These webinars build off expertise and guidance shared during 1:1 meetings and the convening – and are focused according to the content areas identified as most helpful in the follow-up survey. 

Building equity into everything (February 2, 2022): 

Don Edwards, Justice and Sustainability Associates

Moderator: Brian Schwartz, Justice and Sustainability Associates

This session focuses on helping applicants understand what equity is and isn’t, and why equitable economic development requires intentional, inclusive engagement. A focus on equity should be woven throughout applications. We consider how to design equitably, both in process and outcome, and how to measure progress during project implementation. We also discuss what a resilient, responsive coalition would look like, who needs to be at the table, and how you will genuinely and effectively engage underserved communities in a sustainable way.

Click here for the Equity presentation slides

Defining outcomes and organizing for success (February 2, 2022): 

Bruce Katz, The Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University

Jon Schnur, America Achieves

Moderator: Avanti Krovi, The Nowak Metro Finance Lab at Drexel University

This session helps finalists refine their overarching vision and strategy for competitive industry clusters to drive transformative economic impact. The speakers cover how finalists should be thinking about their region’s specific needs and assets; how to strengthen strategic and project coherence to create an integrated, competitive strategy; how they plan for evaluation and decision-making as projects unfold; and how to get in front of barriers to scale and success.

Click here for the Outcomes and Organizing presentation slides

Supercharging local partnerships and driving commitments to action (February 2, 2022): 

Dan Correa, Federation of American Scientists

Ishan Sharma, Federation of American Scientists

Kathleen Warner, America Achieves

Moderator: Jenn Steinfeld, National League of Cities Institute

This session focuses on how to engage and utilize local industry partners or other major regional anchors in the cluster, building strong matches both in terms of quantity and quality of local investments. It also helps applicants leverage support from other key actors, including state and local officials and philanthropies, within their proposals.

Click here for the Partnerships and Commitments presentation slides

Successful outcome-oriented component projects (February 3, 2022): 

Andrew Altman, America Achieves

Trisha Korbas, Economic Development Representative, U.S. Economic Development Administration

Lee J. Shirey, Economic Development Representative, U.S. Economic Development Administration

This session provides guidance on how to design strategies to translate ambitious visions for regional economic development into successful and integrated implementation and component applications. It includes regional economic development representatives discussing common pitfalls in the component application process. The discussion also zooms out to cover the importance of integrating outcome goals, governance, and measurements into the design of component applications from the start.

Equity: Equitable Coalitions (February 15, 2022):

Donzell Robinson, Justice and Sustainability Associates

This workshop looks at equity as a framework to help finalists make sure that the historically excluded communities are part of the decision-making process at all stages of the project and have the capacity (key information, tools, etc.) to be a part of the conversation. We will address that process through a series of questions such as: Who is responsible for setting the table and including all affected communities? How do you track and balance power dynamics that exist for partners trying to work together (e.g., can a small non-profit have balanced/equitable power with a large anchor institution)? What are the risks and benefits of power sharing? How do you address historic/structural inequities around wealth and power?

Click here to view the Equity presentation slides

Governance: Operational Infrastructure for Success (February 17, 2022):

Wendy Lewis Jackson, The Kresge Foundation

Michael Jamison, National Parks & Conservation Assoc.

Marlon Williams, Philanthropy New York, America Achieves (advisor)

Kathleen Warner, America Achieves

Coalition governance calls upon individuals and groups to actively and intentionally engage in inclusive engagement, mutual understanding, patience, and flexibility toward a common goal and set of outcomes. How members share responsibility and leadership, set goals, make decisions, and address conflict is an art, not a science. In this session, we will share perspectives from a number of successful coalitions, providing guidance about how to use your Phase II applications to fund the development of tools and consider how to structure coalition governance for success. We will include questions and models you might consider when establishing leadership, roles and responsibilities, decision-making, conflict, accountability, communications, and in connecting governance to outcomes to ensure sustainability and success.

Click here to view the Governance presentation slides

Economic Competitiveness: New Thinking & Approaches to Economic Development (February 22, 2022): 

Bruce Katz & Avanti Krovi, Nowak Metro Lab

Dan Correa, Federation of American Scientists

Christine Curella, Luminary Labs

This workshop covers key features of constructing a compelling narrative for economic development. It begins with a discussion on the disruptive dynamics of the pandemic and the systemic and historical changes underlying the economy, underwriting how pitfalls from the past can be avoided to maximize the opportunity of federal funds. The discussion will then provide a general taxonomy of economic development approaches with the opportunities and risks laid out for traditional clusters, cut-across technology industries, research anchors, a mix of these, or entirely novel development efforts so your application can best play to its strengths. Finally, this presentation will help you interrogate where you stand and what you might do next, with a few key considerations irrespective of your application’s starting point. 

Click here for the Economic Competitiveness presentation slides

From Vision to Strategic Coherence (February 24, 2022): 

Jon Schnur, America Achieves

Mitch Horowitz, TEConomy Partners

Rodney Sampson, Opportunity Hub (OHUB) 

Kei Hayashi, BJH Advisors

This webinar focused on articulating a “north star” vision to set a framework for the overall logic of the cluster, coherence for the projects, and defining the broader economic outcomes for the ecosystem as a whole. It also makes explicit how projects can be integrated and support one another within the overall ecosystem (vs. individual project outcomes). This session will help finalists tell their story in the most compelling and clear way through visualization and diagramming/mapping relationships (organization and sectoral) between clusters/strategies/projects, and identify how governance dynamics are structured to support achieving the “north star” goal and equity in all project components.   

Click here for the Strategic Coherence presentation slides

Impact & Equity Metrics: Setting Impact Goals & Measuring Equitable Outcomes: (March 1, 2022):

Andrew Trueblood, America Achieves

Christine Curella, Luminary Labs

JP Julien, McKinsey & Company

Keith Fudge, Urban Institute

Brooke Valle, Consultant

Ensuring you can reach your “north star” vision requires you to set ambitious, measurable goals, and determine how you will measure your progress against them. While setting and calculating jobs or impact at the project level is something that EDA finalists must always do, taking a step back and measuring systemic impact and change is novel for many, especially when it must be done with an equity lens that asks not only what the benefits are, but who benefits. This session will bring together experts to discuss the various metrics that finalists may want to consider both as they set their impact goals and as they measure their progress.

Click here for the Impact & Equity Metrics presentation slides