2. Focus on Small-Firm Growth To support the competitive needs and growth of the Commercial Corridor Target Areas, small businesses should be a clear strategic priority. Small businesses are the City’s most important source of employment, one of its clear competitive advantages and draws on a clear regional strength. Policies to support small businesses focus on helping them compete in large markets and against larger firms. In most cases this takes the form of supporting the economies of scale (business services, technical expertise, financing, labor, and access to supply chains) that large firms have internally. Access to capital is the greatest barrier to economic opportunity and growth among minority small businesses including contractor businesses and the self-employed. The City of Fort Myers, working with a collaborative of investors can remove this barrier, by developing an alternative strategy and sources of capital to serve under-served communities and businesses along the major commercial corridors. The focus will be on new and existing microbusinesses. The CEDS small business strategy will require the creation of the necessary “intermediary
infrastructure” to jumpstart financial lending activity along the corridors. The intermediary can be an existing organization or agency providing small business financing products or a new small business lending centrally located in the study area. The intermediary will coordinate its lending activities with existing community lenders. The community-based intermediary will perform the following functions: ► Manage an “economic opportunity mobilization fund” to provide local businesses lines of credit and other forms of start-up capital; ► Provide a platform for matching small businesses with grants and capital including on-line matching services, lender referrals, and loan products; and ► Oversee an “impact measurement and management system” for assessing the social impact of community investments. Impact investing can play a central role in realizing the vision of the commercial corridors by setting and raising the standards for investment practice and generating the tools and data that allow investors to evaluate impact and channel capital to the most effective solutions.
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