I had the tremendous pleasure of serving on a panel during the BizWest Economic Forecast today. The panel included economic developers from across the northern Colorado region and provided an opportunity for all of us to do some story telling about the incredible collaborative environment that we have been functioning in the last 12 months.
Chris Wood did a great job leading the panel through consideration of several issues including:
- Regionalism and the integration of economic development programs.
- The expansion of economic development to include a Main Street focus.
- The crystal ball for the future.
I’ve been fascinated and energized by the partnerships and “can do” attitudes that have been key to the work we’ve done as an economic development community to respond to and recover from the pandemic. Because of the regional focus that we’ve had at the Chamber, we already had great relationships in place with government and private business support organizations throughout the area. The pandemic forced many of the silos that limited opportunity in the past to be eliminated and we quickly saw and continue to see public and private sector partners working together on a daily basis to create and support opportunity for all kinds of business.
During the conversation, I described our work as co-creation on steroids. We were able to launch a number of resources in a short amount of time, with a regional spirit, that continue to serve our business community today. A quick list of some of the successful programs and resources includes:
- NoCoRecovers.com
- NoCoSafetySupply.com
- #KeepNoCoOpen messaging campaign
- $5M Larimer County Loan Fund
- PIVOT Larimer County
- Level Up Business Certification
- Constant communication, education and support
And while we are seeing a light at the end of the pandemic tunnel, as my colleague Jacob Castillo noted, we are still squarely stuck in the tunnel. We have an incredibly big lift ahead of us to support the ReIgniting of the northern Colorado economy.
Partners throughout northern Colorado have consolidated their resources to hire TIP Strategies to help us create and execute a recovery plan. To support that work we’ve created a Recovery Tracker. The tool will help us track key indicators that signal the economic recovery in northern Colorado. The Tracker will live on NoCoRecovers.com and we invite you to check it out. As well, we encourage you to keep an eye out for opportunities to help drive key conversations and actions that will ReIgnite Northern Colorado!
PS: Check out the Forecast Rebroadcast on BizWest.com!