COMMUNITY REVITALIZATION STRATEGIES

Successful community-based and or neighborhood-oriented commercial revitalization strategies generally are more successful if they include a thorough assessment of the existing community environment and any ongoing  planning activities.  Partners uses a collaborative approach with stakeholders to assess, evaluate and recommend strategic development steps to achieve our client's vision.

Typically we will work with our clients to perform the following sequence of events:

1. Meet with community stakeholders to identify community concerns.
2. Summarize meeting results and present outcomes.
3. Evaluate existing leadership organizations and recommend alternatives for development of  the project's
   leadership options.
4. Facilitate the exploration or community expressed goals and visions
5. Explore and recommend strategies to involve and organize the business community.
6. Assess an area's physical assets.
7. Identify potential initiatives for expanding business ventures within the community.
8. Prepare and present a plan including funding options, for implementation of the development initiatives.

BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT FEASIBILITY

Partners provides a comprehensive strategy to evaluate potential business opportunities.  Within the scope of evaluation, Partners may perform the following activities:

1. Review, analyze and comment about effectiveness (strengths and weaknesses) of the business plan for the
   proposed development.
2. Advance the business development concept with potential funding sources.
3. Facilitate and or perform research to address potential funders' concerns.
4. Identify alternatives to increase the feasibility of successful outcome of the project.


BUSINESS PLAN DEVELOPMENT

Every successful project starts with a business plan.  A business plan is the most crucial and fundamental business document of a project or development plan.  Securing funding without a well-conceived, well presented business plan is nearly impossible.

Often times it's simply a matter of knowing what to include in order to communicate a comprehensive picture of your vision.  Partners experience in banking and lending practices, provides a significant advantage to our client's ability to prepare and present successful business plans for funding consideration.   We work with our clients to clearly state objectives, prepare and organize relevant information and to identify appropriate contacts for business plan submission.

GRANT APPLICATION RESEARCH, PREPARATION AND PACKAGING

Finding appropriate sources and preparing for the grant or foundation application process can be daunting.  Partners experience in researching and matching funders to the appropriate project provides our clients with a significant advantage over competitors.  Grantors and investors have become highly selective and discriminating and we help our clients put their best foot forward by facilitating the development of a well conceived, well thought-out plan business plan and most importantly, to define the compelling case for the award of funding.

Our approach to the grant process is usually done in 4 basic phases. 

Phase I: The overall purpose/goal  during phase one is to identify which programs, services and operations have the best chance of being funded  by performing a thorough research and matching of potential funding sources with program, service and operational elements.

Specifically we :

*  Assist clients to develop a formal statement of need.
*  Assist clients to concisely develop a proposal (including budget development) to address the essential
   elements of the application.
*  Assist clients to identify potential categories for sources of support. i.e. operating, special projects, capital
   equipment, endowments.
*  Conduct a thorough research to determine funding sources interested in the project programs, operations
  or services.

PHASE II:  The goal of phase II is to obtain information, applications and materials needed to apply for funding.

PHASE III: The goal of phase III is to prepare applications for funding, package proposals and monitor activity through the pre-funding stage. Partners value added during this phase is the experience we bring in understanding the strategies and processes typically employed through development of a grant application.

PHASE IV:  The purpose throughout phase IV is to ensure all post-funding activities have be arranged for and to administer reporting requirements related to each application.

ECONOMIC ADVISORY SERVICES
LISTEN
PLAN
DELIVER