Pueblo County Economic Gardening
This entry has been selected as a finalist in the
Strong Communities: Engaging Citizens, Strengthening Place, Inspiring Change competition.
Economic Gardening is an entrepeneur-centered economic growth strategy, focused on giving established small businesses the tools they need to grow in the global marketplace. Instead of poaching jobs from elsewhere with lucrative incentives, we help local business compete by providing advanced, custom analyses with tools like GIS and customer psychographics. Our economic development program looks to "grow" small businesses - who create 85% of all new jobs.
About You
About You
First Name
Chris
Last Name
Markuson
Organization
Pueblo County
Country
United States, CO, Pueblo County
About Your Organization
Organization Name
Pueblo County
Organization Website
Organization Phone
719.583.6240
Organization Address
215 W 10th St. #347, Pueblo, CO 81003
Organization Country
United States, CO, Pueblo County
The information you provide here will be used to fill in any parts of your profile that have been left blank, such as interests, organization information, and website. No contact information will be made public. Please uncheck here if you do not want this to happen..
Your idea
Name Your Project
Pueblo County Economic Gardening
Country your work focuses on
United States, CO, Pueblo County
Describe Your Idea
Economic Gardening is an entrepeneur-centered economic growth strategy, focused on giving established small businesses the tools they need to grow in the global marketplace. Instead of poaching jobs from elsewhere with lucrative incentives, we help local business compete by providing advanced, custom analyses with tools like GIS and customer psychographics. Our economic development program looks to "grow" small businesses - who create 85% of all new jobs.
Website URL
Innovation
What makes your idea unique?
The economic development model of most cities worldwide is broken. They lure large companies to relocate, promising the cheapest place to do business. This is done by offering lucrative incentives, free land and tax abatements. However, companies willing to relocate focus solely on the bottom line. They pay low wages, are poor land stewards and don't have ties to the community. These poached companies don't stay long after incentives dry up, or the local economy improves. And, with the advent of the Internet, it's always cheaper to do business in China or India than in the other 5,000 US cities like Pueblo competing for the 50 businesses that relocate per year.
Research from the US Small Business Administration shows that small businesses created between 60-80% of net new jobs since the 1990s, and currently employ over half of all US workers. This prompted us to explore avenues to diversify our economic development strategies by cultivating local enterprises to expand their market areas nationwide.
Pueblo County employs “economic gardening” strategies to help small businesses grow one job at a time, favoring long-term, stable growth. Our no-cost program uses Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to provide local businesses data-driven strategies once afforded only by Fortune 500 companies. We map and analyze customer data to develop specialized business growth plans. By employing psychographics, commercial and government data to identify markets where conditions are ripe for business expansion, we’ve seen dramatic growth in small business profitability, and in turn, several new high-wage jobs being formed.
Do you have a patent for this idea?
Impact
This Entry is about (Issues)
What impact have you had?
To date, we've tracked 84 new jobs, bringing over $3.6 million of new revenue into the county. While the median annual household income in Pueblo has been less than $32,000, the jobs we've tracked attributed to our program average $45,000 annual salary. We've assisted over 50 non-profit entities, most achieving between 50 to 70 percent increase in new donors by diversifying their outreach methods according to geographic and psychographic data-centered principles. We've helped businesses ride out the recession and lessened the business startup failure rate dramatically, helping to retain over 265 jobs in Pueblo since 2006. And, by partnering with the local Small Business Development Center and the Mi Casa Resource Center for Women, we've seen the establishment of 26 new women-owned businesses, most of whom were receiving public assistance, and now generate their own paychecks.
While we primarily focus on established business, we've also used GIS to quantify the average daily solar exposure for Pueblo, comparing it against communities nationwide. This has attracted the attention of several large solar energy producers, and we're in negotiations to create a solar facility capable of powering 60,000 homes and diversifying the County's tax base.
We are currently emphasizing the ease and importance for many businesses to sell their products and services online, dramatically expanding their trade area. Through training business owners in search engine optimization techniques, we’re seeing great growth in online revenue generation, and are tracking the effects of this program
Problem
Traditional Economic Development perpetuates a cycle of large businesses moving out of a community for the promise of a higher profit margin elsewhere. Enticing a business to move to a community typically comes with a large cash incentive, free land and tax abatements – all paid for by local citizens, with little guarantee that that investment will be repaid. When incentives dry up, companies receiving those incentives typically leave for another community, usually within less than 2 years from the end of the incentive payout. This rapid infusion and subsequent export of jobs in a community (Boom and Bust) has devastating effects upon a small economy. Massive investments in community infrastructure on the outskirts of town in advance of, or in response to a large business moving to town are extraordinarily expensive for communities to absorb. When businesses leave town for the next cheaper place to do business (usually China, India or Mexico), the community is left with underutilized utility and road infrastructure that is tremendously expensive to maintain, and usually falls into disrepair. In the end, the community is in worse condition than prior to the recruited job infusion.
Actions
Our Board of Commissioners continue to hear complements and thanks for allowing us to offer this program. Even in today’s poor economic climate, they recognize the importance of this program and continue to fund our software and data licenses, and retain our current staffing levels. While other departments within Pueblo County have been downsized, our GIS/Economic Gardening program remains a top priority for the County. Our Board realizes the significant economic impact we’ve played in the local economy since 2006 when we started our Economic Gardening program, and recognizes the need for a long-term investment in the economic development strategy. Not only does Economic Gardening increase tax revenues, but it also waylays potential financial impacts of focusing solely on business recruitment.
Results
We expect to actualize post-recession job growth at approximately 50-75 jobs per year. We primarily focus our advanced data analysis on 2nd Stage, emerging growth companies. Research done by the Edward Lowe Foundation, the Small Business Administration and the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation shows that the vast majority of new job growth is actualized by 2nd Stage corporations. Therefore, to maximize the impact of our Economic Gardening program, we are actively researching best-practices in assisting these organizations. The economic impact of our annual expected job growth target will be approximately $3.5 million in new wages in Pueblo County.
What will it take for your project to be successful over the next three years? Please address each year separately, if possible.
Annual job growth, and an increase in Pueblo's median household income will ensure our project's success. Because our program is funded from Pueblo County's General Fund, continued annually-documented successes are necessary.
What would prevent your project from being a success?
Dramatic market condition shifts, drastic voter-initiated tax cuts or unexpected natural disasters can change the direction of County government overnight. Colorado voters will vote on three tax-slashing initiatives in November that could potentially eliminate most County services, including this program. However, we are reasonably confident that even if these initiatives are passed, they will be found unconstitutional, and our funding will remain intact.
How many people will your project serve annually?
101‐1000
What is the average monthly household income in your target community, in US Dollars?
$1000 - 4000
Does your project seek to have an impact on public policy?
Yes
Sustainability
What stage is your project in?
Operating for 1‐5 years
Is your organization a
Government
Is your initiative connected to an established organization?
If yes, provide organization name.
How long has this organization been operating?
More than 5 years
Does your organization have a Board of Directors or an Advisory Board?
Yes
Does your organization have a non-monetary partnerships with NGOs?
Yes
Does your organization have a non-monetary partnerships with businesses?
Yes
Does your organization have a non-monetary partnerships with government?
Yes
Please tell us more about how these partnerships are critical to the success of your innovation.
Partnerships between Pueblo County's Economic Gardening program and other organizations are fundamental to our success. We have developed a referral network between the local Small Business Development Center (who provides business counciling), the Mi Casa Resource Center for Women (who offers start-up assistance to disadvantaged populations), the Chambers of Commerce, the Pueblo City/County Library District, Colorado State University-Pueblo and Pueblo Community College. This network allows entrepreneurs seeking assistance a "no wrong door" approach to getting the help they need. Furthermore, partnerships with local lending institutions are paramount. Risky 2nd Stage businesses whose ideas have been vetted through our data-driven analyses are much more likely to be funded by local lending institutions. In working with local banks, most now refer businesses to us for additional research or plan development.
What are the three most important actions needed to grow your initiative or organization?
In order to grow our Economic Gardening program, we must do the following:
1. Document success in job growth, directly attributed to Economic Gardening initiatives.
2. Work as a community to improve quality-of-life infrastructure that businesses and employees use and value.
3. Keep abreast of rapidly changing market conditions, industry trends, marketing methodologies and datasets available to businesses.
The first element, documenting success, is the hardest thing for us to do. Directly attributing job growth to a government program is extremely difficult, and problematic. Economic Gardening isn't creating jobs - entrepreneurs are. So, we'll need to innovate and find ways to better understand ways to communicate the benefits businesses realized from our program.
The infrastructure needed by businesses varies greatly. However, in recent studies (including one from July 2010 by the University of Wisconsin) show that all businesses believe the quality of life in their community is a primary motivator for them to stay in the community or leave. We see dozens of employers relocate from Pueblo every year, primarilly due to a lack of a developed pedestrian trail system, inadequate infrastructure needed by the business, or inadequate retail opportunity for their employees. We must find ways to collectively improve infrastructure in a programatic method in both business and residential districts in Pueblo.
And, finally, we must keep innovating and understanding the problems businesses are faced with. This is no simple task, as the business landscape changes constantly. Consumer demands are always changing and reaching those customers with a message that compells them to buy your product is a moving target. So, our program must find ways to stay current and relevant in the coming years, weathering any staff changes or structural changes within government. We've got our work cut out for us!
The Story
What was the defining moment that you led to this innovation?
In 2005, I drafted a 10-year strategic plan for the County's GIS department. At the time, we were receiving several phone calls relating to providing data to businesses to help convince them to stay in Pueblo. We found that almost every caller loved living in Pueblo, but they were motivated by cost to move to other, less expensive communities. The majority of these businesses had been recruited by the Pueblo Economic Development Corporation (PEDCO). This organization was created following the implosion of the steel industry in the 1980's - Pueblo's chief industry for over 100 years. PEDCO held the community together for nearly 20 years by offering incentives to businesses. However, with the advent of the Internet, businesses in Pueblo could easily locate overseas with much lower overhead. So, we began to look for inspiration to find a way to keep businesses in Pueblo using our GIS skills.
Tell us about the social innovator behind this idea.
I found statistics about the City of Littleton, Colorado, who had essentially escaped the previous recession with their tax revenues relatively unscathed. In fact, they had found a way to fully develop over a million square feet of empty retail space, turning a dying downtown into a thriving business district. They pioneered the concepts behind this non-recruiting economic development model and coined it "Economic Gardening". At the time, they were starting to dabble in the use of GIS, learning its potential use for business information purposes. So, I called the man behind Economic Gardening - Mr. Christian Gibbons - and asked him if he'd like to come to Pueblo and explain the Littleton program. Economic Gardening was a perfect answer to the problems Pueblo was facing. So, after his presentation, I wrote Economic Gardening into my 5-year plan for the County GIS department, and started finding ways how we could institute a GIS-centered program in Pueblo. I really had no big expectations that the idea would gain so much momentum. But, my staff and I believed in what we were doing, stuck with it, innovated & reinvented our methods, and here we are today.
How did you first hear about Changemakers?
Email from Changemakers
If through another, please provide the name of the organization or company
