Anchor institutions supporting place-based innovation

The Annie E. Casey Foundation recently provided funding to establish the Anchor Learning Network, a three-year, joint project of the Coalition of Urban and Metropolitan Universities and The Democracy Collaborative as a means of sharing successful practices and lessons learned among the 31 member higher education institutions in their efforts to increase their local economic impact.  The partner institutions commit to participating in educational conferences and webinars to share experiences among member institutions and to maintain metrics regarding their community impact performance on a range of activities – hiring, purchasing, supplier diversity, affordable housing, community investing, workforce development, and small business and innovation centers. 

The community investing, workforce development and small business innovation center benchmark categories present the most direct opportunity to engage local innovation and TBED initiatives in the schools’ improved local impact.  Low hanging opportunities could include increasing partnerships with the institutions for pre-seed, accelerator and seed funds; expanding STEM internship and apprenticeship opportunities; and entrepreneurial mentoring for companies in the area.

Likely requiring greater investment and time would be relocating university innovation, incubation and business support services (e.g., federally funded Small Business Development Centers (SBDCs), Procurement Technical Assistance Centers (PTACs), women/minority business support centers) out of university buildings and into off-campus locations more centrally located to area neighborhoods and place-based initiatives.  Relocation would create greater visibility and accessibility for target populations while helping create a buzz of activity that might spur even more community impact from the anchor’s involvement.

The 31 member institutions of the new Anchor Learning Network are: