1. Regionalism and Sustainable Development Fellowship
The Ford Foundation
Regionalism and Sustainable Development Fellowship
Our Theory of Change

2. Our Theory of Change: 1
Regions are the primary geographic building block for global economic competitiveness.
The region is the operating landscape for traded sector businesses.
It takes a region to achieve the economies of scale, scope, and opportunity necessary for the diversity of people and specialized businesses that are essential to succeed in tough global competition.
Workforce, transportation, housing, education, supplier networks -- all exist on a regional scale

3. Our Theory of Change: 2
Businesses gain or lose competitive advantage based on the health of the region.
Businesses competing in a global economy gain competitive advantage from a healthy regional economy that on a long-term, sustainable basis
Produces and attracts educated, skilled, and creative people;
Fosters innovation and accelerates its rapid diffusion through the region;
Moves people and goods quickly and efficiently;
Makes smart use of environment and natural resources;
Offers affordable housing, near jobs; and,
Works to reduce disparities of income and opportunities.

4. But businesses and their performance are hurt if they are based in an unhealthy region where poor public policy and private sector neglect combine with short-sighted vision to create:
high levels of concentrated poverty,
traffic congestion and commuting delays,
jobs-housing mismatch and affordability barriers,
urban-suburban disparities,
inner-city decline, and
limited access to good jobs for low-income people.
Businesses cannot recruit locally or attract nationally or internationally (much less retain) the technical skills and business savvy they need for competitive success.
See readings by Manuel Pastor

5. Our Theory of Change: 3
The business sector must lead the region in pursuit of sustainable development.
Business has the most at stake.
Business can lead at the regional scale, where civil jurisdictions lack effective mechanisms and too frequently compete rather than collaborate in economic development.
The business sector has the capacity to mobilize resources, the expertise to organize and implement complex undertaking, and the continuity of presence that extends beyond the term of elected public officials.

6. Our Theory of Change: 4
Individual business action is just too daunting and usually ineffective
No single business can effect wholesale regional change,
Challenges just too big, too deeply embedded.
Most business leaders just don’t have the time.
Few business leaders have the skills.
Lean management has reduced corporate hierarchy.
Newer, more entrepreneurial business leaders not comfortable with the slower pace of civic decision-making.
Other groups in the region sometimes view business leaders with suspicion.

7. Our Theory of Change: 5
Collective action through general purpose business associations is essential.
Because immediate costs of engaging in regional agenda are high for individual firms, it’s up to business-based, mediating institutions to mobilize collective business action.

8. In fact, in a knowledge-based, global economy, it’s now the central challenge of business-based, civic institutions (Chambers of Commerce) to help their member businesses:
find and pursue opportunities for collective action in pursuit of sustainable regional growth;
create long-term partnerships; and,
use their combined economic power and influence to promote business practices and public policies that build efficient and inclusive metropolitan regions.

9. Our Theory of Change: 6
Chambers of Commerce will develop and expand their capacity for regional leadership.
The skills and tools to support the mission of modern regional business organizations are quite different from those required for traditional civic boosterism.
strategic analysis
coalition building and agenda setting
product development, implementation, and evaluation
Chamber execs still need highly developed process skills, but now also need deep content knowledge.

10. Our Theory of Change: 7
This Fellowship can build knowledge and the capacity for action.
Participation will include chamber from 32 major metropolitan regions who will:
learn from national experts and from each other.
develop a Regional Action Plan with peer support.
engage regional business leaders in supporting that Plan.
“spread the word” and help build the capacity of other chamber executives in North America.

11. Sustainable Development: Defined
Economic development that can be sustained over time because it is not environmentally or economically self-limiting.
It is a growth strategy: It aims to build per capita income and wealth within the region while explicitly creating wider opportunity for all residents to contribute to and participate in the benefits of economic growth.
It advances regional patterns of growth that meet environmental quality attainment standards, combating fragmented, inefficient land use planning and wasteful development patterns that can concentrate poverty and increase business and taxpayer costs.