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Corporate Partnership Program
Background/History
The NCCED Corporate Partnership Program (CPP) was launched in 1998 with seed money from the Ford Foundation. Its primary objective is to encourage corporate investment in CDC areas by developing partnerships which result in win-win situations both for business and the CDCS.
A major thrust of the CPP is to get business to look at CDC served areas through new lenses. Some very important research has been done which has illuminated the fact that because of a negative image, the economic potential of the typical CDC area is often overlooked. In fact, there often is disposable income, hidden assets, land which is ripe for development and a trainable work force. The CPP has been working with corporations to enable CDCs to capitalize on these resources.
Important work has been done with two CDCs which have taken advantage of this information to attract investment. These are the North West Side CDC in Milwaukee and the Warren Conner CDC in Detroit.
Major activities/Accomplishments to date
The CPP has engaged in a unique collaboration with one of the Ford Partners to address the fact that a language barrier is one of the major problems inhibiting business investment is community. Business and CDCs literally use different language. This contributes to a lack of trust and certainly, communication. CPP and Laufer/Green Isaac have conducted a number of workshops and developed techniques to overcome this barrier. There is much to be done to achieve full consciousness raising. Progress has been made, but there is much more work to do.
Industry niches
Originally, the CPP targeted three industry niches: Telecommunications, Franchising and Healthcare. We have since added Manufacturing and expanded Franchising to include general retail including food stores. In each of the industry niches, the CPP has provided technical assistance to both CDCs and business to encourage partnerships. Click here for description of the activities/ accomplishments under each of the industry niches.