South Florida Anchor Alliance members will collectively prioritize the establishment of an inclusive local economy by:
- Developing, coordinating, expanding and deepening collaborative supplier diversity efforts to increase opportunities for local, small and minority-owned businesses.
- Developing, coordinating, expanding and deepening collaborative workforce development efforts for local minority residents.
- Sharing best practices among anchor alliance members and collectively sharing efforts with other communities.
Read our Blueprint for Action below.
Implement policy and procedures based upon best practices to increase local vendor engagement with participating anchors.
Implement policy and procedures based upon best practices to increase small business engagement with participating anchors.
Implement policy and procedures based upon best practices to increase minority owned business engagement with participating anchors.
ACTIVITIES/STRATEGIES
Review national best practices/recommendations related to increasing local, small business and/or minority-owned business engagement.
Share, review and compare participating anchors' policies and procedures to learn of different approaches and best practices.
Develop an informational tool for vendors to better understand each anchor agency's policies and processes.
Define and adopt agreed upon local standardized definitions and principles based upon anchor members' policy and procedures best practices' review.
Identify key administrative actions to collectively review and prioritize including, but not limited to:
- Prompt Payment Procedures
- Pre-qualified vendor selection process based upon ready, willing and available criteria, and decisionmaking process for awards from pre-qualified vendor pool.
Participating anchors develop a unified state legislative platform reflecting recommendations supporting participating anchors' supplier diversity priorities.
Implement vendor registration and certification processes that will eliminate barriers and increase the pool of certified firms (small and/ or minority-owned) for participating anchors.
ACTIVITIES/STRATEGIES
Review and assess national best practice recommendations related to vendor registration and certification processes.
Share, review and compare participating anchors’ vendor registration and certification process to learn of different local approaches and best practices.
Develop an informational tool for vendors to better understand each anchor agency’s vendor registration and certification processes.
Assess current certification reciprocity agreements and terms of established agreements among participating anchors; identify opportunities to increase reciprocity agreements and proceed in negotiating additional reciprocity agreements as appropriate.
Research and assess current and/or new products and systems that would streamline online vendor registration and certification process among participating anchors. Develop workplan to proceed with streamlining registration and certification process for participating anchors.
Establish a SFAA standing working group of procurement and supplier diversity leaders that meet regularly to reflect and improve upon collaborative recommendations.
Increase identification and participation of local, small and/or minority-owned businesses through collaborative targeted outreach and engagement activities.
Increase awareness and engagement opportunities for local, small and/or minority-owned businesses through collaborative targeted informational and educational activities.
Increase local, small and minority-owned business contracting opportunities with participating anchor organizations by implementing matchmaking/ networking activities.
ACTIVITIES/STRATEGIES
Review and assess current outreach and engagement event calendars of all participating anchor organizations. Create a centralized communication strategy to consistently share information with local, small and minority-owned vendors (i.e. website, newsletter, coordinated information sharing)
Establish priorities for outreach and engagement activities by anchor organization (i.e. geographical-focused, industry-focused, supplier diversity-focused, currently non-registered or non-certified firms). Determine collaboration and coordination opportunities among participating anchors based upon identified priorities with the intent to maximize economies of scale (i.e. institutional savings and expansion of overall efforts). Develop calendar of collaborative events/activities.
Review and assess national best practice recommendations related to sharing business opportunities with local, small and/or minority vendors.
Integrate the Advancing Cities Small Business Advisory Council (as coordinated by The Miami Foundation) recommendations and feedback to inform outreach and engagement strategies.
Share, review and compare participating anchors’ current practices related to sharing business opportunities with local, small and/or minority vendors
Determine recommendations to streamline processes related to advertising of business opportunities among participating anchors (i.e. utilization of common online portal to share opportunities with registered/certified vendors)
Establish a business networking program inclusive of networking among local, small and/or minority-owned businesses based upon industry; coordinate match making opportunities with larger business based upon partnering opportunities by industry.
Increase internal staff understanding and awareness (of participating anchors) of the needs and strategies to engage local, small and minority- owned businesses.
Increase awards to local, small and/or minority-owned business that participate in capacity building, technical assistance/training and/or financial capacity support programs.
ACTIVITIES/STRATEGIES
Internal Capacity Building
Review and assess national best practice recommendations related to staff professional development to increase supplier diversity goals.
Share, review and compare participating anchors’ professional development activities related to supplier diversity principles and goals inclusive of engagement, bidding process, and post-bid follow- up.
Define professional development priorities and content to implement with participating anchor procurement staff with a focus on internal staff strengthening appropriate vendor follow up and evaluation of vendors.
External Capacity Building
Assess and identify gaps in availability to meet the anchor business/contracting needs. Within the assessment process, integrate work already completed by participating anchors (i.e. F.I.U.’s comprehensive survey process that led to refined capacity building strategies) and regular data collection processes that inform content and delivery methods) Based upon those gaps, develop and/or build upon current specialized incubator(s) across anchors for identified industries.
Assess and identify needs of small and minority-owned businesses. Based upon this assessment:
- Develop a course/program on how to do business with participating anchor organizations and/or build/expand upon current 6-week training program made available through M- DCPS.
- Engage with a working group of participating anchors leaders and/or an external consultant to coach small and minority-owned businesses on how to do business with participating anchors. Considerations need to be made for scaling of strategy.
- Assess current bonding capacity, financial grant programs, and financing opportunities to support the growth of local, small and/or minority-owned businesses.
- Identify key local best practices to highlight important stakeholder partners to collaborate in the development of new financial support strategies.
- Expand current local best practices and/or develop innovative new approaches to investing in the growth of small and minority owned businesses.
- Connect with existing technical assistance and financial assistance organization, such as the Florida State MSDC, SBDC, SBA, SCORE, etc.
Create workforce development strategy based upon anchor workforce pipeline needs to increase employment opportunities in identified zip codes.
ACTIVITIES/STRATEGIES
Administer a SFAA developed survey tool to identify the general workforce needs and gaps in existing workforce pipelines of participating anchor organizations. Survey will include requests for job descriptions (with minimum qualifications) for:
- Hard to fill positions (including jobs where anchors had to import from outside of South Florida)
- Positions accessible to community
- Special project positions and high turnover positions
Survey will also request (if the anchor elects to provide) the organization’s minimum wage policies, succession planning policies/procedures related to positions hardest to fill, and an inventory of all current local upskilling programs (including those offering stackable credentials, industry certifications, etc).
Once assessment is completed, identify the top five professional and technical needs from participating anchors; and identify educational and nonprofit partners that can build and/or support the expansion of pipeline program development.
Develop and implement business plan with identified partners to address anchor prioritized workforce pipeline (based upon identified short and long-term goals)
Ensure that SFAA workforce plan complements and is integrated within current local workforce development strategies being led by partnering organizations including Advancing Cities partners. Plan should include the identification of the specific positions and where the jobs actually exist (geographic inventory)
Create workforce development resources for small and minority owned businesses to strengthen capacity to do business with participating anchors.
ACTIVITIES/STRATEGIES
In collaboration with the SFAA Supplier Diversity Working Group and the Advancing Cities partners, assess small and minority-owned hiring needs with a focus on entry level positions.
Identify current internship, apprenticeship, and training programs for industries prioritized through assessment process with a focus on fast- tracking credentialing and hiring.
Collaborate with SFAA Supplier Diversity working group to support capacity building strategy to train and support new/ current employees in the development of “Power Skill” (soft skills) Training of small and minority-owned businesses.
Develop a cooperative purchasing program for small and minority-owned businesses to buy into group health, retirement and other benefits in collaboration with the Advancing Cities Partners.
Implement recruitment strategies to increase anchor hiring of special populations in targeted zip codes. Implement recruitment strategies to invest and strengthen retention of local talent.
ACTIVITIES/STRATEGIES
Develop a SFAA marketing and awareness plan including hiring events to provide exposure to the knowledge of anchor employment opportunities in identified zip codes with a focus on youth and adult engagement (and reengagement). Grassroots engagement strategies should be considered for the needs of the following special populations:
- Out of School youth
- Students in foster care, students who are homeless, students of incarcerated parents and unaccompanied minors
- Veterans
- Reentry populations
- Exceptional Needs
- Immigrants (inclusive of multiple languages)
- Seniors citizens
Develop campaign to educate identified neighborhoods and special populations regarding basic qualifications/ background check requirements for anchor employment opportunities (and possible alternate routes for hiring developed by participating anchors)
Leveraging the principles of the Talent Development Network build participating anchors’ talent pathways for identified job opportunities through the development and recruitment of local talent. This would include MDCPS internships (summer and year-long), participating college/university internships, pre-apprentice and apprenticeship programs (with South Florida Career Source) and part-time employment transitions into full time employment.
Pilot a workforce portal as funded and led by the Advancing Cities grant a nd led by the City of Miami to complement and track recruitment, education, and hiring of participants.
Develop and implement training/education programs for anchor workforce pipelines to increase hiring in identified zip codes.
ACTIVITIES/STRATEGIES
Inventory existing education, training and hiring programs that address anchor workforce pipeline priorities. Integrate best practices and lessons learned from the Miami Community Ventures lead by the Beacon Council of Miami-Dade.
Build upon the Academic Leaders Council’s Course Catalogue of Academic Offerings inclusive of upskilling, workforce, certification programs, etc. related to identified prioritized pipelines. Gaps in offerings will be identified and a workplan will be developed to address the gaps.
This content should be the basis of information that would be part of a marketing campaign for career counselors.
Develop hiring incentive programs for anchor workforce pipeline priorities including housing policies and employee policies regarding loan forgiveness and/or educational benefits.
