Community Engagement: An Essential Component of Modern Economic Development Planning

Gone are the days of economic development being a linear, industry-driven process of business attraction in which economic development organizations (EDOs) make decisions on behalf of the communities they serve. It’s become clear that to build healthy, resilient, and inclusive local economies, economic developers need to rely on thorough, recurring community engagement to consider how new development projects and the services their organizations offer impact residents’ economic opportunities and quality of life. In economic development strategic planning, EDOs, municipalities, and the organizations they partner with need to proactively identify barriers to full economic participation that different groups may face and then play an active role in helping individuals and families overcome them.

In June, many thought leaders convening in Calgary at the International Economic Development Council’s (IEDC) Economic Future Forum highlighted the importance of involving as many residents as possible when making decisions around local economic development. Authentic, culturally relevant community engagement, they counseled, is necessary for building cultural institutions and support services that will actually benefit those for whom they are designed. Tanja Carter, Director of Economic Development for the City of Federal Way, Washington, spoke on her process of engaging specific local communities when planning for the city’s new African Cultural Center. She highlighted how important it was to engage directly with community leaders to understand their vision for the center and then create plans that are culturally relevant and match the involved communities’ level of financial literacy. Later that same session, Alex Sarian, Chief Executive Officer of Calgary, Alberta’s Art Commons, spoke to the importance of assuming that a lack of engagement with specific cultural groups is the fault of the status quo institutions in power rather than that of historically marginalized groups. Other speakers highlighted that building rapport with the de-facto leaders of a given community and having them amplify communications around economic development efforts and programs to their own communities represents a highly effective strategy to boost that community’s participation in anything from a small business support program to the process of designing a new arts or cultural center.

Speakers at the IEDC’s Annual Conference in Dallas in September reaffirmed the importance of community engagement in understanding the challenges residents face within their economies and designing solutions to overcome these challenges. Panelists at the Young Professionals Networking Lunch highlighted that there has been a marked shift from economic development professionals simply working on site selection projects in a silo to actively incorporating resident quality of life factors into every initiative and decision. Unsurprisingly, the affordable housing crunch is at the front of their minds. A 2022 study by Marketing Consultancy DCI found that among those who had moved over 100 miles to a new location in the past two years, the three most important factors in their decision to relocate were cost of living, housing availability, and housing cost. During a conference session on “Developing Accessible and Affordable Workforce Housing Strategies,” attendees were asked if they had considered affordable housing strategies in their roles pre-COVID, and roughly a quarter of hands were raised. When asked if they planned to consider these strategies in the future, nearly every hand shot up. Luckily, EDOs do not have to confront all these challenges alone. Much of modern economic development is about connecting the right networks of partners to drive progress. Local nonprofits, institutions of higher education, transportation agencies, developers, and private employers alike can all be effective partners in developing strategies to provide housing and essential services and improve community livability. EDOs can act as the glue that connects them.

At Coraggio Group, we recognize the importance of robust community engagement in developing strategic plans. This approach is especially important in supporting our economic development clients. In addition to rigorous economic analysis and benchmarking of the city’s demographics and community, employment and occupations, business and industry landscape, and community support programs, our recent work to develop the 2023-2028 Economic Development Strategic Plan for the City of Goleta, California involved thorough and inclusive community engagement. Our community engagement approach consisted of various surveys aimed at the local business community and broader resident population, multiple focus groups representing different government, industry, and cultural interests, and interviews with key leaders within the community. As always, we aimed to make our engagement as inclusive and accessible as possible. We provided multiple options for working professionals to attend focus groups at the times most convenient for them and created Spanish versions of our surveys to ensure that we engaged the city’s Spanish-speaking community in providing feedback on our plan. Engaging hundreds of stakeholders and listening to their needs and priorities allowed us and the City of Goleta to produce a final plan containing several strategies centered around resident quality of life. These strategies included supporting career pathways to living-wage jobs for members of historically marginalized populations, creating partnerships to address the local childcare shortage, and promoting smart investment in both transportation and utilities-related infrastructure. In the spirit of involving the broader community and forming collaborative partnerships in economic development, each strategy lists several organizations and programs within and beyond Goleta that could be leveraged in moving each initiative forward.

At Coraggio, our community-centered approach to economic development recognizes that inclusivity and engagement are critically important to economic development strategic planning. Our practice centers around four pillars: Affordability and Community Livability, Workforce Development, Placemaking and Planning, and Entrepreneurship. This ensures that every Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy–or other strategic plan we help create–builds an economy that works for all members of the community.

Contact Sarah Lechner, head of our Community Prosperity Practice, at sarah@coraggiogroup.com if you think our organizations might be a good fit for one other or if you’d like to learn more.

Thank you, and we look forward to working with you.

Coraggio Group