. “We will have intentionality in the marketing of the loan funds to a diverse pool of clients.”

The Ocala Metro Chamber & Economic Partnership launched IMPACT, an entrepreneurship-focused diversity and inclusion initiative, to support underserved communities. The chamber is creating incubators in three targeted communities, and the first is under construction. The chamber is also working on developing more access to capital by creating a Community Development Financial Institution and being a clearinghouse for resources. “What may seem the simplest goal is providing information. But for those who need it, they often lack the knowledge and access for a variety of reasons,” said Cherrietta Prince, the director of IMPACT. “We often take access to information for granted, especially because most of us have access to cell phones, computers and high-speed internet.”