Our economic development efforts are also focused on people. Since our regional marketing efforts began, we’ve set aggressive goals for bringing in and retaining an appropriately educated workforce so that companies here can thrive. We closed 2004 with over 1,900 resumes in our online workforce database. We also targeted diverse business owner groups, bringing them into the Partnership to help strengthen their ties to the community at large and build their businesses. We helped structure ALIANZA (the “Latino Chamber of Commerce”) and the African-American Business Association (AABA) – both of which became Partnership affiliates in the fall of 2004. We’re pleased that with the addition of these two groups, our membership will become more reflective of the diverse community in which we all work and live.

The Waukee Chamber of Commerce and the new Windsor Heights Chamber of Commerce also became Partnership affiliates in 2004, bringing our total number of affiliate organizations to 20. We aren’t just talking about regionalism – we’re building a real and strong regional coalition.

Probably our most potentially impactful local economic development effort in 2004 was the creation and implementation of the “Buy Into the Circle” campaign, which we created to address the overriding concern of our small business members: the fact that more than seven billion dollars leaves the regional economy each year due to out-of-area business purchases.

The “Buy Into the Circle” program proposes a simple solution: if Greater Des Moines businesses would pledge to shift just five percent of their existing purchases back to local companies, we’d see a $362 million impact immediately – and a $568 million impact as that jolt worked its way through the local economy.

With help from member companies to get the campaign moving and with support from the highest levels of our leadership, we set a first-year goal of enlisting 100 companies to pledge this five percent shift. By the end of 2004 – just nine months into the program – over 300 pledge companies have made the commitment to participate. They’ve already documented nearly $6.4 million returned to the local economy.

Through all of these efforts, there’s no doubt that we’ve set out to attract attention in unconventional ways. Our award-winning website at www.desmoinesmetro.com and the newly redesigned Regional Resource Center at http://rrc.desmoinesmetro.com have set the standard for economic development organizations nationwide to focus their internet-based efforts on workforce and economic development and to regionalize their marketing approach.

Our efforts to grow our regional economy and to promote what we’re doing have not gone unnoticed. We’ve been called everything from the “hippest city in the USA” by Fast Company magazine, to “what women want” by Business Week. It’s safe to say we’ve raised the bar in the economic development marketing industry. That’s what will keep us challenged as we head into the next five years of our plan.

COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT