State & Local Investments

As the City’s official economic development authority, Invest Atlanta works to strengthen Atlanta’s economy and global competitiveness to create increased opportunity and prosperity for city residents.  It administers a range of loan programs to support small business.  For instance, its Opportunity Loan Program provides gap financing to Atlanta small and medium-sized businesses that create at least five new jobs.  Established to catalyze job creation, economic development, and neighborhood revitalization in underserved areas of Atlanta, its New Markets Catalyst Fund is a revolving loan program that provides loans to businesses in designated low-income census tracks.  In 2015, Invest Atlanta made loans to 21 small businesses, investments credited with leveraging $2.5 million in development activity.

New Haven’s Small Contractor Development Program aims to help grow the city’s small minority and women-owned businesses by providing them with technical assistance, mentoring, networking, and targeted opportunities.  All city construction contracts of $150,000 or less are reserved for contractors registered in the program, and larger contracts have a 25 percent small subcontractor requirement.  The program also includes a loan program to help small contractors finance preliminary material and payroll costs up to $100,000.

Developed over a two-year planning process by the Office of the Mayor, numerous city agencies, and eight Baltimore-based universities and hospitals, the Baltimore City Anchor Plan is concrete action plan that defines the mutual commitments of the City and participating anchors in four priority areas:  public safety, local hiring, local purchasing, and quality of life.  The plan is organized around geographic sectors to encourage collaboration, partnerships, and targeted investments that could produce greater impacts and also to help the City provide information to anchors about ongoing City investments and activities in a more coordinated and comprehensive manner.  In 2015, the city awarded grant funding to four projects involving its anchor partners, including an effort spearheaded by Johns Hopkins University and the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA) to conduct merchant organizing, business development and recruitment, and marketing in an area suffering from disinvestment.

Approved in 2014, Madison’s Co-operative Enterprises for Job Creation & Business Development plan authorizes the city to spend $1 million a year from 2016 to 2020 on worker-owned business development—making it the largest allocation toward cooperative development by a U.S. municipality to date.  Policymakers intend for the funding to catalyze job creation and general economic development in the city. Read more about Co-operative Enterprises for Job Creation & Business Development...

Incorporated in 1986 by the City of Pittsburgh and 11 other riverfront municipalities within the Mon-Valley region, Steel Valley Authority (SVA) is a cross-jurisdictional governmental authority aiming to retain and revitalize the region’s economic base.  To do so, SVA’s work falls into three key areas: providing technical assistance to at-risk companies; promoting responsible capital investment; and building sustainable communities.  SVA’s Pittsburgh Clean and Green Initiative, part of its Building Sustainable Communities program, seeks to create worker ownership opportunities across the P Read more about Steel Valley Authority...

The City of Dayton Office of Economic Development runs two grant programs aimed to foster job creation and business growth.  Its Dayton Economic Attraction Program provides annual grants for up to three years (capped at $1 million) to businesses that create at least five new, living-wage, full-time jobs in the downtown area or in key industry sectors.  Through the Dayton Development Fund, it also provides grant funding for local business expansion projects that create or retain jobs.  The Office’s work in 2013 is credited with retaining over 800 jobs, creating over 575 new jobs, and generating $47.4 million in private project funding.

Funded from a dedicated tax approved by voters in 1989, the Burlington Housing Trust Fund provides grants and loans for the promotion, retention, and creation of long-term affordable housing for very low, low, and moderate-income households.  Grants are provided to support the direct project, as well as capacity building, costs (such as staffing, training, planning, fundraising, and ongoing operational expenses), of nonprofit organizations working to create or preserve low or moderate income housing.  In FY 2016, the Fund plans to provide $337,750 of support to Burlington organizations.