Focus East
East Austin’s urban neighborhoods are rich in cultural history and diversity. East Austin is where one finds thick and warm corn tortillas, colorful murals, and the City’s most widely read community newspapers.
The composition of small businesses tells an important story about the culture, spirit and soul of an area. The cultural life of East Austin is one of the richest in our City. With the ground breaking of the Austin Revitalization Authority (ARA) project on East 11th and 12th Streets, Capital Metro’s Saltillo Redevelopment project, the Chestnut Plaza project, and numerous “loft style” housing projects planned for the area, a major economic shift is brewing. Without assisting local residents through the transition and helping them to be part of the planned changes, they will likely be both culturally and economically displaced.
In preparation for the East Austin Economic Summit of 2004, PeopleFund held a series of focus groups with East Austin business owners to assess some of the challenges and opportunities facing small businesses in the area. One of the most pressing needs that arose during the focus group conversations was that of business leadership in East Austin. Specifically, business owners were interested in increasing the capacity of community business leadership.
PeopleFund has responded by facilitating Focus East, a collaboration among East Austin business owners who want to work together on marketing, infrastructure improvements, and coalition building to create a stronger business community in East Austin.
In addition to continuing to facilitate and assist with the collaborative efforts of these business owners, our vision for Focus East is to focus on providing its participants with unique and exceptional quality training in the areas of:
- High level business management skills (financial, operational, etc..)
- Informational training on East Austin related political and economic issues.
- Influence and diplomacy skills
- Network expansion and leveraging
If you would like more information on this program or would like to be notified about upcoming meetings please contact Tanya Ladha at (512) 472-8087
