Successful Community Navigator Pilot Program deserves permanent place in small business-support playbook

There’s no disputing the significant role small businesses play as drivers of the economy and the backbone of neighborhoods. That’s true during good times or bad, as the coronavirus pandemic reminded us in no uncertain terms.

What’s also true without a doubt is the constant struggle of small businesses to survive, especially in historically underserved communities. When they thrive in an increasingly complex economy and constantly changing market, neighborhoods benefit from dollars that typically stay local, supporting workers, families and other businesses.

The Community Navigator Pilot Program, a federally funded pandemic-response tool, helped demonstrate the power and efficiency of delivering support to small businesses how, when and where they needed it the most. In CNPP’s hub-and-spoke design, a Small Business Administration partner (hub) connects business development organizations (spokes) with small businesses assistance that focuses on long-term recovery, sustainability and growth. 

As a hub, LISC Phoenix can attest to the success of the program. It partnered with four spokes — Arizona Asian Chamber of Commerce; Retail, Arts, Innovation and Livability Community Development Corporation (RAIL CDC); Southwest Human Development and Trellis — to serve areas they know and where they are known to deliver support to small businesses, including access to capital, technical assistance and marketing and business development.

A recent LISC study found that through mid-July Phoenix-area CNPP partners
have provided more than 1,145 hours of one-on- one business coaching to more than 210 small businesses — of which 77 percent are minority-owned and 52 percent are women-owned. Also, according to the study, the CNPP program helped create or retain nearly 940 local jobs and secured $3.2 million in capital for business supported with CNPP resources. 

“The numbers speak for themselves in terms of the success we’ve had with (CNPP),” David Longoria, a program officer at LISC Phoenix, said.

What these business development organizations do now under CNPP is an extension of the work they’ve done for years to help improve the prospects of small businesses and residents in underserved neighborhoods. Their efforts are part of an anti-displacement movement that disproportionately affects low-income, marginalized groups and communities.  

CNPP does exactly what it is designed to do in building resilience in businesses and the communities they serve. But, sadly, CNPP is set to sunset in November, despite its unquestionable success and support in the Biden administration budget plan to continue the program. 

In Congress, CNPP is viewed only as a pandemic-related program, even though it addresses major hurdles small businesses faced before the pandemic and will continue to face even as many people see the pandemic in the rearview mirror.  LISC Phoenix hopes to meet with members of the Arizona congressional delegation during the summer recess to discuss the anticipated sunset of CNPP.

“It works,” Longoria said of CNPP. “So, now what? Once it goes away what programs are like it that we can rely on. Why is it going away if it’s working? Shouldn’t we capitalize upon its success?”

Those questions take on a certain urgency considering new and ongoing challenges for small businesses. 

The Phoenix metro area remains one of the fastest-growing places in the nation, which demands the attention of government and businesses to meet needs, particularly in housing. Redevelopment pressures continue to be one of the greatest enemies for small businesses, especially in the transit corridor areas where LISC Phoenix focuses its attention. 

And then there’s climate change. The Phoenix metro area has busted multiple heat records this summer, creating conditions that tax individuals and businesses alike. Clearly, climate change will impact business growth and development plans. Small businesses will continue to need help navigating what’s to come.

In December 2022, LISC Phoenix hosted an economic development tour of four distinct and diverse neighborhoods along or adjacent to the Valley Metro light-rail corridor — a historic central Phoenix shopping district, in an east Tempe corridor adjacent to Arizona State University, in west Mesa’s Asian District and the southside downtown Mesa Distrito Latino. 

An eclectic mix of small-business owners in those corridors are in the same community and economic development boat. Entrepreneurs and innovators are on business development adventures, charting courses to financial success in neighborhoods experiencing change and all the opportunities and challenges that brings. 

“You don’t need to be in the tech industry to be innovative,” Longoria said during the tour. “You don’t need to be in biosciences to try to scale up your business and move it to the next level in a way that’s thinking outside of the box. There’s a place for all of that, of course, in the economy and in the ecosystem that we’re trying to build. But these folks out here are really contributing to not only to the built environment but to the built community. They’re doing it through their resilient efforts and through their innovations.” 

The ecosystem of support that Trellis built through CNPP helped McDowell Road commercial corridor businesses survive the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Many of them expanded. Trellis’ long history of community development in the neighborhood and the relationships it established were key to that success

RAIL CDC’s CNPP efforts were in the neighborhoods where it has built trust and relationships through years of offering services such as technical assistance and leading creative placemaking projects — Apache Boulevard in Tempe, west Mesa, downtown Mesa and Distrito Latino south of downtown Mesa.  CNPP and ongoing RAIL initiatives fall under the umbrella of an anti-displacement strategy as part of a concerted effort to protect current residents and businesses from economic and cultural harm. 

A stop at Ako International Market, an African-centric business that has been in the corridor for 20 years, highlighted the challenge of leasing commercial space as buildings are razed or repurposed during gentrification of neighborhoods. Augie Gastelum, a lead consultant for RAIL CDC, said businesses like Ako International Market received critical support to weather the pandemic crisis, but development pressures that could squeeze them out of space and lost opportunities to build assets are an everyday threat. 

In west Mesa, the work RAIL has done with Arizona Asian Chamber of Commerce has provided technical assistance for businesses in the Asian District and Southwest Human Development, Arizona’s largest nonprofit dedicated to early childhood, has supported innovation at places like Beautiful Oasis Childcare.

Megan Baciao of Southwest Human Development, said a business development program through CNPP fills a gap in the child-care industry. It helped give child-care providers confidence to ask questions about business insurance, staffing and taxes and to build trust and respect within the community.

“That’s been a lot of my work with the providers,” Baciao said. “It’s ‘You can trust me. You can ask me a question. It’s OK. If you’re doing something wrong, it’s OK. We’re going to fix it. We’re going to talk through it. I’m going to give you ideas on who you can reach out to.’ ” 

She also acknowledges mutual benefits from CNPP. 

“In a nutshell, this opportunity has been so rewarding,” Baciao said. “I have spent the year giving business owners confidence through the program. But LISC has given me confidence to help them. It truly has.”

The tour concluded with examples of how public policy decisions can create inequity and disparity from neighborhood to neighborhood. Distrito Latino is a neighborhood with a defined cultural identity that needs protection and preservation. It also is an area hampered by disinvestment and policy decisions that shape the central Mesa southside neighborhood in ways starkly different from development of neighborhoods north of downtown’s Main Street.

“Because policy creates conditions, the policies that we are implementing today and the policies that are going into effect today are going to affect how these places look, 10, 15, 20 years from now,” Gastelum said. “As we do all of this work, with neighborhoods, with businesses, through art and creativity, if we’re not thinking, how are we affecting policy right now and how are we advocating to make sure those policies affect these places in a positive way, then we’re failing.”

Community Navigators could be the guard against that failure. The program has done that for more than 200 small businesses in the Phoenix area during the last two years. It could have broad and deep impact for years to come with the right support.