Fostering Thriving Communities Through Entrepreneurship
Progress Playbook
The Case for Community Thriving
Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety Action Agenda served as a guiding framework for defining community thriving.
Sponsored by the Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety and Progress Playbook, Kyndred was invited to develop this 'Community by Design' project to understand the impacts of small businesses on their communities. This project aimed to formulate common definitions of ‘community thriving’ and establish best practices for businesses aiming to bolster communities within they operate.
Investigative Approach:
The work started with an exhaustive three-week exploration phase involving 10 insightful interviews with a range of stakeholders from NYCHA housing communities. These interviews laid the groundwork for the subsequent workshops, providing a diverse array of perspectives on community thriving and business integration. In addition to these interviews we conducted secondary research into the some the most pressing barriers to community thriving NYCHA communities were currently facing.
Inclusive Workshops:
In the first workshop, 20 individuals—including NYCHA residents, local entrepreneurs, and other stakeholders—joined forces. They formulated common goals and foundational values to align businesses with the community’s desires and needs. From this collaboration, we developed the innovative ‘Community Profit Framework.’ This framework emphasizes not just the economic benefits businesses bring, but also underscores their cultural and social contributions to the communities they serve.
In the second workshop, we focused on highlighting the framework and used the inputs from the participants to refine our findings and evolve our framework as well as how it might be used. We introduced 6 ways small businesses might positively impact their communities with example small business from current businesses Progress Playbook had already supported. The fruitful discussion we had covered the core meaning profit and how it could be expanded to represent the cultural and social value businesses bring to their surrounding communities and even resulting in adding a 7th community profit area to the framework.
Development of the Community Profit Toolkit:
Leveraging the outputs from the session, we created the ‘Community Profit Toolkit.’ This toolkit is a practical guide for businesses, showing them how to adjust their strategies to better serve their communities. It demonstrates how a company can succeed by aligning its success with the well-being of the community, offering a balanced approach to achieving business goals and fostering community growth. This guide encourages business owners to consider the broader, positive impact they can make in their local areas, portraying a harmonious relationship between business prosperity and community enrichment.
Up Next
The completion of the 'Community by Design' project marks a pivotal moment, as the toolkit is now available through Progress Playbook. They and the NYC Mayor’s Office of Neighborhood Safety have plans to integrate this toolkit into their upcoming programs to elevate business development in diverse local communities. the aim is to foster symbiotic growth and ensuring businesses resonate with, and contribute to, their communities’ shared values and aspirations. This endeavor represents our journey toward ensuring that communal enrichment and business success coexist and flourish.
Learn more about Progress Playbook HERE.
