Briddging the Ethnic Economic Divide- Claudia Cody- UofM Extension[1]

Bridging the Ethnic Economic divide

The Case of Ethnic Chambers Business Retention and Expansion Program

Claudia CodyAssistant Extension Professor

Community Economics

Center for Community Vitality

Project Details and Factoids

Project Funders: The Otto Bremer Foundation, Ramsey County, Cities of

Minneapolis and St. Paul. Additional funders will be

joining in weeks to come.

Timeline: Hispanic Chamber of Commerce has convened the group

since Fall of 2007. The project goes through Dec31,

2010.

Financial Factoid: Average buying power of state’s African Americans,

Hispanics and Asians roughly tripled between 1990 and

2007.

Population Factoid: Minnesota’s communities of color are expected to double

in population size by 2030.

Project Factoid: The project leaders have conducted face-to-face interviews

with ethnic-owned businesses in the Twin Cities and

surrounding areas. The data will be used to assist in the

development of future projects – with community and

governmental resources – that will respond to the needs

of these businesses.

©2008 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved

Project LeadershipVal Vargas– CEO, Hispanic Chamber of Commerce of Minnesota

Barbara Davis – President, Minnesota Black Chamber of Commerce

Alice Smoot Gentry – Inclusiveness in Contracting Program, Ramsey

County

Irene Rodriguez – Senior Program Officer, African American Action

Council

Tran Nhon – Vietnamese American Business Association

Pam Standing - Executive Director, Minnesota American Indian

Chamber of Commerce

Henry Ongeri – President, Pan African Business Alliance

Seng Tchaa – MN Hmong Chamber of Commerce


The Task Force (who)• Between 20 and 30 people

– Including a 5 person leadership team

• Characteristics– Recognized and respected community leaders

– Representative of all segments of the community

– Ability to work easily with others

• At least four major groups represented– Local development professionals

– Business owners/operators

– Local government officials

– Educators

6

More Project Partners

• MN Restaurant, Lodging and

Resort and Campgrounds

• Minnesota Department of

Employment and Economic

Development

• City of Saint Paul

• Hi way Federal Credit Union

• Immigrant Community

Roundtable

• MN State Colleges and

Universities Office of the

Chancellor

• St. Paul Chamber of Commerce

• Minority Business Development

and Retention

• Hospitality Minnesota

• Planning and Economic

Development Office City of Saint

Paul

• Charities Review Council

• MCCD

• Metropolitan Council

• American Indian Economic

Development Fund

• State of Minnesota Human

Services

Goals of Ethnic ChambersBR&E Visitation Program

• Demonstrate to local businesses that the community appreciates their contribution to the economy

• Help existing businesses solve problems

• Assist businesses in using programs aimed at helping them become more competitive

• Develop strategic plans for long-range BR&E activities

• Build community capacity to sustain growth and development


More Ethnic ChambersBR&E Benefits

• Good representation of concerns of Ethnically owned Chambers’ membership in the geographic area of program.

• Development of Case Examples – policy development

• Improved Public Relations with Existing Firms

• Stronger collaboration between local development agencies, local governments, citizens, educators, local ethnically owned businesses, and ethnic chambers of commerce.

• Better understanding by local leaders of the strengths and weaknesses of their community’s local business climate.


Business Selection Process

Random Sampling

Goal: Generalize from the sample to the population

from which the sample is taken.

Sample: Sampling method was stratified when

possible, otherwise based on each Chamber’s

case. No more than 30 per chamber


Main Survey Areas

• General Information

• Product/Service

• Labor Force

• Training

• Technology

• Cash Flow

• Business Functions

• Suppliers

• Customers

• Civic Engagement

• Business Changes

• Future Location Decisions

• Community Factors


Four Priority Projects in Implementation

• 1. Advocacy

• 2. One Stop Shop Access to Funding

• 3. Repository

• 4. One Roof - Joint Council Service Center

How to Advance Diverse

Intergroup Economic

Development Projects?

Project Challenges• Often cohesive ingroups are in

competition with one another

• How to gather support from the

dominant majority for a program

targeted towards an underserved

community? (Funding, other

resources)

• How to serve the most number of

ethnic businesses with the least

amount of resources and

resistance from outgroups?

• Geographically disperse program

audience

• What is different this time?

Large Number of Known Divides

Intergroup, Ingroup, and in Subgroups

Ethnicity Age

Political affiliation Sexual orientation

Tribe City/Neighborhood/county/county

Family Ties Relationship among genres

Level of knowledge of American

business practices

Tradition of Business ownership

Emerging Divides Unknown Divides

Time – multiple frameworksLeaps, "fertile stalls”, linear, circular, sequential, non-sequential

Leadership styles

Advancing the Multi-Ethnic Chambers

Business Retention and Expansion Project

1

• Who are the project Initiator(s)/Convener(s)?Leadership team representative of all main conveners (chambers, funders, government agencies supporting project)

2

• Stakeholder Analysis & Power Versus Interest Any additional key convener lifted from this map who should be in the leadership and task force teams?

3

• Leadership Asset Mapping ( based on Kretzman and McKnight)

Any additional key convener lifted from this map who should be in the leadership and task force teams?

4• Promotion of Positive Intergroup Relations

Building Enduring Trust

•Encourage Contact

•Networking event for all board members from each Ethnic

Chamber, funders, and other members of the leadership

team.

•Attendance to special events of team members – when

invited.

•Monthly 1 hour meetings – regular contact

• Informal gatherings with no shop talk ( lunches, funerals,

etc)

•Workshops

•Job Fairs

Leadership Asset Mapping

Ethnic Entrepreneurship

Groups/Organizations Institutions

Individuals

Formal/Informal LeadersOther

Who

Assets

Who

Assets

Who

Assets

Who

Assets



• Discouragement of “groupthink” – No stereotyped view of

the outgroup as “evil”. (Janis, 1982)

•Intergroup leadership training of core project team

Training on working on committees productively

Leadership Team working Agreement

Committee Asset Mapping

Emotional

Responses

Interpersonal

Skills

Focus on

Procedure

Positive bias

Committee

Asset

Mapping



•Elimination of Zero-Sum Scenarios &Realistic conflict Theory

Superordinate Goal reduces Intergroup Conflict

Reduces ingroup/outgroup distinctions

Helps group members recategorize their own group

identity into a common group identity

(Nelson 2006)



http://mnjointcouncil.org/

INGROUP

Vietnamese-American

Chamber of Commerce

INGROUP

Pan African Chamber of Commerce

INGROUP

MN Hmong Chamber of Commerce

INGROUP

Minnesota Black Chamber of Commerce

INGROUP

Minnesota American

Indian Chamber of Commerce

INGROUP

MN Hispanic Chamber

SuperordinateGoals

SuMutual Intergroup Differentiation Model



•The Minnesota Multi-Ethnic Chambers Joint Council

Mutual Intergroup differentiation Model * Promotion of dual

identity (Hewstone & Brown 1986)

Each Ethnic Chamber identifies with individual

subgroup(chambers) and with superordinate group(joint

council)

Each chamber maintains its own identity, funding,

membership while working within the realm of the joint council

shared goals.

Documents

Briddging the Ethnic Economic Divide- Claudia Cody- UofM Extension[1]