Douglas County is investing in economic development with a leading-edge economic development strategy gaining interest throughout the United States – Economic Gardening.
An Economic Gardening strategy focuses on growing the local economy by helping local entrepreneurs succeed. Economic Gardening services are most effective for businesses that have been established for one to two years or more. Economic gardening is a complimentary strategy to the traditional business recruitment or “economic hunting” strategy.
As of 2009 the program, administered through the Highlands Ranch Chamber, is available to any Douglas County business. It is hoped that the program will succeed and be expanded throughout the County in future years.
Douglas County will provide:
- Seed funding ($98,000 for the first year) for two part-time staffers to be housed at the Chamber office
- Databases (approximately $50,000 annually); it is anticipated that multiple-user links to these databases can be purchased at a reduced rate for other groups in the County that may be interested in implementing the Economic Gardening program
- Funding for a consultant to design the program and evaluation measures
Chamber of Commerce of Highlands Ranch is providing:
- Office space
- Computer and other work equipment
- Personnel supervision/management
Douglas County Libraries has committed to support Economic Gardening in the County by providing specified databases, working in conjunction with the Castle Rock economic gardening effort to share databases.
Examples of databases to be used in the Economic Gardening program include:
- MarketPro
- Budget Analyst
- D & B Marketplace Gold
- Dodge Reports
- Lexis/Nexis Company Dossier
- Claritas
- IBIS World
- Factivia
- Sky Minder
- Special Issues
- HighBeam
A Steering Committee has been established to advise the Economic Gardening program. Steering Committee members, representing key Highlands Ranch organizations, will be:
- Jill Repella , Douglas County Commissioner
- Meme Dunckel Martin, Manager, Douglas County Economic Development
- Krista Simonson, Chair, Chamber of Commerce of Highlands Ranch
- Steve Dyer, President, Chamber of Commerce of Highlands Ranch
- Rochelle Logan, Douglas County Libraries
- Susan Meek, Douglas County School District
- Chris Eppers, Chamber of Commerce Highlands Ranch, Economic Gardening Manager
The program will benefit from the consulting services of Christine Hamilton-Pennell, who will help design the program. Christine is a research librarian who has worked with the Littleton Economic Gardening Program for more than four years.
During the pilot phase, the program will be available to Highlands Ranch businesses with the expectation that it will expand throughout the county in future years.
BACKGROUND
The concept of economic gardening was pioneered by the City of Littleton and has spread to communities across the nation and overseas. Economic gardening provides critical market intelligence to entrepreneurs via business counselors, databases and other reference materials. Services provided include:
- Customized business research
- Market trends
- Industry information
- Customer analysis and identification
- Demographics and psychographics
- Marketing resources/lists
- Industry trends/forecasts, business financial info
- GIS – customer locations and trends, drive-time analysis, plot competitor locations
Businesses participating in the Douglas County Economic Gardening program can expect to experience the following:
- Meet with and be mentored by a business counselor
- Learn to identify and explore their company’s goals/strategies
- Learn to identify their individual business’ needs
- Learn to refine and market services
- Access to research and other business enhancement products
To learn more about the Douglas County Economic Gardening program, please visit contact Meme Dunckel Martin at 303.660.7449 or mmartin@douglas.co.us.
To participate in this pilot phase of the program through the Chamber of Commerce of Highlands Ranch, please call 303.791.3500 or visit the Chamber of Commerce of Highlands Ranch Website www.highlandsranchchamber.org.
