Greater Impact Through Collaboration

1
Greater Impact Through Collaboration

• Turning Competition into Cooperation through the
  San Francisco Economic Development Alliance
• Presented by
• Justina Cross, Womens Initiative and
• Jenny McNulty, Urban Solutions

2
What to expect in this workshop?

• Introduction
• Whats the big deal about cooperation?
• Accomplishments of the San Francisco Economic
  Development Alliance (SFEDA)
• History of SFEDA
• Coalition challenges
• Small Group Activities Identify collaborative
  projects and potential partners in your region

3
Why collaborate?

• Moving beyond competition to
  coopertition
• Increased advocacy strength
• Better working relationships
• Increased referrals and understanding of
  complimentary services that will help your
  clients
• Opportunity for united marketing strategies

4

• The nice thing about teamwork is that you always
  have others on your side.
• - Margaret Carty

5
Who is part of SFEDA?
6
What has SFEDA achieved?

• Better communication amongst organizations and
  understanding of each others activities
• Stronger relationships and spirit of mutual aide
  rather than competition
• Able to focus on the big goal of supporting small
  business owners.
• Increase in referrals for services
• United marketing material brochure and website
• Held our first joint event

7
Structure of the Alliance
8
How did SFEDA start?
9

• Coming together is a beginning.Keeping together
  is progress.Working together is success.
• - Henry Ford

10
Prioritizing Goals

• Joint media campaign
• Small Business Summit
• Joint marketing collateral brochure web site
• Small business tour with the Mayor
• State of Small Business in San Francisco panel
  discussions

11
State of Small Business in SF

• Officially launched the alliance
• Panels written up in the San Francisco Chronicle
• Brought together a modest audience of community
  members, business owners, service providers, and
  funders
• Chance to highlight accomplishments of the
  alliance and generate discussion about what is
  and isnt working for small business in San
  Francisco

12
Coalition Challenges

• Time devoted to alliance. With each agencys
  focus on service delivery there is little time
  for other activities
• Many of the ambitious ideas generated by the
  alliance are time-consuming to implement
• Energy ebbs and flows in the group
• Different priorities
• Effectiveness with rotating leadership and
  representatives of each agency

13
Your turn

• Small Groups (2-3 people)
• What is your Big Hairy Audacious Goal (BHAG) in
  the field of microenterprise development that
  could be accomplished in a coalition?
• Get into Larger Groups
• Who are potential partners in your region?
• Brainstorm potential activities

14
Future SFEDA Goals

• Obtain fiscal sponsorship
• Joint media campaign
• Bring State of Small Business in SF panels to new
  audiences
• Walking tour of small businesses with Mayor Gavin
  Newsom

15
Conclusion

• QA
• Wrap-up Activity