Toolkit Home | Program Sustainability | Collaboration & Outreach
Enabling continued collaboration & community outreach.
Continuing and expanding collaboration efforts with your legacy business owners, community partners, and municipal stakeholders helps your legacy business program match the right tools to the right needs. These efforts keep you engaged with the business owners, community changes, and emerging municipal challenges or opportunities.
The cooperation between public and private sectors faces several challenges due to the differences in organizational culture. However, … collaboration is increasingly necessary and desirable as a strategy for addressing many of society’s most complex public challenges.
IBM Center for The Business of Government.
Championing Continued Collaboration
Legacy Business Owner Collaboration
Ongoing collaboration with business owners ensures the program is customized to actual needs rather than assumptions. Business owners feel acknowledged and listened to, which makes them more likely to contribute to the program’s success. Their collaboration also offers insights into developing market or economic pressures in the community that could influence future program services or support.
Business owner collaboration activities could include:
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Regular feedback loops and surveys.
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Periodic breakfast meetings, workshops, and in-store visits
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Training/support workshops with chambers of commerce, local CDCs or CDFIs, or other small business organizations.
Community Collaboration
Ongoing community collaboration helps track successes and identify areas for improvement in the program. It fosters trust, inclusivity, visibility, and support for the program within the community. It also enables program and municipal leaders to better understand changing social or cultural patterns in the community that may affect eligibility criteria or highlight important businesses.
Community collaboration activities could include:
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Regular feedback loops or surveys
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Public listening stations or story collection activities regarding legacy businesses
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Community workshops, promotional events, or festivals.
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Attending and presenting at local community or civic group meetings.
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Online events or webinars.
Municipal Partner Collaboration
Continued collaboration with municipal partners and stakeholders also benefits the longevity and success of the legacy business program. This should be a two-way street, with input from business owners and community partners shared with municipal partners to enable them to provide feedback. Our cross-departmental partners may be better suited to identify and develop new types of services and support that emerge from this input, helping build a stronger overall legacy business program. This collaboration also gives our municipal partners a chance to review the program and provide guidance for its scalability and growth. It also gives them a stake in the program and ensures their continued support and trust.
Municipal partner collaboration activities could include:
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Scheduled program reviews and feedback loops.
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Collaboration effectiveness activities like interdepartmental process analysis, organizational systems analysis, or workflow and process mapping.
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Ride-alongs, photo ops, or in-store visits
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Innovation or design thinking workshops for the program
Resource.
Collaboration & Engagement Resources
The Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank offers the Small Business Ecosystem Toolkit, which provides examples of collaboration methods for small businesses.
The Community Toolbox offers methods for accessing community needs, increasing participation, and evaluating programs that may help your collaboration efforts.
Spark BC’s Community Engagement Toolkit offers a wide variety of outreach and collaboration methods.
The Intersector Project created Tools for Cross-Sector Collaboration, offering methods and activities to support collaboration and partnerships across teams from different departments or sectors.
Building Valuable Relationships through Outreach
Broad Community Outreach
Not everyone in the community will be familiar with the importance or the rationale for a legacy business program when it is launched. One of your objectives should be to strengthen the relationship between the larger community and the program. The buzz generated by people hearing the rich stories of legacy businesses, the individuals behind them, and their significance to our communities is one reason many programs start with promotional or outreach efforts first. Building a meaningful relationship with the larger community can help open doors to new funding partners, influence politicians and policies, and offer a broader resource for identifying other valuable legacy businesses in the community. A well-designed outreach program can also foster widespread interest and reduce skepticism about your program.
If an outreach program has not already been started, or is partially started, when your legacy business program is permanently established, here are some examples for creating or expanding it:
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Conduct and record oral histories for the legacy businesses. Promote these stories through your website, social media, and video platforms.
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Create, maintain, and promote a public registry for your legacy businesses. This could also include an interactive map and website.
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Create a recognition ceremony for legacy businesses that are added to the registry. Promote these celebrations and events. You may also want to create a recognition event, similar to Boston’s, to celebrate new inductees. This can generate more press and outreach for the program.
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Continue to celebrate the achievements, anniversaries, and events surrounding your existing legacy businesses.
Resource.
Community Engagement Toolkit
New Sun Rising offers an Outreach and Engagement Community Toolkit designed for nonprofits, municipalities, and local leaders.
Expanded Elected Official Outreach
While you will likely build relationships with elected officials as you build a legacy business program, expanding your outreach can help ensure your program’s ongoing support and growth from a broader group. Fortunately, your community outreach program will help make this possible. The more your team and the officials' constituents promote and support the legacy business program, the more likely you are to secure their continued backing. One strategic way for your team to do this is through regular meetings and reviews with elected officials to inform and involve them. Another approach is to involve them directly in community outreach initiatives. In the end, your program’s outreach to an elected official is a win-win for both; you garner their backing, and they get to interact with and support their communities.
Here are some ways to increase your outreach to elected officials:
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Schedule regular briefs and program reviews with and for elected officials. Focus on program successes, learnings, and ROI. Collect and incorporate their relevant feedback.
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Create reports for officials that show targeted legacy business program activity in their districts.
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Make elected officials part of your legacy business recognition process. Have them present any awards, plaques, or certificates, and create photo ops around them. Share these recognition events through your website and social channels.
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If you have larger community celebrations or awards ceremonies for legacy businesses, ask elected officials to host or emcee the event and meet with the legacy business owners.