Mission Driven Industrial Development Toolkit
Manufacturing is an important part of the equitable economic development toolkit, bringing innovation, creativity, and stability to cities and creating good paying jobs with low barriers to entry. Preserving and strengthening the urban manufacturing sector is an endeavor for stakeholders across the urban environment.
This Toolkit analyzes the industrial development landscape, the stakeholders who navigate that ecosystem, and the partnerships between stakeholders that make equitable industrial development possible. Through its focus on New York City's Industrial Jobs Coalition, the Toolkit provides a blueprint for practitioners passionate about urban manufacturing in cities across the country.
The Association for Neighborhood & Housing Development (ANHD) and Urban Manufacturing Alliance (UMA) are pleased to release their policy toolkit, Mission Driven Industrial Development.
The first-of-its-kind toolkit culminates a year-long partnership between the New York City-based membership non-profit ANHD and national membership coalition UMA, having convened stakeholders from across the country from varying economic development sectors to advance industrial and manufacturing in the urban environment. And, this report could not come at a more apt time.
As coronavirus lays bare the devastating fragmentation and disinvestment in the United States’ manufacturing sector, insights from manufacturers, community organizations, business service providers, developers, lenders, philanthropy, and government officials recommend a deepening of community relationships and a systemic approach to industrial policy in order to achieve equitable economic development.
This Toolkit provides a starting point for community, economic, and real estate development leaders, and the resources in it can be used as reference materials to help bring together stakeholders, as well as recommendations on navigating both expected and unexpected issues.
ANHD and UMA present a number of key findings and define what is needed to create and preserve new and future developments in any city across the nation, including:
- Stakeholders involved in mission driven industrial development are willing to grow and change to meet the current and future market demands.
- Everyone has resources - anything from capital for funding technical assistance to a collection of manufacturing businesses interested in on-the-job training - that can be combined and leveraged to gain scale.
- Long term success of industrial projects requires a commitment to a place and a community.
- Stakeholders must advocate for their project and their communities.
We need to rely on the stories, experiences, and expertise of the mission driven industrial developers and stakeholders in this Toolkit in order to advance new ways of investing in cities and the people who make up those cities. ANHD and UMA are excited to share these learnings and inform the industrial policy conversation across the country at this crucial moment.
Click the link above to download the full report or access it here.
“This report release comes in the midst of a generation-defining health pandemic, economic crisis, and racial justice movement with the potential to help shift the persistent community and economic development inequities we see in New York City, Pittsburgh, Milwaukee, and beyond,” said Barika Williams, Executive Director at ANHD. “Meaningful relationships that work towards a shared vision and values can achieve remarkable success, whether that vision is a new building that creates good paying jobs for the community or a transformation of industrial policy away from gentrification and towards equitable economic development.”
“At UMA, we have long been excited about the diversity of organizations that are stepping into the role of mission driven industrial developer, from housing developers to arts organizations to CDFIs,” said Lee Wellington, Executive Director of UMA. “We see so much opportunity and promise in these community stakeholders providing much-needed, affordable space for local manufacturers. What this toolkit underscores is the need for an ecosystems approach at every stage of the development process. We have been inspired by the work of ANHD to create that very approach in New York City, and we were proud to work with them on this toolkit to highlight the delicate approach to crafting that ecosystem.”
“There are a lot of parts to the industrial economy. So if we think about it as a machine, how do we change that machine so it's creating more social good? We have the opportunity to support longer lasting and systemic change—but it takes time and vision and patience. It's not always going to be a quick win, especially when you're building out a new sector. But I think the promise of New York is that we're showing it can be done. This is a transformational opportunity, which requires a different type of patience, maybe a different level of funding. But the potential, I think, is worth it,” said Greg Schiefelbein, Citi Community Investing and Development in New York City.
Acknowledgements
This toolkit owes its success to a number of dedicated individual and organizational partners. We particularly thank Bridgeway Capital, Citi Community Development, Deutsche Bank, the Local Initiative Support Corporation, the Richard King Mellon Foundation and the many ANHD and UMA members whose expertise and guidance helped us develop the idea for the report and inform many aspects of the content.