Lauren Starks, director of Good Companies/Good Jobs at the Aspen Institute, recently sat down with two Shared Success grantees — Andrea Levy, senior program manager at California Farmlink, and Janet Brugger, Business Navigator, Colorado Enterprise Fund — to discuss how they’ve worked with various public and private partners to recruit small businesses and provide technical assistance with an eye toward providing quality jobs.
About Shared Success
Shared Success, a project of the Economic Opportunities Program, works with community lenders to integrate job quality programming into their small business support services, demonstrating that improved job quality can support the needs of employees while helping small businesses succeed.
About the Economic Opportunities Program
The Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program hosts a variety of discussions to advance strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy. To learn about upcoming events and webinars, join our mailing list and follow us on social media.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:06):
Welcome to Elevating Job Quality, a podcast from the
Aspen Institute's Economic Opportunities program.
Today we're taking you inside a dialogue from the Shared Success
Project, exploring how CDF is orcommunity development financial
institutions can help their small business clients create
good jobs so that workers, business owners, and local
(00:27):
economies all thrive. Coming up, a conversation about
job quality and the role of partnerships.
Maureen Conway, executive director of the Aspen
Institute's Economic Opportunities Program, speaks
with Andrea Levy, senior programmanager at California Farm Link,
and Janet Brueger, business navigator with the Colorado
(00:48):
Enterprise Fund. Welcome, Andrea and Janet to our
series of conversations on elevating job quality among
small business days. Today, we'll be discussing how
partnerships help expand opportunities for small
businesses to build job quality to the work.
(01:10):
Janet, let's start with you. You have.
Seen this work up close in your.Work with.
Colorado Enterprise Fund as leadbusiness navigator.
Can you tell us more about CE FSMission?
Well, CE, FS mission is to serveas many people as we can to
provide those loans that they can't get anywhere else.
(01:32):
So we work with these small businesses to help them to get
the capital that they need in order to go into business or go
to the next phase of their business, build whatever they
need to do. Partnerships are very valuable
in that, especially with job quality, and we look for people
(01:55):
who need our services, but a lotof times those agencies don't
know about our services. So working in partnership with
them, they know that we have those services, but also the job
quality that their clients coulduse.
So it's sort of a partnership where we can share information
with them, they share information with us and we
(02:16):
provide that job quality education for their
constituency. That is such a great insight and
clearly the strategy of tapping into new networks and expanding
your outreach and otherwise be able to bring in small
businesses that are interested in advancing job quality but may
not know where to. Start exactly.
(02:37):
Andrea, let's follow up. I would love to hear more about
California Farming's work and how new All Afraid partnerships
to advance job quality. Great.
So California farmland works on on kind of three or four
overarching areas. So they work on capital through
loans, land access, and businesseducation and technical
(03:01):
assistance for farmers, ranchersand fishers.
And we find our partnerships aresuper important in the
community. We have a network of
organizations doing this type ofwork in California specifically
because the farming community isso rich there, but it's also a
very big state. So what we've found is similarly
(03:26):
there's organizations doing similar work to us and also
working with the same communities.
Some have overlapping clients, but then sometimes people find
us through different outlets. So I think one of the really
great types about pioneerships is to a Fidel system.
And then also I think a really important part that is almost
(03:50):
bigger than that is having a shared platform.
So if we're all partnering and understanding what the farmers
and ranchers really are needing from us and we're all aligning
on what we want to offer and howwe're talking about it, I think
that we're making it very clear that we're there for support.
(04:11):
But we have like these areas that we really want to support
in. So, yeah, just like shared
language. And then I think also having
partnerships from what we've heard is getting access to
different resources. You know, we host workshops and
classes, other organizations host other workshops, maybe that
in areas that we don't work in. So I think our clients like to
(04:35):
make sure that they're attendingvery different types of
educational workshops, and then every organization offers a bit
of a different service. Yes, yeah.
Thank you, Andrea. And I think you're really
lifting up something that I knowa lot of organizations are
thinking through, which is the intentionality of these
(04:57):
partnerships. And how?
They expand capacity, but they really also allow you to go
deep. And tailor.
The needs to communities, to theworkers, to the businesses
they're serving, and that's really important, but it's also
really hard. Being hardcore in new.
York. Janet, staying with that theme
of partnering and building thoserelationships in the community,
(05:20):
will you talk with us about community based organizations
and how you pull them into your work?
CEO. We work with a lot of community
based organizations and from my previous experience, I have
connections with a lot of those organizations.
So I approach them with what do you need which.
So we talk about different things and I go to a lot of
(05:43):
their meetings. Sometimes I speak and I bring in
the job quality and quality jobsand CEF and they're interested
in partnering with us because they can't provide that service.
So we provide that service for them.
And like I said, they don't knowabout it, but what we can do is
customize the job quality to their constituents.
We've worked with other organizations such as where in a
(06:06):
conversation now with Pikes PeakWorkforce Center.
So those are the population thatwe want to reach that don't know
about us. But once they know about us and
I talk to them at these different events, they're very
interested. So that way we're spreading the
word that this exists, we can provide the service for you.
Yes, yes. Thank you so much, Janet.
So partners help you build capacity, they help you tailor,
(06:29):
they also helped you build resources.
Can we? Is a question for both of.
You shift to a topic that we're also hearing a lot.
About in our. Work through shared success.
How do you think about the valueof leveraging partners to offer
curricula and workshops? Sure.
So for specifically for a sharedsuccess, California Farm Link
(06:52):
created a brand new program based on our previous program
called the Resiliator, which is a 10 week course and the now the
employment resiliator that really focuses on job quality.
And that building that course took us almost a year and we
brought in a lot of partners at that point.
(07:14):
We have consultants who have worked in the space where
farmers that built the curriculum we have, we work with
AUC Extension, which is the University of California
Agricultural Extension. They provide a really specific
survey service for us, which is an employment satisfaction
(07:36):
survey. And then we have organizations
that are farmers have alluded toin the past that are Kitchen
Table Advisors, Center for BasedLearning, Alba and a plethora of
other organizations that are maybe have not necessarily
started to do job quality. So we've started to bring them
(07:58):
in one way also is by having them be part of our course that
because they are all providing technical assistance, we all can
be providing technical assistance of the same type.
So if what we found is if folks,they're not already doing this
work, which in our area, I thinkthey're doing it in very
(08:21):
indirect ways. And and this project has given
us an opportunity to really focus on job quality.
Now people, not just farmers andranchers are getting that
information, but so are service providers and then they are able
to share that information. And I think the one other thing
I'll add, which is kind of unique and I don't want to
(08:44):
forget to mention is that one ofour bigger partners as well are
other farmers which are our clients.
So we, like I said, we went to A10 week class and we invite
farmers to teach because we think that they hold this
knowledge as well. They're doing the work on the
(09:04):
ground. So yeah, we invite them to be in
our class and at least we see them as our consultants as well
because they're experiencing this.
So that's kind of a partnership that also takes years to build
and there's trust there. And it's not seem like it's an
official org to org partnership.It's really.
(09:25):
Important to us we go and so powerful and such an authentic
Rd. to ground new works. Janet, how do you think about
the value of leveraging partnersto offer workshops and around
job quality? I think it's really important
because they have the experienceand knowledge that we may not
have. So bringing them in to help us
develop a curriculum and to helpus deliver the workshops is more
(09:47):
value because they are the experts in their field.
So they bring their knowledge and expertise to the workshops,
but they also bring a different value in that they have a
diverse or maybe they can and offer something that we can't.
So it's really beneficial not only for us because we're
learning also, but for our job quality participants, they're
(10:11):
learning that information also. So it's really a great
partnership to bring them in. And we've done some here lately.
We've done some really beneficial workshops where the
SPDC, we also started to establish a partnership with
them. We work with them.
So they give us a workshop. Well, they have these events
(10:34):
where they have, such as a women's accelerator.
Program. Well, I go speak at those events
and then they are giving us clients because they're wanting
to know about job quality. So it's a really beneficial
partnership and that I'm giving something to them.
And then if I have clients that need services to the SBBCI can
send my clients them. So it's very official force and
(10:56):
that they're providing a lot of knowledge that we don't have and
we're providing the knowledge that they don't have.
This has been such a thoughtful conversation.
I can tear the leadership and energy that you're both bringing
and how partners are really creating a multiplier for the
impact of your work. Thank you so much.
(11:19):
That was Andrea Levy, senior program manager at California
Farm Link, and Janet Burger, business navigator with the
Colorado Enterprise Fund, in conversation with Maureen
Conway, executive director of the Aspen Institute's Economic
Opportunities Program. If you enjoyed this episode of
Elevating Job Quality, please subscribe or share this
(11:40):
conversation. The Shared Success demonstration
is managed by the Aspen Institute's Economic
Opportunities Program and supported by a four year
investment from the Gates Foundation.
CAS dot PN back slash Shared Success to learn more.
Views expressed here are those of the authors and do not
(12:00):
necessarily reflect positions orpolicies of the Foundation.
Welcome to Elevating Job Quality, a podcast from the
Aspen Institute's Economic Opportunities program.
Today we're taking you inside a dialogue from the Shared Success
Project, exploring how CDF is orcommunity development financial
institutions can help their small business clients create
good jobs so that workers, business owners, and local
(00:27):
economies all thrive. Coming up, a conversation about
job quality and the role of partnerships.
Maureen Conway, executive director of the Aspen
Institute's Economic Opportunities Program, speaks
with Andrea Levy, senior programmanager at California Farm Link,
and Janet Brueger, business navigator with the Colorado
(00:48):
Enterprise Fund. Welcome, Andrea and Janet to our
series of conversations on elevating job quality among
small business days. Today, we'll be discussing how
partnerships help expand opportunities for small
businesses to build job quality to the work.
(01:10):
Janet, let's start with you. You have.
Seen this work up close in your.Work with.
Colorado Enterprise Fund as leadbusiness navigator.
Can you tell us more about CE FSMission?
Well, CE, FS mission is to serveas many people as we can to
provide those loans that they can't get anywhere else.
(01:32):
So we work with these small businesses to help them to get
the capital that they need in order to go into business or go
to the next phase of their business, build whatever they
need to do. Partnerships are very valuable
in that, especially with job quality, and we look for people
(01:55):
who need our services, but a lotof times those agencies don't
know about our services. So working in partnership with
them, they know that we have those services, but also the job
quality that their clients coulduse.
So it's sort of a partnership where we can share information
with them, they share information with us and we
(02:16):
provide that job quality education for their
constituency. That is such a great insight and
clearly the strategy of tapping into new networks and expanding
your outreach and otherwise be able to bring in small
businesses that are interested in advancing job quality but may
not know where to. Start exactly.
(02:37):
Andrea, let's follow up. I would love to hear more about
California Farming's work and how new All Afraid partnerships
to advance job quality. Great.
So California farmland works on on kind of three or four
overarching areas. So they work on capital through
loans, land access, and businesseducation and technical
(03:01):
assistance for farmers, ranchersand fishers.
And we find our partnerships aresuper important in the
community. We have a network of
organizations doing this type ofwork in California specifically
because the farming community isso rich there, but it's also a
very big state. So what we've found is similarly
(03:26):
there's organizations doing similar work to us and also
working with the same communities.
Some have overlapping clients, but then sometimes people find
us through different outlets. So I think one of the really
great types about pioneerships is to a Fidel system.
And then also I think a really important part that is almost
(03:50):
bigger than that is having a shared platform.
So if we're all partnering and understanding what the farmers
and ranchers really are needing from us and we're all aligning
on what we want to offer and howwe're talking about it, I think
that we're making it very clear that we're there for support.
(04:11):
But we have like these areas that we really want to support
in. So, yeah, just like shared
language. And then I think also having
partnerships from what we've heard is getting access to
different resources. You know, we host workshops and
classes, other organizations host other workshops, maybe that
in areas that we don't work in. So I think our clients like to
(04:35):
make sure that they're attendingvery different types of
educational workshops, and then every organization offers a bit
of a different service. Yes, yeah.
Thank you, Andrea. And I think you're really
lifting up something that I knowa lot of organizations are
thinking through, which is the intentionality of these
(04:57):
partnerships. And how?
They expand capacity, but they really also allow you to go
deep. And tailor.
The needs to communities, to theworkers, to the businesses
they're serving, and that's really important, but it's also
really hard. Being hardcore in new.
York. Janet, staying with that theme
of partnering and building thoserelationships in the community,
(05:20):
will you talk with us about community based organizations
and how you pull them into your work?
CEO. We work with a lot of community
based organizations and from my previous experience, I have
connections with a lot of those organizations.
So I approach them with what do you need which.
So we talk about different things and I go to a lot of
(05:43):
their meetings. Sometimes I speak and I bring in
the job quality and quality jobsand CEF and they're interested
in partnering with us because they can't provide that service.
So we provide that service for them.
And like I said, they don't knowabout it, but what we can do is
customize the job quality to their constituents.
We've worked with other organizations such as where in a
(06:06):
conversation now with Pikes PeakWorkforce Center.
So those are the population thatwe want to reach that don't know
about us. But once they know about us and
I talk to them at these different events, they're very
interested. So that way we're spreading the
word that this exists, we can provide the service for you.
Yes, yes. Thank you so much, Janet.
So partners help you build capacity, they help you tailor,
(06:29):
they also helped you build resources.
Can we? Is a question for both of.
You shift to a topic that we're also hearing a lot.
About in our. Work through shared success.
How do you think about the valueof leveraging partners to offer
curricula and workshops? Sure.
So for specifically for a sharedsuccess, California Farm Link
(06:52):
created a brand new program based on our previous program
called the Resiliator, which is a 10 week course and the now the
employment resiliator that really focuses on job quality.
And that building that course took us almost a year and we
brought in a lot of partners at that point.
(07:14):
We have consultants who have worked in the space where
farmers that built the curriculum we have, we work with
AUC Extension, which is the University of California
Agricultural Extension. They provide a really specific
survey service for us, which is an employment satisfaction
(07:36):
survey. And then we have organizations
that are farmers have alluded toin the past that are Kitchen
Table Advisors, Center for BasedLearning, Alba and a plethora of
other organizations that are maybe have not necessarily
started to do job quality. So we've started to bring them
(07:58):
in one way also is by having them be part of our course that
because they are all providing technical assistance, we all can
be providing technical assistance of the same type.
So if what we found is if folks,they're not already doing this
work, which in our area, I thinkthey're doing it in very
(08:21):
indirect ways. And and this project has given
us an opportunity to really focus on job quality.
Now people, not just farmers andranchers are getting that
information, but so are service providers and then they are able
to share that information. And I think the one other thing
I'll add, which is kind of unique and I don't want to
(08:44):
forget to mention is that one ofour bigger partners as well are
other farmers which are our clients.
So we, like I said, we went to A10 week class and we invite
farmers to teach because we think that they hold this
knowledge as well. They're doing the work on the
(09:04):
ground. So yeah, we invite them to be in
our class and at least we see them as our consultants as well
because they're experiencing this.
So that's kind of a partnership that also takes years to build
and there's trust there. And it's not seem like it's an
official org to org partnership.It's really.
(09:25):
Important to us we go and so powerful and such an authentic
Rd. to ground new works. Janet, how do you think about
the value of leveraging partnersto offer workshops and around
job quality? I think it's really important
because they have the experienceand knowledge that we may not
have. So bringing them in to help us
develop a curriculum and to helpus deliver the workshops is more
(09:47):
value because they are the experts in their field.
So they bring their knowledge and expertise to the workshops,
but they also bring a different value in that they have a
diverse or maybe they can and offer something that we can't.
So it's really beneficial not only for us because we're
learning also, but for our job quality participants, they're
(10:11):
learning that information also. So it's really a great
partnership to bring them in. And we've done some here lately.
We've done some really beneficial workshops where the
SPDC, we also started to establish a partnership with
them. We work with them.
So they give us a workshop. Well, they have these events
(10:34):
where they have, such as a women's accelerator.
Program. Well, I go speak at those events
and then they are giving us clients because they're wanting
to know about job quality. So it's a really beneficial
partnership and that I'm giving something to them.
And then if I have clients that need services to the SBBCI can
send my clients them. So it's very official force and
(10:56):
that they're providing a lot of knowledge that we don't have and
we're providing the knowledge that they don't have.
This has been such a thoughtful conversation.
I can tear the leadership and energy that you're both bringing
and how partners are really creating a multiplier for the
impact of your work. Thank you so much.
(11:19):
That was Andrea Levy, senior program manager at California
Farm Link, and Janet Burger, business navigator with the
Colorado Enterprise Fund, in conversation with Maureen
Conway, executive director of the Aspen Institute's Economic
Opportunities Program. If you enjoyed this episode of
Elevating Job Quality, please subscribe or share this
(11:40):
conversation. The Shared Success demonstration
is managed by the Aspen Institute's Economic
Opportunities Program and supported by a four year
investment from the Gates Foundation.
CAS dot PN back slash Shared Success to learn more.
Views expressed here are those of the authors and do not
(12:00):
necessarily reflect positions orpolicies of the Foundation.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.