Economic Gardening Sacramento 2.0

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The City of Sacramento is engaged in several strategic capacity building efforts. Capacity building is an investment in the effectiveness and future sustainability of local companies. This initiative allows the City to work with these entities to strengthen the companies’ ability to fulfill their mission over time, thereby enhancing its ability to have a positive economic impact on our communities.

Sacramento is redefining the traditional Economic Gardening approach by adding a 1:1 grant program to implement the recommendations companies receive from engaging the research specialists. The City will be working with the NCEG, the Berkeley Strategy Advisors, and Sacramento State University to deliver the program and create customized tracking methods that help ensure effectiveness. Two one-year cohorts of five to ten companies have been piloted to maximize the impact this methodology to our region.

Economic Gardening is a method of economic development that uses sophisticated business intelligence tools and databases designed for “second stage growth companies”. These types of companies make a great investment, and are defined as having a proven product, proven market, proven management skills, and room to grow, typically ranging from 5-99 employees, and $1M - $50M in revenue. Research shows that investing in these productive companies is an effective way to grow the economy and create new jobs. The National Center for Economic Gardening has pioneered Economic Gardening as part of their suite of services targeting these high growth potential companies.

Economic Gardening is an economic development program that provides strategic research and analysis for stage 2 growth companies.  The name comes from the idea that instead of economic developers going out and recruiting new companies (economic hunting), the community will stay at home and grow its local companies (economic gardening).

The program focuses on:  

• Business research into markets
• Competitors
• Industry trends
• Strategic company issues 
• Similar custom research

Frameworks for thinking about root problems preventing growth (core strategy, market dynamics, innovation, temperament, qualified sales leads).