Lessons Learned: Creating Public-Private Partnerships

Over 230,000 small businesses call one of the five boroughs of New York City home. When the COVID-19 pandemic started taking its toll in the summer of 2020, the chambers in each borough responded to the crisis by creating a public-private partnership to fund the NYC Small Business Resource Network. The network is comprised of support specialists in all five boroughs that help businesses with everything from loans and marketing to lease negotiations and creating an online presence.

While working together wasn’t new for the five borough chambers in New York City, this program brought together the public and private sector to secure a $2.8 million grant from a local foundation and obtain in-kind contributions from other partners. Each chamber has a 501(c)3 foundation to ensure grant funding can be secured from a variety of places.

Those involved in the creation of this new network shared a few key lessons learned in creating partnerships in a recent webinar.

Lesson Learned: Fund people to do the work.

The grant used to create the network was unique because it paid for people. A total of 22 business support specialists were hired, including two focused on tech businesses and one focused on restaurants. The rest were located throughout all five boroughs. Dollars were funneled through the network to each of the five chambers based on the number of specialists in each borough.

Lesson Learned: Use each partner’s best skill set.

Each partner involved had a different set of strengths to bring to the table. The chambers were the service delivery partners – they had local expertise and existing connections to local small businesses. The Partnership Fund for New York City provided resources and a network of private sector partners, like a contact with the Harvard Business School to provide volunteers. And the New York City Economic Development Corporation equipped both public resources and private funds.

Lesson Learned: Collect data from the start.

The funding for the network is set to end sometime in 2022 and metrics were included in the contract that created the program to show its value. However, the focus was on metrics that could capture the successes without being overly burdensome to those involved. Quarterly reports include both data and narratives, like demographics of business ownership and stories about positive outreach.

Hear more about the network, including how to best engage the public sector and the software used to provide transparency, by watching the full webinar.

Additional resources:

• Engaging the Public Sector Toolkit
• Member Knowledge Exchange: Government Relations (login required)
• Webinar: Leveraging Diverse Partnerships in Economic Development (login required)
• E-Course: Chamber Foundation Basics (login required)