by Mike Sharkey
Staff Writer
The Blueprint for Prosperity initiative has three one-year anniversary dates and regardless which one you honor, those involved say the multi-year plan aimed at raising the per capita income in Jacksonville through business partnerships is working.
The plan was hatched in April 2005, announced formally a year ago last week and in February the players will sit down and look at the first full year’s worth of work. Chances are, they will be more than happy with what they see and hear.
“I’m delighted with it,” said Jarik Conrad, executive director of the initiative. “I am excited about where we are. The last few months have been really good.”
Rogers Towers attorney Bill Scheu is chair of the entire initiative and was out of town and couldn’t be reached for comment. However, Scheu has been actively involved since the beginning.
Blueprint for Prosperity is a partnership between the City of Jacksonville, the Jacksonville Regional Chamber of Commerce and WorkSource designed to create strategies that will eventually raise the per capita income in Jacksonville through what are called “community foundations” — economic development, education, racial opportunity and harmony, infrastructure, leadership and quality of life. Before putting pen to paper — or holding a press conference — Conrad, City leaders and business leaders conducted 29 focus groups with 355 participants, 14 community meetings with 580 attending and 20 task force meetings with 382 in attendance.The result was a 46-page blueprint that, over time, will outline the group’s goal: to raise the per capita income in Jacksonville half a percent a year. Jacksonville’s per capita income is currently 3 percentage points behind the rest of the country.
The success of the plan hinges on the local business community and its willingness to make a long-term commitment. A year ago, Conrad set a goal of 140 corporate partnerships by the end of this calendar year. He’s at 163 today and counting. He has a new goal and the willingness to join the effort has become so entrenched in the local business community, Conrad has been able to nearly abandon the marketing portion of the initiative.
“I want to get to 300 before the end of the year,” said Conrad, who now gets calls about Blueprint instead of having to make them and gets asked about the plan all the time. “Before, I had to do a lot of explaining. Now, a lot of people know about it. I get calls from people asking how they can help. I get asked about it in the grocery store and walking down the street.”
Conrad isn’t the only one happy with the progress so far.
“It’s totally working,” said Susie Wiles, spokesperson for Mayor John Peyton. “It has exceeded our wildest expectations in terms of the number of participants and the number of groups that have adopted the strategies. The public participation is great.”
Both Wiles and Conrad said year-one will involve primarily planning while year-two and beyond are about implementation.
The plan revolves around nine key benchmarks — Duval County residents’ income, education, jobs, racial opportunity and harmony, poverty rate, family stability, public safety, health care and housing — as well as the six foundations. Each foundation was assigned two co-chairs. John Falconetti of Drummond Press and Bruce Barcelo of Barcelo & Company are chairing the leadership foundation and have found great success during the first eight months. Falconetti said their job was to identify, train and engage “thousands of new leaders in the community” as to how they can benefit the plan.
“We are using several different strategies and ideas,” said Falconetti. “Before, to fill boards you would go to the company’s CEO and ask, ‘If you are too busy for this, who has time?’ Now, we go right after the people. Once we get out of the planning stage, we will get into the implementation stage.
“This is about asset management. We do not have to reinvent the wheel when it comes to leadership in Jacksonville. JCCI (Jacksonville Community Council Inc.), FCCJ (Florida Community College at Jacksonville) and UNF (the University of North Florida) all have leadership curriculums.
“Their (the business community) enthusiasm and energy, when asked, has been phenomenal. No one has said no.”
Conrad said a good example of the partnership at work is the local mentoring program.
“It’s the strategic alliance concept,” he said. “We have met with the experts, groups like Kesler Mentoring Connection and the Big Brothers Big Sisters. What we found out is we are only mentoring about 2,500 students a year and we need mentors for about 40,000. So, we created an alliance and now some of these groups are working together for the very first time. Our yearly goal is to mitigate that gap.
“It’s a beautiful thing. It’s off and running and I don’t have to do a thing.”