Impatient. Dissatisfied. Restless.

Probably not the first adjectives you’d expect to describe one of Florida’s largest community foundations, right? But at Gulf Coast Community Foundation, we wear such labels with pride. Because they speak directly to why we do what we do.

Together with our donors, we transform our region through bold and proactive philanthropy. We are profoundly dissatisfied with the status quo, bored with excuses—in philanthropy and in our community. So, we figure we have a choice. Sit back and merely respond to community challenges as they surface. Or proactively apply our energy and intelligence to a battle plan for transforming our region.

We choose the latter. Here’s how.

LEAD: It’s in our DNA. Right risks, right rewards. That’s our mantra at Gulf Coast. Take the opportunity that arose in 2011 to bring a world-renowned genetics-research institute to Sarasota County. We didn’t blink. Instead, we mobilized a coalition of government, businesses, and citizens who worked together to try to make The Jackson Laboratory-Florida a reality.

While the facility did not materialize here—you’re welcome, Connecticut!—I tell my staff that our hard work was neither time nor effort wasted. The experience showed our community just how quickly it can coalesce to pursue a game-changing goal. Key players remain committed to bringing personalized medicine, with its health and economic benefits, to our region.

If scientists already knew the outcome of every experiment before they undertook it, there would never be a new discovery. The way we see it, our efforts on the Jackson Laboratory project were groundwork for the breakthrough.

LEVERAGE: From job boards to springboards. While the bid for Jackson Labs recently topped a local business magazine’s “best of 2011” list, I would venture that Gulf Coast’s greatest success of the year was another jobs-focused idea: the CareerEdge Funders Collaborative Manatee-Sarasota.

Two years ago, Gulf Coast helped create, fund and incubate this upstart workforce-development model. Other investors included the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, with a $1-million grant; Bradenton’s Central Community Redevelopment Agency, co-chair of the investors committee along with us; and other local governments and national businesses.

What set CareerEdge apart—besides this diverse group of funders—was its dual focus on employers and employees. Rather than train people for jobs that don’t exist, CareerEdge went to the source, employers, to understand and meet their specific labor needs. We did the research and focused on our region’s most promising growth industries: healthcare, manufacturing, transportation and logistics, and technology. And we made sure employers had skin in the game, with jobs and career paths awaiting the workers we helped train.

The results have been amazing. CareerEdge surpassed its 2011 annual projections by midyear, outperforming similar collaboratives nationwide. Hundreds of local residents have been hired or promoted at growing employers, thanks to the training the received through CareerEdge. Meanwhile, of nearly $4 million secured for this initiative, much has come from outside our region, a part of our strategy from the outset.

With a relatively small amount of our own funding but a lot of big thinking, Gulf Coast helped create a leverage point that has lifted the philanthropic resources in our region while inspiring  individuals with the real promise of—and path to—a brighter future.

INNOVATE: Creating (Steve) Jobs. In typically quotable fashion, University of Central Florida economist Sean Snaith told Gulf Coast’s board of directors last quarter that Florida’s economy needs cogs as well as dreamers: cogs to keep the economic machine humming; dreamers to imagine the next great machine. The recent loss of innovator Steve Jobs helped crystallize this insight for me.

Jobs, a liberal-arts dropout, changed the world by combining technology, design and marketing in new and innovative ways. He needed an army of engineers and technologists to create the iPhone and iPad. They needed creative design experts to craft the beautifully simple designs of his products. And they all needed finance and accounting majors to document the wealth of one of the world’s richest companies.

Through CareerEdge, we are creating cogs, but they are cogs with dreams of their own. Meanwhile, we know that our economy needs both STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) and liberal arts majors, but right now the facts say we are falling short on STEM. That’s why Gulf Coast has committed millions of dollars to a multiyear project to revolutionize STEM education in our community.

At Gulf Coast, we are inspired pragmatists. We are practical dreamers. We strive to create the next good jobs in our community, and the next great Jobs. We are impatient and dissatisfied, yet we are here to stay. What others might see as inherent contradictions, we consider the foundation of community.

FORWARDFlorida - The Voice of Florida's Super Region

The University of South Florida Polytechnic has opened the first public business technology incubators in Polk County. The Blue Sky Incubation Program & Applied Learning Labs focus on attracting and nurturing entrepreneurial high-tech businesses in an environment where USF Poly faculty, staff and students can work with them to develop innovative technology.

The bottom line: Incubated companies benefit from the proximity to and resources of a national research university as well as the assets of economic development networks.

Here's a little background: Started in 2010, the program has four locations: Blue Sky West in Lakeland, Blue Sky East in Winter Haven; Blue Sky Wauchula in Wauchula and Blue Sky Sebring in Sebring. Consistent with most business incubation programs, Blue Sky offers residential programs, which include office space along with the incubation services, and virtual programs, which do not include office space. Blue Sky operates as a single business incubation program across all locations, but only Blue Sky West and Blue Sky East offer residential programs. These two locations also provide business outreach to help develop and launch successful, high-tech startup companies, while the Wauchula and Sebring locations serve as general educational outreach facilities that welcome community members to learn about business development as well as about college preparation and USF Polytechnic’s educational offerings.

Although Blue Sky has world-class facilities, business incubation means more than providing space for entrepreneurs looking to start the next big business. Seminars, workshops, business consultation and access to a network of approved service providers also define a successful incubation program.

In turn, entrepreneurs hoping to build their company within a business incubation program must apply through a formal acceptance process and, once accepted, abide by the program’s policies and procedures. The entrepreneurs then sign a contract that describes the nature of the program. Although the entrepreneurs may leave after their contract has expired, if both entrepreneur and incubation program staff are satisfied with the status of their relationship, the entrepreneur’s contract can be renewed until the benchmarks established at the program’s start have been met. The business incubation process typically runs for approximately three years.

A business incubation program largely bases its review criteria on the program’s reason for being developed. At their core, all business incubation programs foster economic development, but they accomplish this goal in a variety of ways. Beyond launching successful companies, which results in job creation and the use of the host communities’ service providers, business incubation programs serve as hubs for innovation, fostering entrepreneurial activity in communities and bringing people together to create initiatives that would otherwise be difficult, if not impossible, to establish.

When a university sponsors a business incubation program, the client companies receive the additional benefit of collaborating with the university’s students and faculty. The resulting internships and research projects increase the positive economic impact of the business incubation program on the community. Therefore, the criteria that a university-hosted business incubation program, such as USF Polytechnic’s Blue Sky, uses to evaluate potential client companies will include the companies’ fit with student educational objectives and faculty research opportunities. The facilities housing such a business incubation program will usually have space set aside for student and faculty research projects. In addition, client companies’ program fees are reinvested in the programs and services to continuously improve them for the benefit of client companies, students and faculty.

FORWARDFlorida - The Voice of Florida's Super Region

By Randolph E. Berridge
President, Florida High Tech Corridor Council Inc.

It’s true that the major high tech hubs around the country have 50 years on us. Silicon Valley took shape in the late 1960s with the emerging semiconductor industry in Northern California, and North Carolina’s Research Triangle came by its name in the 1950s with the creation of Research Triangle Park.

But in Florida’s High Tech Corridor, we have something unique that has driven this technology-rich region to become internationally recognized as a thriving innovation hub in as little as 15 years. What sets this Super Region apart is the power of its partnerships.

The Florida High Tech Corridor Council (FHTCC) was created to align naturally competitive local economic development groups into a force for regional economic growth. Since the Council’s beginning, all the partners that came to its table lived by one rule: Leave your logo and your ego at the door. That motto has become the formula for success—not only for branding the region as a single entity, but also for leveraging the efforts of all partners to further initiatives in research, workforce development and, especially,

FORWARDFlorida - The Voice of Florida's Super Region

By Gray Swoope                              
Florida Secretary of Commerce
President & CEO, Enterprise Florida Inc.

Having worked in economic development since 1985, I have come to view it as more than my career: It’s a tried-and-true means for affecting positive changes in a community. Undoubtedly, the benefits of smartly conceived and well-orchestrated economic development initiatives can be invaluable. One that is so relevant to Florida is when a community — whether a city, county or “super region” — transitions to more proactive and visionary thinking about its growth potential and ability to improve the quality of life of its residents.

Essentially, this is our state’s long-range economic development vision. It’s simply for Florida to be an ideal place to live and work, which can be realized through economic diversification and the advantages deriving from it.

Achieving greater industry diversification, particularly in sectors that offer higher wage jobs, certainly is vital to Gov. Rick Scott’s 700,000-job goal. The main reason is competition; Florida is vying for such jobs against nations as well as other states. Therefore, from a strategic perspective, my focus is on positioning Florida as a progressive, innovative and business-friendly state. One way to accomplish this is through fostering organic growth; growth from within Florida, particularly through entrepreneurism and the development of small and medium-sized companies. Input from our local and regional economic development organizations (EDOs) is critical. Furthermore, we must forge a team statewide to compete for business in the global landscape. Partnering with the EDOs is essential here as well.

Amid these objectives is a need to change those mindsets that still distinguish Florida primarily for its success in its long-established industries such as tourism, agriculture, space and marine. Our business prospects worldwide need to know that besides these industries — and scenic beaches, exciting theme parks and sunshine galore — Florida has made strides in advanced manufacturing, aviation, cleantech, life sciences, homeland security and defense, and corporate headquarters establishments. Florida also has emerged as a leading center for trade and logistics.

To fulfill our economic development objectives and jobs goal, we must focus on an attribute that I have mentioned: teamwork. I always have found it to be a basis for success. I am a relentless advocate for teamwork, having seen its highly positive results during my years leading economic development in Mississippi. Everyone from Tampa Bay to Metro Orlando — Florida’s Super Region — who is driving efforts toward a long-term healthier economy is exemplifying the teamwork we need statewide. The communities are where the rubber meets the road in this work. And through the Super Region, we are witnessing a burgeoning partnership of government, corporate and nonprofit organizations take action on an agenda they have set for progress.

This tactic of cross-partnering with all involved in the economic development process is necessary to execute Gov. Scott’s vision of an improved and unified approach to economic development. Often, I inform communities and remind economic development veterans that states do not compete; it is the resources of each community that compete with another community outside the state. Consequently, to be successful at the state level, we must work together to enhance the competitiveness of each Florida community. When this happens, a state develops a business environment that is conducive to growth.

As we build a state team, I look forward to partnering with the Super Region and other coalitions statewide to grow and retain jobs, strengthen the economy, and make Florida an ideal place to live and work.

FORWARDFlorida - The Voice of Florida's Super Region