ED Now

Katherine Long, EDP, small business and information manager for Ponca City (Okla.) Development Authority (PCDA), is part of the third cohort of certified Entrepreneurship Development Professionals. IEDC’s EDP credential is designed to build capacity for those supporting entrepreneurship in their communities, and demonstrates the skills and expertise to lead communities through entrepreneurship-led economic development (ELED). Why did you decide to pursue the EDP credential? Working with startups and small businesses has always been a passion for me, even before joining the PCDA staff in 2006. Our executive director encouraged me to pursue the EDP credential during the pandemic, and I am so glad that I did. Going through the EDP ...

IEDC's Accredited Economic Development Organization (AEDO) program recognizes organizational excellence in the areas of internal and external operations, structures, and procedures. This series profiles recently accredited AEDOs, putting some of economic development's highest-performing organizations in the spotlight. This edition: Avondale (Ariz.) EDGE.

Does your organization have what it takes to be EDO of the Year? IEDC is now accepting submissions for the 2023 Excellence in Economic Development Awards. The following EDOs received the highest honor in 2022: Greater New Orleans, Inc., Investissement Québec, the Tulsa (Okla.) Regional Chamber, the Economic Development Council of St. Lucie County (Fla.), Invest Newark (N.J.), and the Greater Sacramento (Calif.) Economic Council.

While the City of Tucson Office of Economic Initiatives continues to welcome large employers relocating or expanding to the area, including Sion Power and American Battery Factory, its work with small local employers is especially personal and innovative. Small, locally owned businesses make up a large swath of Tucson’s economy and contribute to the community’s vitality. But many of these are owned by soon-to-retire baby boomers—roughly 2,000 are legacy businesses more than 20 years old. The Office of Economic Initiatives has partnered with Project Equity, which fosters economic resilience through worker ownership, to hold workshops and meet-and-greet events on succession planning through employee ownership. Several ...

Jessica Walden, EDP, business and leadership advisor for the University of Georgia Small Business Development Center and J.W. Fanning Institute for Leadership Development, is part of the second cohort of certified Entrepreneurship Development Professionals. IEDC’s EDP credential is designed to build capacity for those supporting entrepreneurship in their communities, and demonstrates the skills and expertise to lead communities through entrepreneurship-led economic development (ELED). Why did you decide to pursue the EDP credential? I decided to pursue the EDP credential as an outreach opportunity for the University of Georgia’s SBDC. As a business and leadership advisor, this includes working with rural communities in the ...

A recent IEDC webinar highlighted common recommendations Accredited Economic Development Organization (AEDO) committee members give to applicant organizations. Speakers Jim Fram, CEcD, FM, CCE, founder of Community Growth Strategies, LLC, and Fred Welch, CEcD, EDFP, executive director of Copperas Cove (Texas) Economic Development Corporation, have both served on AEDO committees and completed the accreditation process themselves. They unpacked their most common recommendations into seven categories: human resources, board and advisory committee, strategic planning, marketing, fundraising and investment, operations and program management, and stakeholder relations. Fram and Welch stressed the importance of thoughtful succession planning to ...

Transitioning to employee ownership is a powerful strategy to preserve local businesses and jobs and support economic recovery and resilience. For the last decade, Project Equity has worked closely with numerous regions and economic development partners to unlock the power of employee ownership and create thriving local economies.

The San Diego Workforce Partnership recently hosted a webinar with Project Equity titled Keeping San Diego Businesses Thriving: An Employee Ownership Workshop. Double dilemma U.S. small businesses are facing a twofold crisis stemming from the setbacks of COVID-19 and the onset of the ‘Silver Tsunami’. The pandemic’s long-term effects on the economy are still largely uncertain, but there were obvious consequences over the last year for small businesses in various industries. The Silver Tsunami is the phenomenon of an aging population in America and will have lasting effects as more and more baby boomers retire. Boomers own more than half of all small businesses in the United States, and many will be looking to find ...