Cross-posted from wiseeconomy.com
An AccelerateUs: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Local Industrial Revolution conversation.
How do your get your independent business alliance from normal to distributing $10 Million in grants… in three weeks? You cultivate trusting relationships with your elected officials and staff, starting years before. That’s what Dane Buy Local and Executive Director Colin Murray did, and it allowed them to not only make a huge impact on their community, but hire staff at a time when many similar organizations were struggling to pay their bills.
You can watch our conversation above, or listen to it on Soundcloud here. You can also pick up this and other AccelerateUs interviews on Stitcher or Spotify as part of the Building a Wise Local Economy podcast.
In this conversation, Colin tells us the story of how Dane Buy Local intentionally and carefully built a trusting relationship with the Dane County Executive’s office over the course of many years. When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, the County Executive’s staff knew that the organization had not only the right intentions, but the right organizational strength and reputation to administer one of the largest small business support programs launched by any local government in the U.S.
You can learn more about Dane Buy Local, and the Dane County Small Business Pandemic Support Grant Program, here.