Safeguarding small business during the pandemic – with Kennedy Smith

08/13/20 • 68 min

In this episode, Kevin speaks with Kennedy Smith, Senior Researcher at the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), about strategies that city leaders can use to help local businesses weather the pandemic—and the post-pandemic world. Kennedy has just authored a report titled 'Safeguarding Small Business During the Pandemic: 26 Strategies for Local Leaders.'

The 26 actions outlined are grouped into three main priority areas that address immediate, short-term, and longer-term actions to guide community leaders:

First: Provide quick relief to keep businesses afloat
Next: Help businesses adapt and pivot
Later: Fix systemic problems that the pandemic has laid bare

We're big fans of ILSR, and we encourage you to check out the rest of their work as well!

The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of Verdunity. Find more about this and other episodes (and our blog) at verdunity.com/go-cultivate.

You can also find us on social media. Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

And if you haven't yet, sign up for our weekly email digest. It's not lame! (Each week we collectively curate a list of the things we read that caught our attention. Then we hand-package your copy, spank a first-class stamp on that baby, and drop it right in your email inbox.) Sign up here!

Join us (and your peers!) in the Community Cultivators Network.

(This episode features music from No Money, Custodian of Records, and Petula Clark.)

verdunity.com/podcast/episode-10

The 26 actions outlined are grouped into three main priority areas that address immediate, short-term, and longer-term actions to guide community leaders:

First: Provide quick relief to keep businesses afloat
Next: Help businesses adapt and pivot
Later: Fix systemic problems that the pandemic has laid bare

We're big fans of ILSR, and we encourage you to check out the rest of their work as well!

The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of Verdunity. Find more about this and other episodes (and our blog) at verdunity.com/go-cultivate.

You can also find us on social media. Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

Join us (and your peers!) in the Community Cultivators Network.

(This episode features music from No Money, Custodian of Records, and Petula Clark.)

verdunity.com/podcast/episode-10

Previous Episode

Connecting housing & community health – with Becky Gray

In this episode, Kevin speaks with Becky Gray, Director of Housing for Chaffee County, CO, to discuss the County's early efforts to build a more resilient regional housing system. We follow up on their work since the County hosted Kevin and Monte Anderson for a workshop last year.

Curious about the original radio show discussed in this episode, featuring Kevin and Monte? We aired it as a podcast episode last year.

Note from your producer: The audio quality in this episode is not quite what it usually is! We had an issue with the normal recording and had to fall back on the recording of the video call (which we're very glad we had). We think this episode is still definitely worth listening to, despite it all!

The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of Verdunity. Find more about this and other episodes (and our blog) at verdunity.com/go-cultivate.

You can also find us on social media. Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

Join us (and your peers!) in the Community Cultivators Network.

(This episode features music from No Money, Custodian of Records, and Isaac Horwedel.)

verdunity.com/podcast/episode-69

Next Episode

Are We Doing This Right? // Budgeting Edition

This time on our ‘Are We Doing This Right?’ series, we take a look at the local budgeting process. Here’s what you can expect from this episode:

A quick rundown of common presumptions
An overview of the way budgeting processes work in most towns and cities
A discussion of the “seven deadly sins” of public finance (as told by friend of the show Liz Farmer),
Some of the most common criticisms of city budgeting processes and outcomes
A bit of perspective from AJ on what budgeting processes actually look like from inside a local government
A snapshot of some popular types of budgeting approaches that are out there (from line-item, to zero-based, to participatory, to outcome-based, and everything in between)
A list of best practices for creating a truly accessible budgeting process, plus examples of cities that have taken big steps in this direction
A final discussion about budgets as exercises in making choices
And, of course, we answer the titular question—are we doing this right?

Want to do some further research on the topic? Head on over to the show page for this episode to find a list of resources we found helpful in compiling this show.

The Go Cultivate! podcast is a project of Verdunity. Find more about this and other episodes (and our blog) at verdunity.com/go-cultivate.

You can also find us on social media. Facebook / Twitter / LinkedIn

Join us (and your peers!) in the Community Cultivators Network.

(This episode features music from No Money, Custodian of Records, Scott Joplin, and The Kinks.)

verdunity.com/podcast/episode-71