🔒The business case for inclusive economic development

The Hartford Foundation for Public Giving has spent the past few years actively listening to and learning from residents, donors, and grantees while examining an array of information about the region.

Our engagement and assessment makes clear that our community must achieve greater racial, geographic and economic inclusion to reach its full potential as a vibrant, thriving and contributing force for regional and state prosperity.

We know that persistent disparities affected by race/ethnicity, place (ZIP code) and income serve as barriers to this vision being fully realized.

These disparities result from decades of systemic factors, structural racism and disinvestment in many communities. Much focus has been concentrated on equity and inclusion as a matter of social justice, but there is an equally compelling business case to be made about inclusion as a strategy for economic growth and prosperity.

The recently released Comprehensive Economic Development Strategy (CEDS) calls out the urgent need for inclusive growth in the Hartford region.

Co-authored by the Capital Region Council of Governments (CRCOG), MetroHartford Alliance and Hartford Foundation, the report sets out goals to develop talent with a focus on underrepresented populations to meet employers’ needs, investing in quality of place amenities and promoting our brand strengths to boost investment.

While broad economic growth is a clear priority, an unwavering commitment to inclusion is vital to both the short- and long-term success of our region. We must balance attracting new businesses and residents with supporting opportunity for existing residents and businesses.

Inclusive economic growth policies and actions can tap into the wider talent pool and have a ripple effect of increasing upward mobility — lifting productivity and economic growth for all.

The Brookings Institute confirms that metro economies grow faster, stronger and more sustainably when opportunity is not limited to just a few segments of the population.

Accordingly, solutions should prioritize a commitment to education, training and investment in our current residents — providing opportunities that respond to their education and skills as well as creating new opportunities to increase their skill attainment and employability and investing in small businesses and entrepreneurial ideas owned by people of color and women.

Reducing occupational barriers for women and blacks in the latter half of the 20th century was a major contributor to U.S. economic growth during that period.

By the middle of the 21st century, more than half of U.S. workers and consumers will be people of color. Furthering the success of populations of color will not only serve an important social-justice goal, it will be a major driver of our collective social and economic well-being.

As laid out in the CEDS, our region’s goals should be to reduce the level of disparity for both black and Hispanic/Latino populations with respect to income, poverty and employment.

Metro Hartford should also focus on reducing geographic disparities between its urban areas and smaller communities along the same three measures. Economic development organizations can play a central role in advancing inclusive metropolitan economies, but they will need to adopt new practices and set new agendas, advocate for local and state policy reforms, and be part of broader, more inclusive regional coalitions.

Education and training organizations, community development groups, metropolitan planning organizations and social-justice organizations provide an important part of this local architecture. Clearly, employers themselves will be critical, and must come to the table with an enlightened self-interest.

Often these coalitions do not yet exist and building them takes time and resources. It requires naming the institutional barriers to inclusion and realigning our resources in areas that have experienced longstanding disinvestment.

Preparing a broader and more diverse set of firms, workers and communities to reach their productive potential offers a compelling opportunity for growth. Metropolitan America should seize it.

The Hartford Foundation is fully committed to addressing systemic disparities around race, place (ZIP code) and income. This is urgent work, and it won’t be easy; however, as we enhance the strategic partnerships between philanthropy, nonprofits and the corporate community, and establish new ones, informed by the lived experience of residents, our vision for true economic inclusion can be realized.

Jay Williams is the president of the Hartford Foundation for Public Giving.