Three Sector Summit Welcoming Remarks

July 16, 2003

Thank you for that introduction, Scott. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.

I'm pleased to have the opportunity to kick off the final day of the Three Sector Summit. Yesterday, we focused on the current state of public-private-community relationships and building trust in our institutions.

Today, we're going to examine a couple of challenges that three sector partnerships can—and should—address:

1) how to build, leverage, and access financial resources for community economic development, and;

2) how to use volunteers effectively to promote community economic development.

Obstacles To Community Economic Development

These aren't easy issues because the stress on capital and human resources is greater than ever before.

Companies are facing global competition and a sluggish economy; state and local governments are facing record budget deficits; the stock market only recently has shown signs of recovering; and more communities are demanding more goods and services even as resources are dwindling.

As daunting as this environment is, by working more closely together, we can make tremendous strides in improving the nation's communities. If we didn't believe that, we wouldn't be here.

Why Community Economic Development Is Important To Business

So why does business and chambers of commerce care about community economic development? Because, quite frankly, it's in our self-interest to do so.

Greater access to financing and better skilled workers means more businesses are created.

When more businesses are created, a community's economic base becomes more stable and diversified, and not coincidentally, the local chambers get more members and are able to provide more services to the local business community.

Economic growth also means that government agencies and community organizations gain a broader economic base to support their current activities and start new ones.

This is truly a virtuous cycle—and one that has been created to some degree of success in many communities across the country.

Success in Community Economic Development

From Southern California to Minneapolis-St. Paul; from Santa Monica to Washington, DC, thousands of companies and nonprofit organizations are working together to create change at a local level, on the principle that we can renew both people and places.

There may be systemic and entrenched poverty in some places, but there are also many incredible, untold stories of transformation and renewal as well, often in inner cities.

Let me share with you some interesting statistics.

According to the Urban Institute, the poverty rate in America declined during the 1990s, and we experienced extraordinary dynamism and turnover in our nation's poorest communities, with almost a third of the poorest neighborhoods exiting this status over the course of the decade. The rate of individuals leaving the ranks of the poorest of the poor is even higher.

According to the Initiative for a Competitive Inner City, inner city households have a purchasing power between $100 and $150 billion dollars.

These advances have attracted businesses to sections of the inner city they would never have ventured years ago.

The average Inc. Magazine Inner City 100 company grew 647% between 1997 and 2001. 91% of Inner City 100 companies rate their inner-city location as a good or excellent place to do business and 66% rated their location as "better" or "much better" than 3 to five years ago.

In the "State of Corporate Citizenship" survey, 90% of the companies surveyed, including those in the inner cities, said they would either maintain or increase their investments in their communities this year.

Companies that are having a positive impact in underdeveloped communities tell us that creating community economic development requires a top-to-bottom approach. Let me use the community of Congress Heights here in Washington, D.C. as an example of what I'm talking about.

In Congress Heights, government agencies, businesses, and nonprofit organizations have worked together in the areas of workforce training, technology training, entrepreneurship classes, housing and transportation, community safety, substance abuse treatment, vaccinations, and health care treatment.

The three sectors have put all the pieces of the puzzle together, and as a result, the neighborhood has seen a reduction in violent crime, truancy, and illness.

We'll hear about similar success stories later today.

The Chamber's Approach

So what is the role of the U.S. Chamber in community economic development? We play the role of coordinator, facilitator, and mediator.

In addition to CCC, the Chamber funds an affiliate called the Center for Workforce Preparation and runs a program called Access America.

Access America seeks to enable women- and minority-owned businesses to access capital, develop new contacts, and tap new markets by building alliances and partnerships with Chamber members.

The Center for Workforce Preparation is dedicated to addressing workforce development strategies and to ensure that employees are fully equipped to compete in the 21st century economy.

Together with CCC's focus on philanthropy, ethics, volunteerism and community development, these two programs illustrate the multi-faceted way in which the Chamber is helping the business community work with disadvantaged communities.

Three Short Range Goals

Let me conclude by mentioning a few immediate goals that I believe we should all be moving towards during this conference.

First, we should build on existing public policy studies and corporate and nonprofit initiatives to weed out the programs that don't work and promote those that do.

Second, we should aim to set up Three Sector dialogues in more communities to improve communication, information sharing, and coordination among the three sectors.

The simple act of bringing people together is the first step toward building relationships, and relationships are the precondition for setting policies, launching programs, and building communities.

Third, I hope that we can change the nature of the conversation and agree on realistic definitions for "progress" and "success."

For instance, poverty in America is defined as per capita income of $9,400 per individual. This is higher than the average per capita income of all but 50 countries around the world.

In a capitalist society, some will always have more than others. Our goal should not be to redistribute wealth, but to create more of it for everyone, especially those on the bottom rungs of society.

We need to begin to look at our inner cities as areas of opportunity, and move from a "deficit model" to an "asset-based" model of viewing development.

In other words, we shouldn't focus on what people lack, but build on what they have. We shouldn't focus on poverty alleviation, we should focus on wealth creation.

Ladies and gentlemen, today is about identifying policy building blocks that can lead to positive change, give us a better idea of where we should be headed, and spark new ideas for useful partnerships. I look forward to hearing your thoughts.

Thank you.