A Whole that is Greater than the Sum of its Parts.
Last week, President Biden, joined by Department of Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, announced nearly $1 billion in Phase II grants for 21 regions (out of 60 finalists) in the Economic Development Agency’s (EDA’s) Build Back Better Regional Challenge (BBBRC).
As our CEO Jon Schnur reiterated last week, the opportunity for transformative impact continues – for all 60 finalists.
Early in the process, EDA made a key design decision: it chose not to just write checks to finalists. Instead, it turbo-charged success by building a technical assistance coalition including America Achieves, the National League of Cities, the Nowak Lab at Drexel University, and the Federation of American Scientists. Together, we supported all 60 finalists as they developed their strong Phase 1 concepts to great Phase II proposals. Our role was that of a strategic advisor and thought partner.
As a coalition that was external but still working closely with the EDA, we could offer unbiased support to all finalist coalitions. Our collective insights and guidance were grounded in a goal of ensuring every regional team leveraged their full potential in submitting final applications, while still being separated from decision making in the selection process. While our group had a relatively short time frame to dive in and assist Phase I grantees with their Phase II applications, by working together, and with critical coordination with the EDA, we were able to provide important, multidimensional support.
What follows are my reflections on five aspects of the technical assistance and culture of collaboration that helped the finalists not only develop a proposal but the beginnings of a movement.
To build trust with and offer value to the finalists, we sought to meet the finalists where they were – and offer technical assistance that matched their greatest needs. We surveyed finalists regularly, created a framework for support that was highly aligned with the BBBRC evaluation criteria, and offered support via a variety of access points, all in close partnership with EDA. Specifically, we provided:
As a former educator, this mixed-modality approach reminds me of strategies we used to ensure students, teachers and families were accessing curriculum and culture in a manner that best met their learning style. In the world of BBBRC applicants, there were some regions that particularly valued the 1:1 meeting because they didn’t typically have access to a cadre of consultants. Others appreciated the webinars because the discourse in the chat was so rich, while others leveraged the resource library as their go-to support because it suited their need for on-demand access to case studies and guidance.
The BBBRC application was complex, so we strived to help the coalitions find simplicity and impact at scale on the other side of complexity. The nature of a federal application, in pursuit of millions in public dollars, necessitates dense and extensive compliance requirements. Our goal was to enable finalists to zoom out from the intricate web of requirements and also ask guiding questions that could sharpen focus on their respective north stars, and the flight plans and resources to get there. In other words, we held up a mirror and encouraged finalists to name and stay true to the simplest, most important and highest impact aspects of what they were envisioning. This was crucial for coalition alignment, stakeholder engagement, funder buy-in, and the crafting of a compelling application.
The time period in which each of the finalists went from concept to design to iteration to, ultimately, reality was profound. It required finalists to make their vision and goals especially simple and clear – or, to put it another way, to make the implicit, explicit. For many finalists, given the political, economic, and historic complexity in which they were seeking to achieve simplicity, it was easy to overlook key aspects of their work, like how inclusivity and equity played out in every aspect of their proposal, or what decision making and accountability would look like. Again, we served as strategic thought partners, asking guiding questions like: What are the historic barriers you are seeking to overcome? How are you overcoming them? How would someone know that from reading your application? How do you use data to measure and continuously improve progress and success across the initiative and coalition? And, finally: How will the world look different when this work is successful?
Each Phase I finalist is truly a winner that is on course for pathbreaking success. All finalists received half a million dollars in planning grants to move their applications forward because the initial vision they crafted stood to be transformative and high impact. Ultimately, only some of the 60 regions received Phase II awards. But to be clear: being a Phase I winner opens the door to opportunities that will put regional finalists on a path to catalytic growth, regardless of Phase II outcomes. Each regional coalition received a grant, national exposure, ongoing technical assistance, and insights and expertise from other regions that likely wouldn’t have been possible without this phase of the competition. They should be fully celebrated for the triumphs they achieved during a compact planning process. They brought coalitions together in places where deep divides have historically prevailed; engaging non-profits, community colleges, K-12 partners, universities, and industry leaders in conversations grounded in a collective vision of hope.
It would have been easy for each finalist to see the other as a competitor, but instead, each graciously wore the hat of movement builder, collectively paving the path for a paradigm shift to inclusive, place-based, good-jobs driven economic development. The hope each finalist spurred in their region translated to a collective sense of impact and possibility. Finalists stepped outside the boundaries of a competition to troubleshoot together, share emerging best practices, provide constructive feedback, and connect as leaders in the solidarity of the challenge of moving change forward. Ultimately, they recognized that their success was inextricably connected to the success of their peers, the greater good, and an equitable tomorrow.
Moving forward, American Achieves, along with several partners, is exploring ways to propel all 60 coalitions down their paths to success, expanding the depth and breadth of a growing movement. Local, state and federal leaders, philanthropies, social impact investors, businesses, and more have an opportunity to not only stand in awe of the regional coalitions but to stand with them, offering funding and support to sustain long-term success. We hope many of you may be interested, and so stay tuned as we will have more to say about that shortly.
By coming together – be it the regional coalitions themselves, the group of TA providers, the TA providers working with the regions, or the regions forming relationships with one another – the value of the whole for the Phase I planning experience is much greater than the sum of the parts. During our first convening of Phase I grantees back in February, EDA Assistant Secretary Alejandra Y. Castillo told the group: “We’re not only living history, but we’re making history.” Whether or not a coalition received a Phase II grant, we have immense optimism for all 60 regions, the movement they are building and the history and impact they are making.
Former Chief Strategy & Communities Officer of America Achieves.
