• What is a recovery community workgroup? A recovery community workgroup is a local workgroup of diverse organizations and community members that collaborate to help build the local entrepreneurship ecosystem to better support small business owners of color. This workgroup goes through a training process to help them effectively collaborate and develop and launch a low-barrier program as an entry point into
  • What is an entrepreneurship ecosystem? An entrepreneurship ecosystem consists of all the significant factors in a community that helps local entrepreneurs start and grow their businesses. Some of the main factors are access to capital, training, and relationships. Other factors are local culture, community infrastructure (physical environment and digital access), and policy. An entrepreneurship ecosystem is about how everything connects and not just one program or resource.
  • What is Strategic Doing? Strategic Doing enables leaders to design and guide collaborative networks that generate innovative solutions and create shared value. It is a strategy discipline that is lean, agile, and fast—just what civic organizations, businesses, universities, communities, and regions need to survive and thrive. What is Strategic Doing?
  • Can my community become a recovery community? Because this is a resource-intense process for the Federal Reserve, there are limited slots available. Priority communities will be those who can demonstrate they have a strong team of potential collaborators and demonstrate that the small business owners of color they are focusing on have a high need for support during the recovery.
  • Does my recovery community have to cover the entire city? No. A recovery community workgroup can focus on a small geographic area or focus on a general demographic group of color (IE, Native America, African American, etc.).
  • What are the qualifications for becoming a recovery community workgroup and receiving training? A recovery community workgroup must have at minimum four individuals representing four different local organizations, neighborhood groups, or interested individuals. They must all commit to participating in the training, collaborating on the first project, and attending subsequent follow-up meetings. Also, they must commit to providing status updates four times during the first year.
  • How long is the recovery community workgroup training process? The training is a four-hour training. There will be two one-hour follow-up meetings at the thirty-day and three-month milestones.
  • Are the recovery workgroup training sessions held in person or virtually? Due to the pandemic, all of the training sessions are currently planned as virtual training sessions.
  • Why do we have to have at least four unique organizations participate? Collaboration is the most critical component of entrepreneurship ecosystem building. By having a minimum requirement of participants from different organizations and backgrounds, diverse perspectives and understanding, and a broader network of relationships occur, creating better outcomes for small business owners of color.
  • What is the maximum number of organizations and individuals that can participate in the recovery workgroup training? The maximum total number of participants in the recovery community workgroup training session is 10. This can be either ten individuals from different organizations or up to two from the same organization or a combination.
  • How will the Federal Reserve provide support? The primary form of support will be providing the recovery community workgroup training and follow-up. When available, the Federal Reserve will provide data and information on the recovery community geography or demographic group.
  • Will the Federal Reserve Provide Grant Funding and Other Forms of Monetary Support? No, the Federal Reserve does not provide grant funding or monetary support.
  • Is there a cost for the training?
    No, there is no cost for the training or any of the follow-up activities.
  • What are the expectations of the Recovery Community workgroup? The recovery community workgroup will expectations are to participate in the training, execute the programs identified by the workgroup, participate in the follow-up meetings, and provide updates on the status of the collaboration and the program(s) launched by the workgroup for the first year.
  • How many recovery communities are there going to be? Because this is a new program, the initial objective is to establish five recovery communities, with the potential for up to ten in 2021.

Additional questions can be referred to dell.gines@kc.frb.org. Fill out a recovery Community Training Interest Form External Linkhere.