Funding Innovation in the Southern California Region Tops Agenda at Annual Leadership Forum
A few short weeks ago, we hosted our fifth annual SoCal Ecosystem Leadership Forum which is a facilitated half day workshop for selected leaders from around the region who represent key ecosystem stakeholder groups. This year’s forum focused on economic development, specifically how the region’s stakeholders can better collaborate and coordinate to bring more investment to the region in the form of government grants and public private partnerships (“PPP”s). The original thesis: there is an opportunity through collective action to improve our success rate for winning larger federal and state grants that fund innovation-oriented programs, namely by doing a better job of preparing ahead of time and spinning up more effective partnerships between the key players in the region. Based on the input shared at the forum, that thesis remains a solid idea but a few crucial gaps and questions need to be addressed before any meaningful traction will be achieved.
The day began with the 40 workshop participants connecting over coffee in the executive classroom at the recently remodeled Intersect office complex in Irvine, generously provided to us for the day by our venue sponsor Doug Holte, CEO of EXP by Hines, the investment arm of Hines which is a global real estate investment, development, and management firm. We are also grateful for the continued partnership and underwriting support from Verizon, Sunstone Management, and the Annenberg Foundation who made the forum possible and free of charge for attendees.
The first panel, sponsored by Verizon, focused on the priorities and current funding opportunities for innovation available through federal, state, and local funding agencies. Speakers included Wilfred Marshall (US Economic Development Administration), Deepak Bahl (USC Center for Economic Development), Chris Earl (CA GO BIZ), Shaun Randolph (LA N Sync / California Community Foundation), and Stephanie Holloway (LA County) and was moderated by Stacy Cumberbatch (Blended Impact Labs). We’ll share a report in the coming weeks with more detailed trends, opportunities, and best practices but a key takeaway was confirmation that more funding dollars are going to support job growth focused on innovation and technology oriented companies, especially startups and small businesses whose above average wages are conducive to supporting families and long term, sustainable economic growth. We also discussed the importance of aligning grant proposals with the funding agency’s Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) which serves as a blueprint for their priorities and how they’ll fund them. The existence of CEDS was an eye opener for some attendees (me included) who were not aware of them; here’s the EDA’s CEDS for example.
The second panel of the day, sponsored by Sunstone Management, explored how to make Public Private Partnerships that work, led by John Keisler (Sunstone Management) and Jesús Román (Verizon) who have extensive experience in this unique funding option – they collaborated to build a successful PPP in Long Beach a few years ago when John worked for the city. There were numerous best practices and helpful guidance discussed, but I’ll share a key takeaway: these partnerships work when both parties view it as an exchange of value and commit to clearly communicating priorities and pain points that the other can solve. For example, Long Beach wanted better wifi hotspots in their libraries to support their digital inclusion programs so Verizon built them in exchange for expedited permitting processes to lay fiber optic cable throughout the city. The PPP described was not easy nor quick and required a lot of negotiation to get approved but in the end they can proudly point to it as an example of a transformative project that created tons of value for both parties that would not otherwise have been possible through other means.
After lunch, the group reconvened for a facilitated group discussion, sponsored by the Annenberg Foundation, focused on how the region’s key stakeholder groups can effectively coordinate efforts and resources to go after potentially transformative funding opportunities. One of the key insights was the need for organizations to establish coalitions of partnerships way before you need them for the grant proposal; essentially get started and establish a track record of successful impact and implementation before going after grants so the funding agency is not looking at something brand new and potentially risky. We also explored the value of having an entity play the role of air traffic control who would keep an eye out for opportunities and help pull coalitions together so the funding agency is not receiving several competing proposals from organizations who should be partnering instead. This is frequently a role held by the LAEDC and the San Diego EDC for some larger opportunities in their counties which is fantastic, however there is no EDC in Orange County, for example, and nobody is coordinating across the counties for a truly SoCal regional approach. This looks like an opportunity for an organization with a regional orientation (like the Alliance) to at least help facilitate the conversation between counties and/or regional vertical/industry groups to ensure transparency and enable cross-regional communication. As an entrepreneurial organization, the Alliance abhors an unmet need that matches up with our mission and capabilities so it’s likely you’ll start to see us convening more of these conversations in the future – stay tuned….