Resilient 305: The Miami Building Prosperity Collaborative

Resilient 305: The Miami Building Prosperity Collaborative Building an Economic Development and Employment Ecosystem in Miami-Dade County: Opportunities and Challenges White Paper, July 2022

Prepared by:

Howard Frank, Ph.D. Maria Ilcheva, Ph.D. Lilliam Jarquin, M.A.

Table of Contents Executive Summary ..............................................................................................................................2 Introduction ...........................................................................................................................................4 Progress of the Collaborative ..............................................................................................................5 Successes and Challenges ..................................................................................................................7 Success 1: Catalyst Continues Quality Outreach and Services........................................................ 7 Success 2: Miami-Dade College has Produced Two Graduating Classes of Healthcare Technicians ........................................................................................................................................8 Success 3: The Marriage of Prospera and FIU’s Small Business Development Center Has Thrived ............................................................................................................................................................9 Success 4: Official Deployment of the LaborMiami Portal as a One-Stop Shop ...........................10 Success 5: The South Florida Anchor Alliance is Ready to Beta Test a Procurement Framework Incorporating the Labor Miami Portal .............................................................................................11 Challenge 1: Is Market Acceptance of a Living Wage a Pyrrhic Victory for Households and Small Business? .........................................................................................................................................11 Challenge 2: Lack of Case Management Remains a Stumbling Block to Broader “MiddleClassification” of Program Participants..........................................................................................13 Challenge 3: Limited Intergovernmental Involvement in the Advancing Cities Ecosystem Continues .........................................................................................................................................14 A Preliminary Take on Legacy ...........................................................................................................16 Intangible Legacies .........................................................................................................................16 Miami-Dade Can Engage in Serious Manpower Planning that Links Education and Employer Need .............................................................................................................................................16 Discussion of Living-Wage Jobs Isn’t Taboo ............................................................................16 Tangible Benefit Legacies ..............................................................................................................17 Creation of the Labor Miami Portal ...........................................................................................17 Ecosystem Building and Commitments ....................................................................................17 Case Studies .......................................................................................................................................20 Appendix A: Photos ............................................................................................................................26

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Executive Summary After the initial systems shock caused by COVID-19 which forced partners to recalibrate services, in its third year, the Resilient 305 collaborative achieved notable progress in the business and workforce development arenas. A combination of a tight labor market, rising housing costs and inflation, and the influx of companies and employees from other parts of the country all converge to put even more pressure on providers in these arenas to ensure that local residents and entrepreneurs are competitive and resilient in terms of human capital and business infrastructure.

Highlights for the third year include significant developments in the small business expansion and workforce development arenas, as well as new challenges faced by Resilient 305 collaborative members.

Successes: •

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Success 1: Catalyst continues successfully addressing the needs of the workforce development cohort through the added support of wrap-around services and continued outreach to hard-to-reach, technologically challenged communities.

Success 2: Miami-Dade College produced its second graduating class of healthcare technicians, placing students in an increasingly growing and competitive job sector that pays living wage salaries and other sign-on benefits.

Success 3: The Prospera-FIU Small Business Development Center partnership flourished and grew successfully to secure additional funding from the U.S. Small Business Administration.

Success 4: The official launch of the LaborMiami portal provides community members with a broad and diverse range of resources, all in one site.

Success 5: The South Florida Anchor Alliance is ready to beta test a procurement framework to launch at the end of 2022

Challenges: • • •

Challenge 1: Is market acceptance of the living wage a pyrrhic victory for households and small businesses?

Challenge 2: Lack of a standard case management approach remains a stumbling block to broader “middle-classification” of program participants Challenge 3: Limited intergovernmental involvement in the advancing cities ecosystem continues

As we close out the project, the collaborative members are faced with the question of long-term sustainability and legacy, and how and if they can continue the progress made over the last three years. A preliminary take on legacy divides the potentially long-lasting impact of the collaborative’s efforts into intangible legacies and tangible legacies. The tangible legacies include the creation of the LaborMiami portal as an integrator of community resources in education, professional development, business support, and job placement. Its potential development into a regional platform under the Anchor Alliance is a harbinger of greater utility in the future. A second tangible legacy is the deepening of ecosystem partnerships. The FIU SBDC and Prospera partnership in the small business arena, empowered by AdvancingCities funding, has expanded with the SBA grant, which brought together not only these two organizations but other partners in the space. Additional investments from Wells Fargo underscore the need to support small 2

businesses and the presence of a small business support ecosystem that can steer that investment for the highest impact.

There are two notable intangible legacies of the work. First is demonstration of the positive outcomes of integrating professional development opportunities with employer needs accomplished through a strategic approach that started with the evaluation of industry sector needs and upward mobility opportunities through the CAEL report, with subsequent targeting of employment opportunities that foster sustainable, high-wage employment. The second intangible legacy is the discussion of livable wage placed in the broader context of Miami-Dade’s economic structure and quality of life challenges, such as housing, talent development, and transportation.

The discussion of what constitutes a livable wage is no longer taboo. City of Miami staff detail the need for higher wages in their discussions with employers seeking employees in a tight labor market. Relatedly, there is wide recognition of the need to build the region’s entrepreneurial ecosystem to bolster small business survival and their ability to pay market wages.

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Introduction The information collected for this white paper comes from extensive notes collected at Building Prosperity group meetings, one-on-one interviews with members of the collaborative, and selfreported information on metrics and goals from each BP member.

The Miami Building Prosperity Collaborative, led by the Miami Foundation, is a partnership between community-based organizations working in small business development, supplier diversity, workforce development, and general community development. The City of Miami Opportunity Center, the South Florida Anchor Alliance, Catalyst Miami and Florida International University (FIU) have worked alongside Prospera and the Small Business Development Center at Florida International University (SBDC) as direct small business service providers, and the MiamiDade College (MDC) Medical Campus as a workforce development partner throughout the duration of this initiative.

The Miami collaborative combines both direct services in the areas of workforce development and business support through the work of Miami-Dade College, City of Miami and small business service providers, with a broader collaboration aimed at long-term systems change exemplified by the work of the South Florida Anchor Alliance.

In its first year, the collaborative agreed on goals and metrics. Program managers outlined parameters for program execution and began to see linkages between program components.

They began to experiment with the idea of how to join forces and create different outcomes for community members. In its second year, the collaborative began the community-based work to ensure these goals would generate measurable impacts. Partners made a number of enhancements to programming, such as the City of Miami’s incorporation of a CRM-based approach and platform, and Catalyst Miami’s use of cognitive behavior training to improve client ability and willingness to succeed in the local labor market.

Now in its third year, establishing the long-term impact strategy of the collaborative is in the hands of the providers.

This report will focus on describing and assessing the progress of the collaborative in its third year. The report includes the following sections: • •

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Project Description and Progress of the Collaborative – this section describes the collaborative and cumulative progress towards the collaborative’s goals.

Successes and Challenges -- this section describes the successes and challenges the collaborative faced in implementing its initiatives, including successes or challenges in achieving outcomes or meeting goals.

A Preliminary Take on Legacy – this section discusses the project’s legacy to the community in terms of intangible benefits that may influence the community’s economic sphere, and tangible benefits from the project that will continue in the immediate future.

Case studies – this section highlights two case studies on what the Prospera/FIU SBDC team has accomplished thus far, as well as illustrating key insights to highlight the collaborative’s work.

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Progress of the Collaborative The effects of Covid-19 continue to affect community members and partners, but in the third year, Resilient 305 collaborative members have adjusted and appear to better handle the obstacles faced in the wake of the pandemic.

In the business expansion arena, one of the most notable achievements is the continued success of the FIU Small Business Development Center and Prospera partnership. Earlier in the project, involvement from small business providers FIU SBDC and Prospera focused on recovery efforts and helping Miami-Dade’s small businesses’ immediate needs and later shifted to helping business adjust their operating and marketing strategies. The partnership flourished, meeting and exceeding the assigned metrics. An additional $2.5 million from the U.S. Small Business Administration helped the partnership successfully launch the Community Navigator Program for Miami-Dade County Businesses. To date, FIU SBDC and Prospera have assisted 297 businesses assisted and provided 2,045 hours of business consulting. An estimated 596 jobs were created or retained, eight businesses were launched, and clients experienced a cumulative revenue increase total of $13,006,427 as a result of receiving assistance. Both organizations largely credit their success over the past three years to the partnership. Separately, we are finally seeing progress from the Anchor Alliance. After a very slow rollout, Anchor members appear to be ready and in alignment on how to proceed with the regional partnership. The South Florida Health Foundation, which has been leading the Alliance efforts, agreed to invest $1.2 million, divided among Anchor members to use for a technology company to develop the platform. Activities will be geared towards small- and minority-owned businesses in the region. The goal is to help these small and minority-owned businesses find contracts with Anchor members at the regional level.

In the workforce development arena, Miami-Dade College graduated its second cohort of medical practitioners at the end of this summer’s semester. In the past year, Miami-Dade College enrolled 98 students in its Workforce on Demand program, a 66% increase from the previous year’s enrollment. Because of pandemic healthcare staffing shortages, and with over 600 partner organizations, there are few to no obstacles in building relationships with healthcare organizations looking to fill these staffing gaps.

At the end of year three, the City of Miami’s Opportunity Center continues to leverage the Salesforce CRM platform to track success through specific outcomes in terms of job placements in livable wages. The number of jobs available continues to surpass the number of qualified job seekers, but job seekers appear to be more engaged, an attitude that is reflected through the increased number of hiring events and community members who attend.

In the past year, the Miami Foundation developed and officially launched the LaborMiami portal, a platform that serves all members of the community, from job seekers and students to employers and small business owners. As of April 2022, 7,114 community members accessed and used the talent portal, and 372 businesses accessed and used the talent portal. Catalyst Miami continues its upskilling and wraparound services, identifying and filling the needs of underserved communities and community members. Of note is Catalyst’s adaptability to the needs of the community, continuously working around the needs of its clients. This adaptability can be recently illustrated by Catalyst’s creation of the Workforce Navigation Catalog, a physical resource to share with households that have no internet access.

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Dade County Federal Credit Union (DCFCU) joined the collaborative at the beginning of 2022 after being awarded $50,000 by the Miami Foundation. The Payday Rescue program will help residents of Miami-Dade County refinance their high-interest payday loan debt to a lower rate while providing them with financial literacy education and a line of credit so they don’t have to go back to a payday lender if an emergency pops up 1. As of June 2022, a little over half of the award has been expended on marketing and outreach purposes, ranging from website development, to print materials, to email marketing campaigns. DCFCU’s presence in the Advancing Cities Ecosystem serves as an additional supportive service for financial stability to overcome economic barriers for low-to-moderate income communities.

Progress throughout the collaborative makes way for new challenges to arise. For example, to continue the work on the LaborMiami portal, the Miami Foundation hopes to completely outsource the portal to a larger entity with a broader reach. Ideally, Miami-Dade County or a comparable entity with the capacity and reach in the South Florida region would be the best fit. Currently there is not an entity suited to adopt the portal and continue the work, and the involvement of a municipality, county, or state government partner still does not exist in the Advancing Cities ecosystem. Recent staffing changes in Miami-Dade hint at future government involvement. But delayed government stewardship may hurt long-term project development. Previously, we reported on employer and stakeholder reluctance regarding the $13.50 living wage as a benchmark for job creation and placement. Now, job offers are no less than $15 and the City of Miami reports that on average, applicants receive average job offers of $17-$18 per hour. An increased hourly wage demonstrates employer awareness of job seeker needs, but is the increase sustainable in our current environment? The question poses a different challenge to small businesses, which might not be able to adjust to higher payroll costs.

On a similar note, and in the context of Miami-Dade’s second graduating class of healthcare technicians, job placement in living wage jobs might not be enough. When comparing MiamiDade’s workforce development cohort to Catalyst’s workforce development cohort, the latter appears to have an advantage in fostering an environment of upwards economic mobility, largely in part to the quality wrap-around services Catalyst offers. Miami-Dade College offers supportive services as well, but they are geared towards emergency situations, such as rental assistance, and do not provide the same long-term guidance as Catalyst programs. This illustrates a disconnect between partners due to the absence of an integrated case management system that could instill job training, financial literacy, and “soft skills” in human capital development.

1 Dade County Federal Credit Union. https://www.paydayrescue.com/

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Successes and Challenges Success 1: Catalyst Continues Quality Outreach and Services A hallmark of the project has been Catalyst’s work with clients in areas such as credit counseling, resume writing, job search, and cognitive therapy (i.e., instilling the willingness to participate in the labor force despite prior setbacks). Catalyst’s efforts are grounded in the realities of their clients’ limited access to cars or transportation, limited availability of daycare or leave time, and similar constraints. Thus, Catalyst has morphed its services to be increasingly virtual or connected to other community partners, particularly in South Dade, and engage in “road shows” proximate to where clients live and work.

An interesting aspect of the Catalyst curriculum is the incorporation of networking opportunities, professional development, goal setting, and accountability, all areas where participants develop and build their soft skills. According to Ian Siegel, co-founder and CEO of ZipRecruiter, “soft skills play a critical role in their decision about whom they want to hire.” ZipRecruiter recently produced its inaugural report, “The Class of 2022: The Job Market Outlook for Grads”, where it mentions that 93% of employers believe soft skills are crucial for job seekers to include and highlight on their resumes.

Catalyst has partnered with Miami-Dade Federal Credit Union to provide banking services to the unbanked, who frequently rely on check cashing institutions and payday loans with high interest.

The Catalyst-Miami-Dade partnership hopes that finding a banking home will break the payday loan/predatory lending cycle in which many lower-income residents find themselves.

Catalyst’s wraparound services have been a constant of the Building Prosperity projects. Clients have shown considerable satisfaction with their services that have been a pillar of the project, even returning to participate in the program’s third cohort.

In the state of Florida, 14.3% of households lack internet access 2. In Miami-Dade County, the number of households without an internet subscription in 2020 was estimated at 179,437, or almost 20% of households 3. In our previous White Paper, partners recognized the technological barrier an online portal imposes on households with limited internet connectivity. To that end, Catalyst recently developed the Workforce Navigation Catalog as a physical resource to distribute and share some resources found on the LaborMiami portal. The 36-page resource document is divided in three parts: short-term certification programs in different industries, employment and assistance for job opportunities, and small business development resources for small business owners and aspiring entrepreneurs. The information in the Catalog is presented in English, Spanish, and Haitian Creole, the top three languages spoken in Miami-Dade County.

Worker Enterprise Development Worker enterprises, also known as worker cooperatives, are employee-owned and directed private business entities. The Democracy of Work Institute (2021) reports the median Working Cooperative size as six employees, with annual revenue of $298,016. Further, accommodation and food services are the biggest segments of cooperative development. Twenty-seven percent are employed in hospitality in Miami-Dade. These characteristics make the region an excellent test 2 U.S. Census Bureau, American Community Survey 2020 5-Year Estimates.

3 Ibid.

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case for Working Cooperative development. As noted in prior reports, 82% of Miami-Dade’s businesses have fewer than 10 employees. Lack of access to capital and limited organizational sinews are inevitable shortcomings of these microenterprises. Catalyst’s efforts to bolster Working Cooperatives have the potential to grow small businesses, enhancing their long-term sustainability. As noted in our July 2020 White Paper, the Kaufman Foundation estimates that only 45% of Miami’s startups survive five years. Over time, Worker Cooperative growth could improve that survival rate.

Success 2: Miami-Dade College has Produced Two Graduating Classes of Healthcare Technicians The Greater Miami Workforce Asset Mapping Report prepared by the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning (CAEL) released in March of 2020 outlined nine key growing occupations with medium to low risk of automation. These growing occupations represented a mix of industries and skill sets and the ability to offer a living wage. In fact, the median hourly earnings for these growing occupations are no less than $15 per hour. In the workforce development track, Miami Dade College (MDC) zeroed in on the needs of Miami’s healthcare field by supporting and training students in massage therapy, medical assisting, and phlebotomy. Moreover, MDC is an established educational institution in the County that offers students different pathways into the healthcare field, ranging from First Responder and Paramedic certificate programs, to Associate and Bachelor’s Degrees in areas such as dental hygiene, respiratory care, and surgical technology.

Supporting and training future healthcare technicians offers students the opportunity to escape entry-level, low-wage jobs, in addition to building middle-skill opportunities and opening a path for upward economic mobility.

Similar to Catalyst, MDC acknowledges the realities and needs of its students and provides supportive services to students through tutoring, and emergency assistance, and even offers a student pantry through a partnership with FarmShare 4, for those who experience food insecurity as well as counseling for those experiencing mental health challenges.

During the program’s second year, MDC focused on planning efforts and implementing solutions to meet program goals. Enrollment and employment for participants increased from the previous year (2021) to this year. Although the graduation rate is lower than last year’s rate (77 percent vs.

100 percent), the second graduating class is larger than the first graduating class, which aligns with the workforce-on-demand model that provides educational training for the needs of community partners. A larger graduating class not only demonstrates an increased capacity for MDC to educate, train, and help students with job placement, but highlights a growing interest from community members to work in the healthcare field. MDC leadership expressed few challenges in job placement. Instead, in a fast-hiring field such as healthcare, MDC leadership describes competition among employers for students, offering hiring bonuses, tuition reimbursement, and even using workforce housing as an incentive for potential hires. Students are estimated to earn around $17 per hour or more upon hiring.

4 Farm Share is a 501 (c)(3) Florida non-profit that distributes a combination of fresh recovered produce, USDA

commodities, and other donated foods to Florida’s families in need. Farm Share has facilities in Homestead (MiamiDade County), Pompano (Broward County), and Quincy (Gadsden County). Farm Share distributes the recovered food at no charge and without fees of any kind to low-income families and to about 500 non-profit partner agencies such as church food pantries, soup kitchens, homeless shelters, community centers, and other non-profits throughout Florida.

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Unlike other partners, MDC is unique in the sense that the pandemic has not harmed hiring prospects. In fact, over 600 partners work with MDC to host students in their clinical rotations, and students often receive job offers through their rotations and before graduating. Many students are new to the healthcare field with limited career background and use the program as a way to learn a specialized skill or a second career, which demonstrates the quality of training students receive.

Opportunities exist for partnerships between MDC, the City of Miami, and the Healthcare Alliance to assess the needs of the healthcare system and use those findings to strengthen the workforceon-demand model and solidify a successful talent pipeline. Partners should also consider offering extra incentives to attract more applicants to the program, such as offering tuition bonuses, scholarships in exchange for conditional job offers, and providing workforce housing subsidies to applicants. An effort on behalf of partners to demonstrate a commitment to South Florida will support talent retention, both on the student side and on the instructor/trainer side.

Success 3: The Marriage of Prospera and FIU’s Small Business Development Center Has Thrived Prospera and the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) at FIU have partnered to assist 297 businesses and provided over 2,000 consulting hours to the management of small enterprises, particularly the microenterprises (under 10 employees) that predominate Miami-Dade’s business landscape. At the end of year two, SBDC and Prospera have met and exceeded their outlined goals and credit their successful partnership to the Building Prosperity collaboration. The partnership embodies the Small Business Administration’s stated priority of equitable and customer-centric design and delivery. 5 More notably, through the partnership, SBDC and Prospera secured a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration to kick off the Community Navigator Program for Miami-Dade County businesses. The Navigator program focuses on small businesses, including microbusinesses with fewer than 10 employees, owned by women, veterans, and socially and economically disadvantaged individuals, providing no-cost consulting and guidance on topics including financial management, business strategy, and access to capital. The SBDC/Prospera partnership recruited six different Miami-Dade organizations (including Prospera) to support the program: • • •

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Ascendus, a Community Development Financial Institution assisting small business owners, especially minorities, women, and immigrants, with capital and financial literacy; Branches, a community organization active in southern and northern Miami-Dade focused on micro-businesses; Economic Development Council of South Miami-Dade, a not-for-profit economic development organization representing municipalities and business organizations in southern Miami-Dade County; Miami-Dade Chamber of Commerce, the oldest Black chamber of commerce in South Florida, which provides training, networking, and consulting for black, minority, and womenowned businesses;

5 U.S. Small Business Administration. Enterprise Learning Agenda Fiscal Years 2022–2026. Helping All Small

Businesses and Entrepreneurs Achieve Their Dreams. https://www.sba.gov/sites/default/files/2022-04/FY%2020222026%20SBA%20Enterprise%20Learning%20Agenda%20for%20Publication-508.pdf Resilient 305: White Paper (July 2022)

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• •

Prospera, an economic development non-profit specialized in providing bilingual assistance to Hispanic entrepreneurs trying to establish or expand their business; StartUP FIU Procurement, a university-based incubator program for minority-owned businesses seeking procurement opportunities.

Success 4: Official Deployment of the LaborMiami Portal as a One-Stop Shop After a slow start due to COVID, the LaborMiami Portal was launched in Fall 2021, along with Miami Foundation staff efforts to incorporate feedback from users and guidance from community partners to improve and expand resources available for job seekers. The portal includes data on the latest labor market data emphasizing the fastest-growing employment sectors in Miami-Dade County while providing community members with the tools on how to break into those fields. The portal also includes resources for different wraparound and supportive services, such as wealthbuilding resources and childcare. As of April 2022, 7,114 community members accessed and used the talent portal, and 372 businesses accessed and used the talent portal.

The “soft launch” of the portal in May 2021 was an important development in creating an allencompassing platform that serves all members of the community, including students, job seekers, small business owners, entrepreneurs, and employers. The official launch of the portal was accompanied by an official announcement from the Miami Foundation (TMF) through Facebook livestream, where key leadership from TMF and Miami-Dade County attended and provided remarks on the value of the portal.

Miami Foundation staff has continued to create buzz and promote the site since then. A quarterly newsletter was developed specifically for LaborMiami and its target audience which includes data and updates such as important statistics on emerging and growing sectors in the Miami-Dade labor market, partner highlights, and upcoming virtual and in-person events for the quarter, as well as periodic blog posts on how different populations can use the portal to their advantage. TMF staff also mentioned the possibility of hosting in-person events for students in different workforce development programs, creating video testimonials to showcase how different community members have used the portal successfully, and targeting community members via ad-buys. To improve the site, TMF staff has added a feature on the LaborMiami site for feedback on how to improve the portal and will consider adding a job search function to the site, creating a more userfriendly resource for the community.

Progress from TMF on LaborMiami aligns with the South Florida Anchor Alliance’s workforce priorities of developing, coordinating, expanding, and deepening collaborative efforts for individuals and small businesses. An opportunity exists to leverage and position the Anchor Alliance as a “systems integrator” to increase the employment of the target populations outlined in the SFAA blueprint.

Our previous White Paper mentioned portal accessibility and limited use for those who are technologically challenged. Since the portal’s official launch, there has been progress in expanding its visibility, but TMF staff notes the change in users is not as large scale as they anticipated. TMF notes that challenges remain in sharing the portal with underserved communities because of the existing digital divide that broadened during the pandemic. To address such accessibility issues, Catalyst developed the Workforce Navigation Catalog, a physical resource to share with households with no internet access. The Catalog provides

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information in the three dominant languages in Miami-Dade – English, Spanish, and Creole. It is distributed at community centers, among Catalyst partners, and at job fairs or hiring events.

Success 5: The South Florida Anchor Alliance is Ready to Beta Test a Procurement Framework Incorporating the Labor Miami Portal As we have noted in prior progress reports and White Papers, Anchor Alliance members have been negotiating a common framework for contracts and job openings. Progress in the Anchor Alliance has been gradual, but finally gained traction in the first half of 2022. The Health Foundation of South Florida, which has been leading the Alliance efforts, agreed to invest $1.2 million with individual grants to Anchor institutions to use for a technology company to develop the platform.

Activities will be geared towards small- and minority-owned businesses in the region, with the goal of bridging education and opportunity gaps for businesses and assisting them find contracts with the Anchor members. The 10 anchor members participating in the marketplace launch will share their pool of vendors via the online portal so small business owners can tap contracts and resources previously unavailable to them. A system algorithm will connect each government contract opportunity with a small business owner based on company information the small business owner shares with the Alliance 6. Full rollout is expected by the end of Calendar Year 2022.

The platform will serve not only as a gateway to contracts but also include an assessment tool that will evaluate the businesses’ contract readiness. The businesses that require technical assistance and development support to take on Anchor contracts will be directed to resources and matched with small business service providers such as Ascendus, Prospera, FIU SBDC and others, depending on assessment outcomes.

In addition to this beta test, the Alliance, which has 19 members (the South Florida Anchor Alliance institutions are in Miami-Dade and Broward), is considering host responsibilities of the Labor Miami Portal with assistance from the Miami Foundation. This is a “win-win” that assures the long-term sustainability of the website with the potential for a regional footprint. A website that incorporates procurement and job placement would be a significant integrator in the region’s small business ecosystem.

Challenge 1: Is Market Acceptance of a Living Wage a Pyrrhic Victory for Households and Small Business?

At the project’s onset in 2019-20, many stakeholders and project participants expressed concern with discussion of a $15.30 minimum wage, feeling it might be deemed irresponsibly high and hurtful to small businesses, particularly in the traditionally low-wage leisure and hospitality sectors. Fast forward three years and this concern has effectively evaporated. The passage of Florida’s Amendment 2 in 2020, which established a minimum wage of $15.00 an hour by 2026, has added political legitimacy to our initial living wage. More importantly, wage pressure, particularly in “people facing” occupations, has led to widespread acceptance of the $15 dollar wage in the Miami-Dade market. The City of Miami Opportunity Center staff report that recent placements in their workforce track (online through the Labor Miami portal and in face-to-face placements such as job fairs) average $18.00. In the employer track, employers who are considering job posting in lower wage ranges are informed they will not be competitive in this 6 Butler, M. (2022). South Florida’s minority small businesses to get fairer shot at government contracts via regional alliance. The Miami Herald. https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article262310987.html#storylink=cpy

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market. Even the restaurant industry is recognizing that a gratuity-enhanced low wage structure (the restaurant minimum wage is $7.25) is unlikely to induce labor force participation in the postCOVID environment.

On its face, this wage growth is a plus. However, it may be of limited consequence at the household level. Near double-digit inflation and $5-a-gallon gasoline are disproportionately hitting the lowest quintile of wage earners. Miami was already “unaffordable” (i.e., low-wage, high-cost) prior to the Pandemic, and the population outflow of current residents seeking less expensive venues is offset by out-of-state and foreign in-migration. These buyers and renters drive an already overheated market into the stratosphere, increasing cost burdens for low- and middlewage earners. The absence of a solid public transportation system does not provide a costeffective alternative to low- and middle-wage earners. This begs the question: What does a $15.00 minimum wage mean in the current context? We cannot answer that directly. However, if we were to apply the United Way’s ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) approach, based on a survival budget, we can say that a single-wage earner might eke out a subsistence; a two-earner with one child household would fall below the “survival” threshold. In short, an incremental 2-3 dollars an hour wage gain is unlikely to add significant sustainability in the current inflationary environment.7 Sadly, on an inflation-adjusted basis, many low-income workers in the region may be worse off than prior to the Pandemic’s onset.

Another negative spillover of a higher market-established minimum wage is the impact on small businesses. This has been mentioned as an issue in our program reporting from the City of Miami and Prospera/SBDC. This problem is particularly thorny in the context of Greater Miami’s microenterprise economy.

Large enterprises can adjust to higher costs. A large restaurant chain such as Darden (parent of Olive Garden, Capital Grille, Longhorn, Smokey Bones, and Bahama Breeze) can pass along higher costs, adjust menu offerings, or cut hours and locations to survive and thrive in the current environment. Nationwide, banks have cut over 4,000 branches since the Pandemic to lower their operating costs. Many Fortune 500 firms have reduced their footprint and sublet space. Greater Miami’s largest supermarket chain, Publix, has reduced hours by closing at 10:00 PM instead of 11:00. In sum, as Joseph Schumpeter noted in Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy, large enterprises may not be the most innovative or productive, but they are more survivable when the capitalist system goes through its fits of what he termed “creative destruction.” When it comes to survivability, size matters.

Smaller businesses do not have the slack human or financial resources of their larger brethren.

They may not be able to compete on the wage front. They may be unable to absorb higher input costs. And cuts in staffing, space, and hours may be impossible. In the abstract, small businesses are often lauded for growing jobs and innovation. Current economic conditions may squelch this narrative. In fact, Miami’s predominantly minority and female-headed small businesses are likely to be particularly vulnerable given limited access to capital and resources on hand.

The stark upshot is that earning a “living wage” in Greater Miami may be easier to attain than at the onset of this project, but large forces such as inflation and migration have made Greater Miami less affordable than prior to the Pandemic. Further, higher wages may be another 7 United for ALICE. https://unitedforalice.org/Florida

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stumbling block to the metropolitan area’s small businesses, hurting their prospects for immediate survival and long-term growth. This should not be interpreted as undermining support for the creation of “living wage” jobs in the region. As we will discuss below, COVID’s impact on the economy underscores the need for the creation of high-wage jobs within a broader restructuring of the Miami-Dade economic base.

Challenge 2: Lack of Case Management Remains a Stumbling Block to Broader “MiddleClassification” of Program Participants The Miami-Dade College graduates in massage therapy, medical assisting, and phlebotomy passed their respective occupational exams and were placed at a livable wage and above. This is a milestone for the graduates and Advancing Cities, one that underscores the Council of Adult Education and Learning (CAEL) 2020 assessment of the region’s quality and quantity of educational institutions and their ability to produce skilled graduates in a world economy.

Graduation and certification notwithstanding, we can ask the following questions. Do these graduates know the basics of financial literacy needed to survive in the American setting? Would they know how to save and invest for homes or retirement if income allowed? Do they have a bank or “financial home” in the first place? Do they understand that career development is often nonlinear, with short-term setbacks that should not derail long-term labor force participation?

We raise these questions in the context of findings from Catalyst and its wrap-around services.

The poignant case studies of participants reveal that even those with two- and four-year college degrees slip into a labor participant pendulum, with spotty employment at wages well below expectations given educational attainment. This reflects, in no small part, their difficulties with negotiating an ecosystem that places high value on financial literacy and the need for life skill development.

From our perspective, the failure to mandate Catalyst-style wraparound training for Miami-Dade graduates was a lost opportunity. Yes, Miami-Dade provided quality training that led to good job placements. But we cannot assure that these graduates have the life and financial skills needed for consistent long-term labor force participation. It’s worth noting that in the 2022 Legislative Session, SB 1054 was unanimously passed, making Florida the largest state to mandate financial literacy for high school students. As Governor DeSantis noted at the signing “What the bill is doing with financial literacy is really providing a foundation for students that will be applicable in their lives regardless of what path they take (CNBC News, 22 March). As an “ideal type” for future implementation in other venues with similar agendas, making financial literacy and life skill training mandatory for vocational trainees should be considered, particularly in communities of color, where these skills (particularly financial literacy) are even less prevalent than national norms. With the second graduating class of healthcare technicians, an opportunity was missed to provide recent graduates with an option for an added supportive service.

As mentioned earlier, Dade County Federal Credit Union joined the team in early 2022 when the Miami Foundation awarded the organization $50,000 to support the Payday Rescue Program. This program alleviates high interest debt burdening families in the community and provides them a pathway out of that debt cycle. The program refinances individuals out of the repayment rate for their payday loans, characterized by high-interest rates for short-term immediate credit. A notable component of the program is the financial education and literacy workshops offered to all borrowers. In addition to building borrowers’ financial education knowledge, DCFCU incentivizes Resilient 305: White Paper (July 2022)

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participants by offering borrowers lowered interest rates for their payday loans over time in exchange for workshop attendance. These workshops are made possible with the help of partners such as GreenPath Financial Wellness 8 and consumer credit reporting company Experian, specifically with their Experian Boost 9 program, geared towards individuals with little to no credit history.

Overall, the program considers how LMI communities often find themselves soliciting these services and tries to eliminate the predatory cycle of constant lending and repayment. In other words, the Payday Rescue Program offers an immediate benefit for the community by creating a brighter path to improved financial health. DCFCU leadership has considered exploring potential partnerships with collaborative member Catalyst as well as any Miami-Dade-based nonprofits offering financial literacy programs. Moreover, DCFCU is in the process of expanding the lending area for the Pay Day Rescue processing which will allow them to double their capacity to process the applications received. Miami-Dade College has a special opportunity to partner with this organization and add another supportive service to their roster, further fostering an environment of upwards economic mobility.

Broader adoption of similar efforts would have significant benefits for workforce development cohort participants and Miami-Dade.

Challenge 3: Limited Intergovernmental Involvement in the Advancing Cities Ecosystem Continues In last year’s White Paper, the FIU evaluation team noted the limited participation of a municipality, county, or state government partner, the exception being the City of Miami. The absence continues. When asked about long-term project sustainability, collaborative members expressed a strong desire for a government partner, such as the County, to get involved, promote, and ultimately help steer partners towards success. Collaborations between partners have improved since the last White Paper and there is a willingness to create partnerships within the ecosystem, but partners believe participation from a government partner as a convener and facilitator is the best way to create long-term sustainability. Up until recently, the County lacked the infrastructure for such integration.

In the early Summer (of 2022), the Office of Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava announced two new key economic development hires. The positions of Chief Innovation and Economic Development Officer and Deputy Director of Development will help drive Mayor Levine Cava’s economic development agenda, which includes areas such as pandemic recovery, attracting greater investment and hiring opportunities to the County, and creating a more equitable local economy that will upskill and connect residents with new opportunities in the growing tech industry. Both positions are held by individuals who have worked in public and nonprofit sectors and who have deep knowledge of the County’s current economic state. With two new staffers available to guide pandemic recovery and boost economic growth, and who are familiar with

8

GreenPath Financial Wellness is a trusted national nonprofit with more than 60-years of helping people build financial health and resiliency. https://www.greenpath.com/ 9 Experian Boost™ is a first-of-its-kind feature that helps consumers instantly improve their FICO® Score☉ by giving them credit for on-time utility, telecom and certain streaming service payments. Experian Boost is good for people with little to no credit history as well as established borrowers looking to increase their credit scores. https://www.experian.com/blogs 14

Miami-Dade’s economic needs, the County is building the infrastructure to be a more active participant in the economic development arena.

As mentioned, the only public entity officially involved with Advancing Cities is the City of Miami.

In prior progress reports, we noted that City of Miami staff dedicated to the Opportunity Center, funded through the Advancing Cities grant, was redeployed to assist the city with COVD-related public assistance. Nearly two years later, and now fully staffed, this partner has augmented its business intelligence through deployment of Salesforce CRM and direct discussion with employers about specific job needs. City of Miami staff use this information to guide the Opportunity Center’s operations and programming, yielding significant progress in terms of overall placement and wages of placements. Additionally, the City of Miami continues to promote the Opportunity Center as a resource to Miami residents, offering frequent in-person hiring events and often partnering with different organizations to have a presence at their community events.

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A Preliminary Take on Legacy As we approach Advancing City’s closure, it seemed appropriate to think about the project’s legacy to the community. Conceptually, the legacy falls into two categories, intangible benefits that may inform community deliberations in the broadly defined economic sphere, and the tangible benefits that will carry forward in day-to-day operations in the community.

Intangible Legacies Miami-Dade Can Engage in Serious Manpower Planning that Links Education and Employer Need A central tenet of the 2020 CAEL Report was that Miami’s jobs and employment ecosystem was seriously deficient in substantive linkages between the region’s employers and educational institutions. Miami’s educational sector produces a bounty of well-qualified graduates. But they may not match employer needs in Miami-Dade. Equally important, the study noted jobs and training for today’s graduates may lack a strategic fit with long-term community needs and employment prospects.

Training under the auspices of this grant proves that meaningful manpower planning is feasible in Greater Miami. An early part of grant activities was parsing CAEL findings into actionable educational training guidance for the area. Consistent with the CAEL report, program participants engaged in training activities for jobs with high (i.e., “Living” wage or better) pay and sustained demand that did not require a four-year degree. The program delivered on this plan.

Miami’s innovative virtual training for Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) specialists, as well as the recent health-related face-to-face graduates at Miami-Dade College, are few in number. But they represent the product of a purposive human resource planning exercise that linked training to community needs. Further, graduates will not be in dead-end jobs; they have secured employment in areas of high demand for the foreseeable future. Decisionmakers in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors should look to this as a model for long-range human resource and educational planning that fosters “good jobs with good wages” for a broad crosssection of the community outside of college graduates.

Discussion of Living-Wage Jobs Isn’t Taboo This is a corollary of point 1. Per the comments above, there was concern at the onset that discussion of “living wage” jobs may have been unacceptable in the broadly defined Miami political economy, particularly considering the area’s traditional low-wage, service-based economy. We believe this project dispels that concern. Further, COVID’s economic impact, which was particularly severe on women and communities of color, underscored the import of creating well-paid and sustainable jobs.

Inflation is the cruelest of taxes and impacts low-income earners the hardest. While today’s living wage may need to be 20 percent or higher than at the beginning of the project, a $15.00 wage earner stands a better shot at ALICE-style survival than someone earning $8.00 to $10.00 an hour, who is likely to require public assistance to make ends meet.

In broader relief, program stakeholder deliberations and educational outcomes underscore a recognition that the creation of low-skill, low-wage jobs may lead to economic path dependence with a downward bias for wages. Employers will effectively de-skill their employment to mesh with the available pool of employees, resulting in wage declines and diminished competitiveness 16

in a global economy. This phenomenon has been noted in Perez Metropolitan Center’s research on wage disparities in Miami-Dade. Advancing Cities has proven that the living wage benchmark is important for household and community prosperity. Creating low-paid jobs may be beneficial to younger workers seeking entry to the labor force, or to retirees seeking to supplement earnings.

Regardless, findings from this study suggest a broad cross-section of community leaders understand the need to create well-paid jobs for prime-age workers. We acknowledge that building a higher-wage job structure in Miami’s micro-enterprise environment may, as noted earlier, have negative spillovers. But Greater Miami’s high reliance on entrepreneurship is in large part a function of its low wage structure—it is “starting up” out of necessity given the absence of meaningful, well-paid employment elsewhere. Viewed through this prism, building a higher-wage economy may minimize Greater Miami’s hyper-reliance on entrepreneurship with a catastrophic 45% failure rate.

Tangible Benefit Legacies Creation of the Labor Miami Portal The early success of this portal portends well for its future, and its imminent domicile within the Anchor Alliance should provide an excellent platform for its future development. Over time, the portal could provide an effective employee-employer link with emphasis on underserved communities. Adding the procurement dimension to the site will add heft to small business development. Recently, the Miami Foundation added a Managing Director of Collective Impact to their team, who oversees large-scale change through cross-sector collaboration. As talks of a larger entity to acquire the portal are underway, this newly created position oversees the LaborMiami efforts in the meantime.

The website is not a “systems integrator” that one might find in a traditional Department of Labor or similar employment organization. The Anchor Alliance is not expected to counsel job prospects or provide small business development guidance. However, it does provide a link between job seekers and employers, which benefits both parties by minimizing search time and maximizing an available prospect pool.

Ecosystem Building and Commitments The collaboration between SBDC and Prospera has resulted in Miami’s inclusion in the inaugural cohort of the Aspen Latino City Learning and Action Lab. Miami’s steering committee is cochaired by Myrna Sonora, Vice President of Prospera’s South Florida office, and De’Sean Weber, Director of Worker-Owned Enterprises at Catalyst Miami, with participation from other key stakeholders including the Beacon Council, FIU/SBDC, City of Miami, City of Doral, Allapattah Community Development Corporation, and Ascendus. The Aspen lab infrastructure has produced/incentivized some critical conversations between organizations, whose work occurs in siloes and whose efforts are somewhat duplicative. The collaborative identified a data gap in understanding the overall numbers but also the challenges for Latino-owned businesses and is currently seeking funding to conduct research on the topic. After almost a year of work, the Entrepreneurial Ecosystem Steering Committee is now considering how the established committee platform can be continuously repurposed, leveraged, and extended to sustainably “bake” an entrepreneurial-led economic development agenda into the greater Miami-Dade County-

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wide economic development strategy and support-intended actions and ongoing work driving BIPOC businesses.10 The successful partnership between FIU SBDC and Prospera generated through the Advancing Cities funding also inspired the request for funding that would expand and sustain the collaboration through the Small Business Administration (SBA). In October 2021, FIU SBDC, in partnership with Prospera and other small business serving organization received a $2.5 million grant from the U.S. Small Business Administration’s Community Navigator Pilot Program. The funds are earmarked for improving underserved entrepreneurs’ access to government programs that provide assistance in launching a new venture, growing a business or managing unexpected business interruptions. The Miami-Dade Small Business Resource Navigator Program will focus on small businesses, including microbusinesses with fewer than 10 employees, owned by women, veterans, and socially and economically disadvantaged individuals.11 In February 2022, Wells Fargo announced a $20 million grant to The Miami Foundation to support diverse small businesses and nonprofits through a combination of capital and technical assistance. The Miami Foundation is leveraging its relationships with community stakeholders and small business development organizations to conduct outreach and provide funding to small businesses and nonprofits in Miami-Dade County. While the initiative is still in its early stages, it seems to be using the model of the Advancing Cities program in the small business arena, combining small business services with capital investments to expand services and opportunities to minority enterprises.12 In the second year, alignment from Anchor Alliance members has finally allowed the Health Foundation of South Florida to move forward with the regional partnership on the supplier diversity front. The Health Foundation has allocated a total of $1.2 million, to be divided among Anchor members, over the course of the first two years and discussions with Health Foundation leadership show commitment from Anchor members to proceed with the marketplace platform.

The 10 Anchor community stakeholders submitted MOUs earlier in the year and currently are in the process of submitting grant reporting requirements to the vetted tech vendor, Avisare. The Health Foundation, who leads the Anchor Alliance efforts, intend to develop communications and marketing strategies aimed towards small and minority owned business to bring awareness to the platform, to educate these businesses on the importance of the platform, and the opportunities the platform will allow them to pursue. A separate approach will incorporate readiness and capacity building for businesses who need additional support. The website will identify businesses that are not quite ready for the marketplace and fall short in meeting select requirements, flagging them with the purpose of referring those businesses out to partner organizations. Connecting these small or minority-owned businesses with the appropriate partner will provide the assistance they need to qualify for the marketplace. Ideally, the support will create opportunities that otherwise would not exist for small and minority-owned businesses. Health Foundation leadership mentioned the approach would mirror the SBDC/Prospera Community Navigator project on a smaller scale, alluding to the success and the need of such a partnership at 10 The FIU Perez Metropolitan Center staff is on the steering committee as a data partner.

11 Corzo, Cynthia. October 21, 2021. FIU Press Release. FIU receives $2.5 million SBA Grant to help local businesses.

https://news.fiu.edu/2021/fiu-receives-2.5-million-sba-grant-to-help-local-businesses

12 The Miami Foundation Press Release. February 25, 2022. Wells Fargo Donates $20 Million to Strengthen Small

Business in Miami-Dade County. https://newsroom.wf.com/English/news-releases/news-release-details/2022/WellsFargo-Donates-20-Million-to-Strengthen-Small-Businesses-in-Miami-Dade-County/ 18

the regional level. On the workforce development end, and as discussed in earlier sections, Health Foundation leadership is exploring the possibility of taking over the LaborMiami Portal. Although in the due diligence process, the acquisition of the portal can expand workforce development opportunities beyond the reach of the Miami Foundation, as well as allow small businesses to tap into the labor market on a regional level.

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Case Studies

FSBDC AT FIU HELPS POSITION AMER PLUS, A FAMILY CLEANING BUSINESS, FOR GROWTH THROUGH GOVERNMENT CONTRACTING Written by Nancy Dahlberg on August 3, 2021 Stephannie Cetoute took over the reins of the family business, Amer Plus Janitorial Maintenance, in 2018. While she had a background in economics and finance and from time to time helped out her father who started the business in 1998, going in “full throttle” to run a business for the first time was all new territory, she said. “Once you see it firsthand, you realize how much work it is, number one, but then how much you have to continue to grow and learn.”

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Her father had been running it as mom and pop business and “once I got into the company I realized there wasn’t much of a foundation to grow on,” Cetoute said. “I had to start putting some structure and systems to build upon.”

It’s been a learning journey for her, but Cetoute has been hard at work setting the company up for growth.

That journey includes diversifying the business, which was focused primarily on serving the restaurant space. Before the pandemic hit, Cetoute had been starting to diversify the industries the company serviced but the pandemic accelerated the need for that, because of course the pandemic hit the hospitality industry especially hard.

Entering world of government contracting

Now Cetoute is very focused on opportunities in government contracting, an all new area for the business. “It’s definitely been a learning experience for me for sure and for our company.

Dealing with government work is completely different than the private sector.”

For help in positioning Amer Plus for this whole new world, as well as developing a strategy for leading the company forward, Cetoute turned to Florida SBDC at FIU for help. The small business development center within FIU’s College of Business provides no-cost one-to-one business consulting for small businesses in Miami-Dade and Monroe Counties, as well as access to trainings and webinars.

Government agencies are very specific about what they ask for and you have to be able to meet those specifics or it is a no go, Cetoute said. With FSBDC at FIU’s help, she is learning how to approach government contracts and develop the right relationships and partnerships to grow and thrive in the sector. That also included making sure the company had more structures and processes in place.

So far, Amer Plus has won contracts at the state and city level and recently won a federal contract. For the federal contract, Amer Plus partnered with another landscaping company that had a certification at the federal level that they had not utilized and did not have too much understanding on how to put together a proposal. “We were able to land that small contract and for us it is a huge milestone,” Cetoute said Now Amer Plus has another project at the county level, she said. “We actually did another partnership relationship with a larger company and decided to sub for them.”

Getting Help

Those partnerships have been critical to getting a foot in the door and gaining experience, and it was FSBDC at FIU consultant Adriana Madrinan who emphasized the importance of partnerships, Cetoute said. In addition, FSBDC at FIU consultants specialized in finance and government contracting helped her understand how to polish and package a proposal for success.

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FSBDC at FIU also referred the company to StartUP FIU Procurement, a three month acceleration program with other small businesses seeking training in government contracting that Cetoute said was also instrumental in learning about the process and setting her company up for success. She went through that program in the fall, finishing in January.

“Adriana connected us all — the way her brain works is amazing. She’s really been good with helping us with our company strategy,” said Cetoute. “For us, it’s a really good time to be a minority-owned business. There are a lot of opportunities that are being carved out for minority businesses at this point so it’s also good for us to optimize on some of the certifications that we have and consider some certification that may be beneficial for us.”

Facing challenges head on

There have of course been challenges along the way, especially when you get a global pandemic thrown at you. “it would seem the pandemic would be beneficial in the commercial cleaning industry. But actually it has been a slow one for my industry simply because everyone’s working remotely and a lot of businesses have closed down.”

So the biggest challenge she has faced: Navigating the pandemic while also trying to recognize and prepare for the opportunities. “We’re gaining new relationships, and we want to continue to grow and expand our business. we want to strengthen our infrastructure,” Cetoute said.

To other small businesses, her advice is this: “Optimize community.”

When the pandemic hit, everyone was trying to figure out what to do. “If you stayed in your silo, you didn’t get as much of an opportunity as you could have recognizing that other businesses are trying to navigate too. I think the coming together as a community, and recognizing that there are resources like SBDC available, is key to continuing to move forward, and it’s key to survival.”

“I would recommend that other businesses optimize on the resources that they have. These [FSBDC at FIU} consultants are very knowledgeable and sharp. So, to have this resource available, it’s crazy not to use it — Fortune 500 companies would pay a lot of money to have consultants of this caliber give them advice.”

Photo at top of this post is of Stephannie Cetoute, owner of Amer Plus. It was provided by Miami Bayside Foundation.

Source: https://growbiz.fiu.edu/2021/08/fsbdc-at-fiu-helps-position-amer-plus-a-family-cleaningbusiness-for-growth-through-government-contracting/

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PIVOTING IN PANDEMIC: MIAMI MAINTENANCE CO. CREDITS FIU’S SMALL BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT CENTER FOR HELPING THEM SURVIVE

By Hank Tester on April 22, 2021 MIAMI (CBS 4 Miami) – Amer-Plus Janitorial Maintenance started out as a mom-and-pop business. Over the years it has grown into a full functioning operation but it was almost derailed by the pandemic.

However, the company was able to pivot to success with help from FIU’s Small Business Development Center (SBDC).

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“I really had to recognize that I had never, as a small business owner, had never been through anything like this before,” said Amer-Plus CEO Stephannie Cetoute.

During the pandemic, the demand for sanitation services boomed. But those in the industry faced challenges, like securing basic supplies – like paper supplies.

“It was crazy, supplies were one of the things, you know, paper supplies, normal supplies we use in our daily operation, they were harder to get,” said Cetoute.

Another challenge was how to navigate the economic impact of the pandemic even with available state and federal support.

That’s when Cetoute turned to the SBDC. “For a lot of these businesses, it is an alphabet soup. It’s SBA, PPP, you have the RISE program from Miami-Dade County. Our consultants were able to identify the right program for the business to go after and hold their hands through the process until they had a check in hand,” said Brian Van Hook, Regional Director of FIU’s Small Business Development Center.

Cetoute said she was in a bit of a panic mode as the COVID economic crunch closed in but was able to pivot her attitude when the SBDC and their consultants stepped in.

“You got to get out of the panic mode and start thinking, so really FIU was there to assist in that process,” she said.

Small businesses who want to get in contact with FIU’s SBDC can do so HERE. Source: https://miami.cbslocal.com/2021/04/22/miami-maintenance-company-smallbusiness- development-center-survive-pandemic/

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Client Spotlight- Phase 2 Selva Negra Corporation Originally from Nicaragua, Marisol Mendoza is the owner of Selva Negra Corporation, a family-style restaurant located on the outer edge of Little Havana in Miami-Dade County.

They offer authentic Nicaraguan cuisine and a variety of international dishes, both on site and for special events catering. Since its establishment in September 2000, the Selva Negra has been known for its exceptional service and food quality, including a full ceviche bar.

When the pandemic began in early 2020, the restaurant sales dropped, yet the Selva Negra continued to operate and generate profit. In February 2021, Marisol felt ready to take her business to the next level. Thus, she approached Prospera for help to access capital to grow her business and expand to a second location in the City of Sweetwater. Since then, Prospera has assisted Marisol with personalized business consulting, a business plan, and guidance to obtain access to capital through a Small Business Administration loan. With Prospera's support and with an optimized business plan now in place, the Selva Negra generated well over $1 million in revenue during 2021, making it the best year yet for the restaurant. A new Selva Negra will bring jobs to the City of Sweetwater's community.

As Marisol continues to execute her expansion plan to the City of Sweetwater with the assistance of Prospera, she recognizes the importance of this area for Florida International University students as student-housing construction and population continue to grow. She anticipates that the new Selva Negra location will bring new job opportunities for the local residents and will positively impact the area's economy.

To learn more about selvanegrarestaurant.com

this

woman-owned

and

operated

business,

visit

Online post: https://prosperausa.org/client-spotlight-selva-negra-corporation/

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Appendix A: Photos City of Miami Opportunity Center staff at in-person hiring events.

Mayor Daniella Levine Cava alongside Robert Sellers of the City of Miami and other City of Miami staffers.

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Payday Loan Rescue program flyer

City of Miami Job and Resource event flyers

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Resilient 305: The Miami Building Prosperity Collaborative Building an Economic Development and Employment Ecosystem in Miami-Dade County

Final Update, July 2022-January 2023 Prepared by:

Howard Frank, Ph.D. Maria Ilcheva, Ph.D. Lilliam Jarquin, M.A.

Overview The Miami Building Prosperity collaborative combines both direct services in the areas of workforce development and business support through the work of partners such as City of Miami, Catalyst Miami, and small business service providers, with a broader collaboration aimed at long-term systems change exemplified by the work of the South Florida Anchor Alliance.

Three years later, the Miami Building Prosperity Initiative has flourished, making significant contributions to Miami’s business and workforce development arenas. Over the last three years, providers moved from one challenge to the next, navigating through a global pandemic and the influx of companies and employees from other parts of the country to inflation and rising housing costs.

In our final update, we see significant developments in both the small business expansion, through the South Florida Anchor Alliance, and workforce development arenas. As the project closes out, collaborative members are faced with the question of long-term sustainability and legacy, and how and if they can continue the progress made over the last three years.

This final White Paper update will focus on describing and assessing the progress of the collaborative since the July 2022 reporting period through the end of the year, December 2022.

The report includes the following: Updates: • • • • •

Update 1: The LaborMiami portal has been acquired by Miami-Dade County Update 2: Long-awaited participation from a government actor.

Update 3: South Florida Anchor Alliance sets a date to launch the Regional Marketplace Update 4: Success on behalf of Dade County Federal Credit Union’s Payday Loan Rescue Program Update 5: City of Miami and Catalyst final updates.

Opportunities: • •

Opportunity 1: South Florida Anchor Alliance delays in addressing workforce development needs.

Opportunity 2: Missed opportunity to link Dade County Federal Credit Union’s supportive services with Workforce Development providers.

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Resilient 305/Building Prosperity Collaborative Miami, Florida

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Updates and Opportunities Update 1: The LaborMiami portal has been acquired by Miami-Dade County The LaborMiami portal was launched in Fall 2021 by the Miami Foundation (TMF) as a onestop-shop for residents, students, entrepreneurs, and businesses to locate and connect with services. The portal includes data on the latest labor market data and resources for different wraparound and supportive services. As of June 2022, 7,114 community members accessed and used the talent portal. The Miami Foundation was unable to provide the final metrics through December 2022 due to staff turnover. This is the third time since the collaborative’s inception that the Miami Foundation experiences staffing changes and raises the question about continuity and sustainability of the work, a challenge further explained in our July 2021 White Paper.

As noted in our previous White Paper, the portal’s “soft launch” in May 2021 was an important development in advancing workforce development efforts. The portal emphasizes the fastestgrowing employment sectors in Miami-Dade County while providing community members with the tools on how to break into those fields. Additionally, it connects residents with much-needed services as they search for and take on new job opportunities, such as childcare, financial literacy, and wealth-building resources.

Our previous White Paper alluded to the LaborMiami portal being acquired by a larger entity, specifically the South Florida Anchor Alliance (SFAA). The Anchor Alliance, a collaborative of regional institutions led by the Health Foundation of South Florida, would ideally leverage its unique regional position in the community to promote the LaborMiami portal, advancing the SFAA blueprint’s workforce development priorities. Unfortunately, the timing was not ideal for the Anchor Alliance and the deal did not come to fruition. However, the portal’s success managed to gain the attention of an unexpected and long-awaited partner – Miami-Dade County.

The Miami Foundation is thrilled to work with the County, and they report the process is moving quickly. As of mid-December, TMF received $45,000 in technical assistance which will be allocated towards LaborMiami marketing and promotional materials. We are hopeful that the portal will be leveraged to meet the needs of Miami-Dade County job seekers and look forward to upcoming developments.

Update 2: Long-awaited participation from a local government actor Previous White Papers reported a lack of a municipality, county, or state government partner in the Advancing Cities ecosystem. Yes, the City of Miami is involved in the ecosystem, but they are involved in a partner capacity working towards advancing workforce development efforts.

The City of Miami Opportunity Center focuses on recruiting job seekers and finding employment opportunities for city residents, meaning residents from the remainder of the County do not benefit from their services. We also reported partners’ strong desire for a government partner, specifically Miami-Dade County, to serve in the role of a convener and facilitator to ensure longterm sustainability.

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The Miami-Dade County’s Office of Economic Development aims to expand and further diversify Miami-Dade County's economy and employment opportunities, by promoting, coordinating, and implementing economic revitalization activities that reduce socio-economic disparity and improve the quality of life of all residents 1. In early Summer of 2022, the Office of Miami-Dade County Mayor Daniella Levine Cava announced that the newly minted roles of Chief Innovation and Economic Development Officer and Deputy Director of Development were filled. In our previous update, we speculated that the County was building its infrastructure to be a more active participant in the economic development arena. The idea moved from speculation to reality.

The acquisition of the portal by Miami-Dade County aligns with its goals to create an environment that promotes a growing, resilient and diversified economy, encourage and expand entrepreneurial development opportunities within Miami-Dade County, and foster and promote revitalized communities 2. Although the Anchor Alliance has a broader reach through its regional approach, Miami-Dade County is the best fit as a more local approach will have a more immediate impact on the County’s workforce development environment.

Update 3: South Florida Anchor Alliance sets a date to launch the Regional Marketplace During the first two years of the Advancing Cities project, the South Florida Anchor Alliance was slow to make progress on their innovative concept to advance small business development efforts through strategic procurement targeted to small- and minority-owned businesses.

Alignment on how to proceed with the regional partnership from Anchor institutions and a twoyear, $1.2 million investment from the Health Foundation of South Florida in the first half of 2022 pointed the Alliance towards the right direction.

In our previous White Paper, Anchor institutions were in the process of submitting MOUs and grant reporting requirements to the vetted tech vendor, Avisare, which is developing the platform geared towards helping small and minority-owned businesses find contracts with Anchor members at the regional level. As of December 2022, agreements with all Anchor institutions have been executed and Anchors are currently in the process of finalizing their agreements with Avisare. The Health Foundation of South Florida, which is leading the Anchor Alliance, anticipates a soft launch in the second half of January 2023, with a full launch in February. All Anchors will track and provide data on platform usage, including metrics such as total number of vendors and suppliers. Additionally, vendors participating in the Marketplace will be required to submit quarterly reports.

To fully promote the innovative, new, regional platform, the Health Foundation will create an outreach plan prioritizing awareness of the regional marketplace and including an engagement strategy to ensure that everyone currently registered understands the platform.

1

Miami-Dade County Economic Development. https://www.miamidade.gov/global/management/budget/adopted-fy2023-budget-economic-development.page 2 Ibid.

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Update 4: Success on behalf of Dade County Federal Credit Union’s Payday Loan Rescue Program The Dade County Federal Credit Union (DCFCU) joined the collaborative at the beginning of 2022 after being awarded $50,000 by the Miami Foundation to be used towards the Payday Loan Rescue Program’s marketing and outreach. The Payday Rescue program will help residents of Miami-Dade County refinance their high-interest payday loan debt to a lower rate while providing them with financial literacy education and a line of credit so they don’t have to go back to a payday lender if an emergency pops up 3.

A unique aspect of the Payday Loan Rescue program is members’ ability to potentially reduce their loan’s interest rate. The Credit Union offers financial literacy courses through Greenpath, a financial education and counseling program. After 12 months, if the member has taken three Greenpath courses and if they have not taken out any new payday loans, the loan is reviewed for a reduced interest rate of 1%. Since the program was launched in Spring of 2022, the Credit Union anticipates the first round of rate reductions to occur in April 2023.

In our previous White Paper, DCFCU was in the early stages of promoting the Payday Loan Program and was in the process of marketing the program. Since then, the Credit Union launched a bi-lingual website dedicated to the Payday Rescue Program where consumers are able to get details on the program, learn how the program will benefit them, and apply for the loan. The website is co-branded with The Miami Foundation and gives the consumer the opportunity to learn more about the foundation. DCFCU reports being “slammed with payday loans” and have received over 167,000 payday loan applications as of November 2022. To assist with the program, DCFCU hired a Community Development Officer to represent the Credit Union in community events and promote the Payday Loan Rescue programs in in-person hiring events.

Additionally, DCFCU has expanded its marketing efforts to include flyers offering the program to members and consumers within the community. The flyer highlights the amount of the loan, program details and a QR code to make it easy to apply for the loan. Other channels for marketing include the website, email marketing, and targeted email for credit union members who DCFCU have identified as habitually using pay day lenders. Currently, DCFCU is in the process of expanding the lending area for the Pay Day Rescue processing which will allow then to double our capacity to process the applications received. DCFCUs presence in the Advancing Cities Ecosystem serves as an additional supportive service for financial stability to overcome economic barriers for low-to-moderate income communities.

Update 5: Final updates from City of Miami and Catalyst Miami Both Catalyst Miami and the City of Miami participated in the collaborative as workforce development partners. As of December 2022, the City of Miami Opportunity Center continues to operate successfully with their CRM-based delivery through Salesforce and cite the platform’s deployment as their biggest success. Salesforce connects job seekers with employers, where job placements are treated as the business opportunity. Moreover, the Opportunity Center is 3

Dade County Federal Credit Union. https://www.paydayrescue.com/

Resilient 305/Building Prosperity Collaborative Miami, Florida

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engaged in conversations with employers about specific job needs which in turn is used to guide the Center’s operations and programmatic activities. The constant feedback from employers and job seekers allows the Center to make significant progress in total job placements and wages of placements. To date, the Opportunity Center has placed 851 job seekers into living-wage employment with an average hourly wage of $18.59. The City of Miami has expressed that the Advancing Cities grant made it possible for them to roll out the platform.

In the Building Prosperity Collaborative, Catalyst Miami joined as a workforce development partner and has successfully led three workforce cohorts over the last three years. Catalyst is a well-known, established organization, striving to identify and collectively solve issues adversely affecting low-wealth communities throughout the county since 1996. The three workforce cohorts hosted through the collaborative aimed at providing training and guidance to individuals on their pathway of obtaining a living wage job. As the project closes out, Catalyst will continue to support job seekers with supportive services while shifting their focus to other vulnerable populations in Miami-Dade County, specifically the formerly incarcerated population. The Catalyst Program Manager explained that Catalyst served as a referral partner instead of an active workforce development partner, connecting clients with professional development opportunities, networking opportunities, and soft skills development instead of placing clients into jobs. Still, the Catalyst program manager noted that the struggle for clients to find living wage job opportunities persists.

Opportunity 1: South Florida Anchor Alliance delays in addressing workforce development needs Although the South Florida Anchor Alliance has made substantial progress in developing the Regional Marketplace, efforts to address Miami’s workforce development needs have been minimal. The Anchor Alliance’s Blueprint for Action defined priorities as 1) Developing, coordinating, expanding and deepening collaborative supplier diversity efforts to increase opportunities for local, small and minority-owned businesses; 2) Developing, coordinating, expanding and deepening collaborative workforce development efforts for local minority residents, and 3) Sharing best practices among anchor alliance members and collectively sharing efforts with other communities. With the LaborMiami host responsibilities no longer in question, the Anchor Alliance missed out on a portal that would link procurement and job placements, a much-needed link in underserved communities. In time, the Anchor Alliance may develop its own regional portal for job seekers.

Opportunity 2: Missed opportunity to link Dade County Federal Credit Union’s supportive services with Workforce Development providers As previously reported, Dade County Federal Credit Union (DCFCU) indirectly joined the collaborative through its connection to the Miami Foundation. However, its presence offered a supportive service through banking and loan servicing. The Payday Rescue Program refinances high-interest payday loan debt to a lower rate but more importantly, DCFCU aims to break the payday loan/predatory lending cycle in which many lower-income residents find themselves.

Providing banking services and offering financial education to an underserved population could have instilled life and financial skills needed for long-term labor force participation. As Resilient 305/Building Prosperity Collaborative Miami, Florida

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mentioned in our previous White Paper, this illustrates a disconnect between partners due to the absence of an integrated case management system that could instill job training, financial literacy, and “soft skills” in human capital development. Broad adoption of streamlined case management efforts would have significant benefits for participants and Miami-Dade.

Resilient 305/Building Prosperity Collaborative Miami, Florida

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