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Success Through Economic Gardening Focus

The Florida statewide Economic Gardening project is the first test of our concept to see if it can work at a large scale. The State of Wyoming has been running a statewide project for a number of years but there are 500,000 people in Wyoming and 18 million in Florida. The test is showing a lot of promise. It has been met enthusiastically by local businesses and has a number of local partner agencies around the state.

Essentially it is set up with a hub-and-spoke model working out of the University of Central Florida in Orlando serving six regions in the state. We are able to ensure that the key tools and EG professional team meet the quality standards needed and yet keep the local contact aspect. Right now it is distributed statewide to CEOs of qualified second stage companies across all counties through the http://www.GrowFl.com website but portions of related service and support has been concentrated in select regions to maximize efficiency during the pilot program.

Governor Crist has proposed an expansion of the technical assistance program to $3 million next year and it is under consideration by the legislature. This would put more teams in the field and reach even deeper into the state’s business community and regions.

While we have had some technical issues to iron out regarding our processes and procedures, I’m really happy to see our approach can scale up. The pilot program in Florida has been an excellent expression of the principles and practices of Economic Gardening, maintaining strong fidelity to our original work. I think the Florida model is approaching a “best practices” status for statewide programs. I am surprised at how many Stage II businesses are ready to expand in this severe recession—they just need some high level corporate tools and financing.

Chris Gibbons

http://www.youtube.com/user/GrowFL

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About Economic Gardening

Economic Gardening embraces strategies to grow existing second-stage businesses. It is an innovative entrepreneur-centered economic growth strategy that offers balance to the traditional economic practice of business recruitment, often referred to as “economic hunting.”

It was pioneered by Chris Gibbons in 1989 in the city of Littleton, Colo., a community that in the ensuing 15 years saw a 136 percent increase in new jobs. While it was introduced as a demonstration program to deal with the sudden erosion of economic conditions following the relocation of the largest employer in the city at that time, it has emerged as a prototype for a rapidly expanding movement to generate truly sustainable economic growth for communities, regions and states.

To learn more about the history of economic gardening, visit the City of Littleton’s Web site at http://www.littletongov.org/bia/economicgardening

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