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Welcome to Voices and Local Government and ICMA podcast. My name is Gabe Dardy,
and today we're discussing the Economic Recovery Corps program with Sidney Davis,
a current Economic Recovery Corps fellow working with the National Coalition for
Community Capital Across Michigan, working to support local investing in the region.
Welcome, Sydney. Thank you.
Now, the Economic Recovery Corps program, or ERC, for short, is funded by the
Economic Development Administration, the EDA, and it's led by the International
Economic Development Council, IEDC. The program is designed to help communities build
long -term economic resilience by investing in people, nurturing relationships,
and strengthening the local systems. 65 dynamic fellows from accomplished entrepreneurs
to non -profit professionals, from veterans to passionate community leaders have spent
the last two years in communities all over the country, large and small,
working to deliver lasting impact. The website, for more information on this program,
is the economicrecoverycorps.org, and it'll be linked wherever you're listening to
this podcast at. Now, Sydney, can you tell us what drew you specifically to the ERC
program and what makes this program unique, especially in how it builds long -term
capacity and support for both fellows and hosts? For sure,
What drew me to the ERC program was, honestly, a sense of frustration but hope at
the same time. So, well, for ERC, most of my work set at the intersection of
entrepreneurship, local economies, and access to capital as an entrepreneur myself.
And I kept seeing the same pattern across communities. It was incredibly capable
people with great ideas, good skills, a commitment to their community, but there were
systems that existed, but it didn't build to support them, especially early stage or
underserved entrepreneurs or people with ideas. So the economic development,
we often focus on attraction with that and bringing something in rather than
investing in what and who is already there. So ERC stood out because it flipped
that model. So what makes this program unique is that it doesn't just fund projects.
It funds people and capacity, as you mentioned. And that and
and close to local lenders, small business owners, ecosystem builders, and residents
and asking different questions, not just how do we grow faster, but who has been
excluded from capital, especially traditional forms of capital, where relationships
already exist, and what would it look like for a community to invest in itself? So
the long -term value of ERC is that it creates learning on both sides. So fellows
like myself, we gain a deep ground -level understanding of how policy, capital, and
community realities intersect. And at the same time, host communities, they aren't
left with just a reporter, like a pilot that disappears after this, you know, two
and a half year project, but they're left with frameworks, relationships with that
community and some local capacity after our fellowship in. So communities like
Michigan could adapt long after the program ends. And that's what made this and you
feel different for me and worth committing to you for two and a half years.
You mentioned a lot of talk about patterns and people and relationships. Could you
give us a little more insight of some of the patterns that maybe you're seeing in
your realm of the work that you're doing specifically? Do you have any specific
examples? Yeah, absolutely. So one clear example is community capital work that I've
been leading with the National Coalition for many capital across Michigan. So early
on in my fellowship, I kept hearing this common concern from our local governments,
like our local economic development offices, the city, or ecosystem leaders that are
ESOs, entrepreneurship support organizations or BSOs, business support orgs.
And the common concern is like we want to support small businesses and entrepreneurs,
but we don't have tools, you know, beyond a grant here and there. And grants alone
just aren't enough. And so at the same time, entrepreneurs are saying we don't need
charity. We need access, trust, and pathways of capital that actually fit our
reality. So through NC3, we focus on helping communities understand and activate local
investing. So things like community crowdfunding, you've probably seen that like
Kickstarter is like one, but it's reward -based, but like Honeycomb credit, we funder.
So these tools have allowed just everyday people to invest small amounts, be it $20,
$100 or more, into businesses that they believe in, keeping ownership local and the
wealth local rather than exporting it out of the community. So the work wasn't just
theoretical. We built practical infrastructure. So some things that we did was
training in education to the local lenders,
local residents and the people leading the entrepreneurship ecosystem. We did do some
playbooks in case studies showing how communities can deploy those tools within the
existing economic development frameworks that they already have. One thing that was
important that we did not come in trying to re -duplicate the wheel or change the
wheels that already exist in those communities. We wanted to work with what you guys
are already doing and just double down on it, right? amplify it, make it stronger.
One of the most important outcomes wasn't a single fund or event. It was a mindset
shift. It was a lot of mindset work, really, not only for the entrepreneurs, but
the people in the ecosystem, local leaders, to begin to see residents of people who
live locally, not just as beneficiaries of economic development, but as participants
in it. Entrepreneurs started to see capital as something that could come from their
own community and not just dis -institutions, venture firms.
And that's what made the work meaningful from an ERC perspective because it builds
resilience at the system level. So instead of relying solely on outside funding
cycles, communities gain repeatable, local controllable tools that they can use again
and again during recovery periods like we just came from and beyond. That's awesome.
Sydney, you mentioned this, and I think it's important to kind of talk about, you
talked about the culmination of the whole project. Could you tell us a little more
about what that looks like? Like, what have you learned and how are you showcasing
that? So our approach works best with mid -sized cities, counties, and regions that
have already have entrepreneurial activity and community pride. Like, they have some
momentum. When we rolled out, like, stakeholder engagement just to get a feel where
every region is at, we in the state of Michigan, we have 10 regions. We broke our
state to 10 regions. Some are bustling. You got like the Detroit area bustling. You
got the land team where the colleges are out of bustling. And in some areas just
like, this is very new to us, very foreign. And we noticed that the ones that were
than mid -size, as defined in Michigan, they just lack flexible capital tools. And so
these are places where small businesses are the backbone of the local economy.
Residents care deeply about what happens on their main street and where traditional
economic development incentives just don't reach most local entrepreneurs. They
sometimes don't even hear about it. So the leaders who benefit most are the economic
development directors, city managers, and ecosystem builders who are asking, what do
we do after the grants for now? They're not looking for a flashy pilot. They want
tools that could be embedded into how their community operates, something that's
repeatable, replenishable over time. And I just launch, and then we don't know in
the next window. Grants opening where you can get funding. And the entrepreneurs this
matters most for are going to be locally rooted business owners. And so what makes
the ERC work effective is that it does meet both sides where they are. It doesn't
ask local governments to become finances overnight. It doesn't ask entrepreneurs to
contort themselves to fit capital models that weren't designed for them. Instead,
it introduces community capital as a bridge, a way for residents, the governments,
businesses to participate together in economic growth. This lesson that I think other
communities can take from Michigan. And what we've done through the last two and a
half years is sustainable economic development isn't about doing more. It's about
doing what fits. And every state and every ecosystem is going to be different. But
when you align capital tools with the realities of your local businesses and the
values of your residents, you don't just recover. You build something that can endure
over
All right. Wow. Thanks for that, Sydney. I do want to shift just a little bit with
your perspective, being in this program for two years. What has driven the success
of this program in Michigan specifically? The ability for people to be open to
relearning. A lot of people sometimes in the ecosystems have been in these positions
for
years. They've been doing the work at the local level for years. And then when we
came in with community capital, it is, sort of speaking, teaching a new way of
looking at, you know, raising funds for small businesses, ways that you look at your
role. One of the things I like when I go to a stakeholder meeting is at the
table, they're usually program managers for leadership support orgs,
their executive directors, their entrepreneur and residences. You see yourself as just
like, I just help entrepreneurs teach them this. The work you're doing is economic
development. You're helping these people create work that will employ people that will
fund taxes, that will actually generate wealth, not only for them, the community.
How do you feel like the lasting impact of this work and your engagement in ERC
has changed the way that you think about economic development. Working through this
fellowship, especially alongside communities across Michigan, made it clear that
economic development isn't just a technical function, it's a relational one. And so
you can have the right policies on paper, but without trust, shared understanding,
local ownership, those policies don't translate to lasting impact. So ERC also shifted
how I think about the role of local government. So rather than being the sole
driver or gatekeeper of economic growth, local government can be a convener and
enabler for creating space for communities to invest in themselves, lowering friction
and supporting systems that already exist on the ground. So on a personal level, the
program reinforced that resilience isn't built through speed or scale alone. It's
through alignment, through alignment with capital, culture, and community priorities.
And the work that I've done through the ERC showed me that when communities are
given the tools to participate meaningfully in their own economic future, those
results are more durable and more equitable. Well, Sydney, we've had a lot of fun
today, I think, just kind of getting discussed the program and your work in
Michigan, which is phenomenal, by the way. Thanks for the work that you're doing. I
hope you don't feel like it's thankless because people will be grateful for this for
years to come. But Sydney, thanks so much just for taking the time to talk with me
today. If any of our listeners are interested in learning more about this program,
please visit Economic Recovery Corps .org. You can find all the information there and
anywhere else that you are listening to this podcast. But thank you so much,
Sydney, for your time today. Thank you so much. I appreciate it.
In this episode of Voices in Local Government, ICMA assistant program manager, Gabe Daugherty, speaks with Sydney Davis, a fellow in the Economic Recovery Corps (ERC) program. They discuss the unique aspects of the ERC, which focuses on building long-term economic resilience by investing in people and local systems rather than just funding projects. Sydney shares her experiences working with the National Coalition for Community Capital in Michigan, highlighting the importance of community capital and local investment. The conversation explores the success factors of the ERC program in Michigan, the lasting impact of the fellowship, and the shift in mindset required for sustainable economic development.
Key Takeaways:
- The ERC program focuses on building long-term economic resilience.
- It funds people and capacity, not just projects.
- Communities gain repeatable local controllable tools for investment.
- Economic development is a relational function, not just technical.
- Local governments can be conveners and enablers of economic growth.
- Community capital allows residents to invest in local businesses.
- The ERC experience emphasizes the importance of trust and relationships.
- Resilience is built through alignment with community priorities.
Featured Guests:
Sydney Davis
Entrepreneur & Funding Navigation Specialist
ERC Fellow with National Coalition for Community Capital
Resources
Community Investment Fund Handbook & Toolkit: The National Coalition for Community Capital is a great resource. NC3 offers practical education, case studies, and tools that help communities understand what’s possible beyond traditional grants and incentives—and how to approach these models responsibly.
