• previous
• 300 of 894 inspirations
• next

Inspiration

back to list

Economic Gardening: Providing Entrepreneurs with the Fertilizer They Need to Grow

Home-grown entrepreneurs are one of the most important levers for creating vibrancy in many small communities. Local governments can help by providing them with access to important market information that can help these local business thrive. I love the concept of Economic Gardening both for the image that the name evokes and for the success that is has shown in spurring economic development in many towns.

Economic Gardening was first pioneered in Littleton, CO about 20 years ago, and is now used in many towns across the country. From the Kauffman Foundation's summary of Economic Gardening:
"The Littleton economic gardening initiative provides local entrepreneurs with access to competitive intelligence on markets, customers, and competitors that is comparable to the resources customarily only available to large firms. Included in the market information category are database and data mining resources, and geographic information systems."

In Pueblo, CO the Economic Gardening program uses GIS, customer psychometics, and a host of other tools to give their local business the resources they need to become and remain competitive without having to rely on external resources.

The custom data and research supplied by the government is an amazing lever that only an institution like a government agencies can provide, and has the capacity to restore the vibrancy that many industries in our cities and towns lack.

Comments