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Establishing a permanent home and long-term funding for your legacy business program.
Finding a Permanent Home
Unless you are planning to maintain a small, hyper-local program—which is a viable option but still requires organization—a permanent legacy business program will likely reside within your municipal government. Municipal programs signal a move away from short-term solutions to long-term planning, as they are better equipped to address complex issues such as financial support, rapidly rising rents, speculative development, and anti-displacement initiatives. The owner of a legacy business program will likely be an existing department like planning, economic development (or small business office), or the office of historic preservation. These existing departments will provide the staff, infrastructure, and cross-departmental connections, and will likely be able to adopt the program's policies and procedures more seamlessly.
Let’s look at the legacy business program in Long Beach, California, for an example of a program that moved from a community-based pilot program to a permanent home in the city’s Department of Economic Development and Opportunity.
Long Beach Legacy Business Program Transition
2018:
Long Beach Heritage, a community-based historic preservation nonprofit, establishes a subcommitteeto determine the feasibility and structure of a legacy business program.
2022:
Long Beach Heritage launches the program at its annual meeting. Ten businesses are announced as initial inductees.
2022-2024:
Long Beach Heritage runs the program as a legacy business “recognition” effort for longstanding businesses that have contributed to the history, identity, and culture of their neighborhood.
In two and a half years, the program admitted and recognized 40 local legacy businesses.
Long Beach Heritage promotes the legacy businesses to the community, both physically and digitally, including a “photo op” ceremony and a plaque. They also provide guidance for municipal services.
2023:
The Long Beach mayor, along with two city council members, asked the city to investigate and develop the foundation for a city-led legacy business program.
The city recognizes the importance of legacy businesses. It determines that it can provide a more “streamlined system of supports by leveraging and packaging existing city services” for a legacy business program.
2024:
The city formally announces and adopts the program and houses it within the Department of Economic Development and Opportunity (EDO).
The EDO expanded the program to include an official city registry for legacy businesses and enacted a support system that provides technical and legal assistance (including lease assistance) and marketing support.
The EDO formalized the nomination and eligibility process. It maintains the original 35-year requirement and introduces a unique alternative of 25 years plus two other elements from the following categories: sense of history, distinctive architecture, interior, or landscape, and support for cultural life, diversity, or identity.
The City of Long Beach outlined the need and reasoning behind the transfer of the program to a permanent home within the municipal government as follows:
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Scaling the program to be more equitable and include more legacy businesses.
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Formalizing the eligibility process and program benefits.
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Embedding into the city’s established economic and business support infrastructure.
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Expanding the reach, marketing, and awareness through a city-run program.
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Establishing stability, longevity, staff, and economic support for the program.
The Long Beach example shows how a legacy business program can successfully evolve from a community-led pilot into an integrated municipal initiative, gaining permanence, resources, and broader impact along the way. By becoming an official city program, it gained the staff, policy support, services, and long-term capital needed to serve legacy businesses better and preserve their role as cultural, social, and economic assets.
Establishing Secure & Diversified Funding
Providing services and supporting economic stability for the legacy businesses in your program requires secure, diversified funding sources. Whereas a legacy business pilot program can be launched and run with temporary funding, such as grants, a permanent program needs to secure stable funding from the municipal budget or tax revenue. This funding should be supplemented with grants, revolving funds, or external partnerships with commercial entities, nonprofits or philanthropic organizations to ensure the program can withstand economic and budgetary shifts while also planning additional services or scaling existing ones. Consider using any foundational funding (e.g., municipal general funds) to create revolving funds and supplement your budget with durable resources such as tax revenue from TIFs or TOTs. This, combined with long-term, multi-year budget projections and planning, will allow you to continue preserving and protecting legacy businesses while also adapting and growing the program.