Bristol Chamber Creating Economic Mobility Strategy

Creating a community-wide vision is difficult enough when the region you serve is within a single state. Doing so in a community with a state line running down the main street of its historic district can be even more challenging. One region, but two local governments, two city school systems, two police departments, etc.

That’s the challenge the Bristol Chamber of Commerce faced as it set out to create a community-wide vision for economic mobility.

“In this community, we understand the dynamic of waking up in one state and working in the other, crossing back and forth across that state line,” said chamber President and CEO Beth Rhinehart, CCE, IOM. “Our employers have employees from all across the region, so it makes a lot of sense to have a vision and a strategy that pulls everyone together to create best practices and opportunities for economic mobility.”

When developing the plan, Rhinehart said the chamber sought to engage a wide variety of community stakeholders, including business leaders from key industries, faith-based leaders, educators and workforce development professionals, nonprofit service providers and more.  

Together, they are working to create an economic mobility strategy that addresses priority areas like housing affordability, educational attainment, access to child care, transportation and more.

Collaborating with such a broad-based coalition can be challenging. Stakeholders bring different perspectives and competing priorities. While it is crucial to understand the different viewpoints and priorities, maintaining focus and keeping meetings productive are key priorities. They’ve engaged professional facilitators and are diving into the data to create actionable strategies to address their priorities. To support the effort, the chamber launched a new Economic Overview Dashboard to share key insights with community stakeholders and ensure they are focused on data-driven strategies. Rhinehart noted that partners now understand that economic mobility is an economic development issue.

As a result, they are building consensus around priorities and setting manageable goals and success measures. They are also acknowledging that this is a long term process. This plan is version one. They’ve identified the greatest areas of opportunity, but as their community evolves, so must this strategy. Rhinehart shared, “We’re not going to do all the work ourselves, we don’t have the capacity, and it’s not our role to do everything. Our role is to make sure that everything we do moving forward ties back together and that we continue to communicate about the work.”

Rhinehart said that she’s focused on getting as many stakeholders as possible to endorse the plan. “That, for me, really shows that we’ve done our job. If you get this very diverse demographic group of folks that are working in this space coming to the table and saying we all believe in the work that we’ve done and this plan,” she said. Having that plan as the common starting point helps remind partners about those joint priorities and makes everyone feel like they are part of a bigger collective.

As a result of the plan, Bristol has seen some additional investments in key programs. The local Junior Achievement program received a grant to scale its programs after being involved in this collaborative. Rhinehart also shared that there has been improvements in working across state lines, but that didn’t happen spontaneously. “You can’t just bring people together, you have to work intentionally to make connections meaningful and beneficial. You need people who can focus on the bigger picture and authentically express that to everyone else at the table.” They are continuing to implement their plan and are excited for what is next.