Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce, Arkansas
Entrepreneurship Center
The Challenge
Located in the heart of the Arkansas River Valley, the greater Fort Smith area faces a number of challenges common to manufacturing dependent communities: relatively low levels of educational attainment, out-migration from the urban core, an under-performing downtown, and the ever-looming threat of layoffs and plant closings. The region is also competing for businesses with surrounding areas. Bentonville (Wal-Mart’s corporate headquarters), Fayetteville (home to the University of Arkansas’s premier campus) and Little Rock (the state capital) have seen considerable success in business attraction. To address these challenges, the Fort Smith Regional Chamber of Commerce, in partnership with the city of Fort Smith and the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, commissioned TIP Strategies to assist in the planning and implementation of a new innovation and entrepreneurship center. The project was funded by through a federal grant administered by the Western Arkansas Planning & Development District.
The Approach
The creation of an innovation center was one of three proposals put forward in The River Valley: At the Tipping Point., a regional economic development plan prepared by TIP Strategies for the chamber and its allies in 2005. To help make this recommendation a reality, TIP worked with regional leaders to conduct focus groups, hold community forums, and survey the local business community in order to define the specific needs the center would address. Based on this information and our understanding of entrepreneurship, TIP assisted the steering committee in a number of tasks, including creating a legal structure for the entrepreneurship center, developing a 3-year business plan and 12-month budget, creating an entrepreneurial infrastructure, identifying a site for the center in downtown Fort Smith, recruiting a full-time director, and creating a board of advisors from leaders in the community.
The Outcome
The Innovation and Entrepreneurship Center of Fort Smith (the IEC) will become an important asset for the greater Fort Smith area and will serve as a model for the rest of the state. The center has been structured to help the regional economy by reaching out to neighboring communities. Housed in space donated by a major local bank in downtown Fort Smith, the IEC will serve as a one-stop shop, event and meeting space, as well as a place to “plug in” with extra work spaces for entrepreneurs in the area. The newly recruited director, who brings extensive experience from her work as an executive with the North Carolina Rural Center for Economic Development, has already begun to hold educational events and to address gaps in the area’s entrepreneurial infrastructure. She is leading the charge with new marketing materials using a local business, including the development of a new web site to serve as a portal of information for entrepreneurs. Under an agreement with the University of Arkansas at Fort Smith, the IEC’s executive director will be an employee of the university. This is a positive development. It serves as a source of stability for the organization and creates a benefit to the executive director by providing a stable salary, benefits and support. The IEC is well on its way to becoming a success story for the Fort Smith region.
Rusty Myers Assistant Ex. Director/Dir. Of Economic Development Western Arkansas Planning & Development District 1109 S. 16th St. Fort Smith, Arkansas 72901 479.785.2651
