Strategic Planning Matters. Fail to Plan, Plan to Fail.
Liberation is central to normative African American culture, as is the deep seated belief in God. The three generations since the 1965 Voting Rights Act have also believed in democracy as their most recent expression of freedom and humanity. For 400 centuries, from 1619 to 2019, African Americans, including immigrants of African descent, have incrementally advanced the right to life, libery and the pursuit of happiness.
The faltering has come with extraordinary losses, including allies and supporters moved to support the nation’s moral evolution. There have been martyrs known - Martin, Malcolm and Medgar; Chaney, Goodman & Schwerner - and the unknown, Octavius Catto, Juliette Morgan, Jimmy Lee Jackson, Viola Liuzzo - and many thousands of others who have stood with integrity and demand that our imperfect union do better. But following a moral code, or a constitution, is no guarantee of sustained success.
Schools today remain racially segregated, with teachers and administrators struggling with inadequate public funding, limited technology access, waning parent confidence and the worst educational outcomes in the world's wealthiest nation.
Black homeownership, which is the first step toward creating generational wealth, has not broken above 50% since the 1960s Fair Housing Act.
Discriminatory practices in banking and access to capital for home purchasing and business development remain today as prominent a problem as they were when Dr. King declared banking discrimination as one of the top three issues of the 1963 "Negro Revolution."
The Legacy and Future of Inclusive Competitiveness Strategies
“Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community” is the last book Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote. The question is profound given the January 6th attempt to disrupt democracy, and overthrow the constitutional process of confirming a new President, by white people stoked to fear, even in the face of a nation uniquely designed to give them a competitive advantage in the pursuit of happiness. America is blanketed by economic competitiveness strategies because they work. Today, every region in the nation has a Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies (CEDS) Plan to guide public-private partnership investments that create regional conditions for prosperity. Yet none of these strategies prioritize nor adequately address chronic economic problems that have plagued communities of color for more than 60 years.
The NIIC and our HBCU partners will produce the America's first Inclusive Economic Competitiveness Strategy to increase the productivity of America's most vulnerable populations. By practice, HBCUs are inclusive. Therefore, to map out a national strategy for Inclusive Competitiveness, we start in the community of HBCUs, which have a 155-year-old legacy of success in cultivating innovative talent among America’s poorest and most vulnerable populations.
The nation has transitioned through three major economies, a 19th century Agrarian Economy, a 20th century Manufacturing Economy and today’s 21st century tech-based globally competitive Innovation Economy, fueled by a Fourth Industrial Revolution that’s accelerating the pace of obsolescence.
Today, America faces the convergence of three enormous imperatives:
DEMOGRAPHIC SHIFT : A racial demographic shift that will flip the nation into a minority majority population in another generation. K-12 schools have already experienced this permanent shift,yet continue to struggle. They lack adequate strategies designed to fully prepare, train and equip future generations of economic athletes the nation desperately needs to compete in a tech-based global innovation economy.
GLOBAL COMPETITION : A simultaneous rise of developing countries and new competitors have emerged across an innovation-driven global technology marketplace while America struggles to invest in cultivating all of her multicultural human talent, which remains her competitive advantage. The result is a precipitous plummet from No.1 in the IDM Global Competitiveness Index in 2017 to No. 10 in 2020 with an anemic economy still languishing from the effects of a runaway Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic.
CLIMATE CRISES : America has displayed adangerously sluggish response to rapidly changing weather patterns drivenby unrelenting climate change impacting the globe. These shifting patterns are causing more severe weather that create crises from which local and regional economies cannot quickly recover. The nation needs to pivot toward more sustainable circular local economies, particular in areas of food, water, energy, waste management and healthcare.
STRATEGIC SOLUTION : America has no more time to waste. We need a national strategy of Inclusive Competitiveness®. It is imperative that we improve the economic productivity (measure of competitiveness) of our nation’s Most Vulnerable Populations (fastest-growing segment of America), which is historically under-invested, under-utilized and under-valued. This huge and growing segment of America’s population represents the most valuable sector of increasing human talent and best investment opportunity. Today, America needs an all-hands-on-deck strategy approach. We need a roadmap that recognizes the starting condition we inherited from a 20th century segregationist society and establishes a visionary destination with a strategic pathway and measurable milestones along the way.
We begin with the end destination: Our mission is to accelerate economic productivity in targeted vulnerable communities in partnership with HBCU(S) and regional economies. We measure our success by moving the productivity needle among MVP 1 percent in 1 generation. Productivity leads to higher-wage incomes and higher-growth enterprises that enable ownership of valued assets (lands, homes, businesses, IP) that result in generational wealth.
ROADMAP :
Our map is abroad understanding of the innovation economy visualized by The IC Triangle of Success. It shows how each sector of any regional economic ecosystem feeds into higher levels of progress. It all starts with STEM/STEAM Education that adequately prepares human talent to compete in a fast-paced global innovation economy fueled by a Fourth Industrial Revolution that’s accelerating the pace of obsolescence, which compels the education sector to ensure students keep pace.
IC FRAMEWORK :
Our Inclusive Competitiveness® strategies are custom designed for regional economies, which can be different in both subtle and significant ways.From growth stage industries to supply chains and local community resources, regions cannot thrive on cookie-cutter economic strategies. All IC strategies follow the same basic framework and are applied based on regional variables, local resources, assets, collaborative coalitions, desired outcomes, timetables, investment capacity, policies, leadership inanchor institutions, and, of course, human capital. Developed by Johnathan Holifield, the Architect of Inclusive Competitiveness®, the IC frameworkprovide a basic structure for all IC strategies, however they are applied based on the region.
HBCU COMPETITIVENESS STRATEGY:
HBCUs have historically been disconnected from the regional economic development districts (EDD) in which they sit. The Economic Development Administration (EDA) has an HBCU policy that prioritizes the involvement of HBCUs in the Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies (CEDS) Planning process, which is funded by the EDA, public-private partnerships, and state and local funds. The newly established opportunity landscape includes HBCU investment policies across all 32 federal agencies and a new HBCU PARTNERS Act signed into law that establishes funding opportunities for HBCU.
The missing piece of this infrastructure puzzle is an HBCU Competitiveness Strategy developed by a collaboration of HBCUs that align with the investment objectives of federal, state and regional competitiveness goals. This is the arena in which the NIIC delivers value to our HBCU partners and our federal, state and regional clients by aligning HBCU productivity with regional, state and federal competitiveness goals to optimize investments and scale up the capacity of HBCUs to deliver economic solutions for the region and beyond. HBCU Competitiveness Strategies can serve as models for a National IC Strategy in the near future.
HBCU Competitiveness Strategy Outcomes:
The alignment of an HBCU Competitiveness Strategy by a collaborative of campuses with regional, state and federal competitiveness investment goals establishes an ENABLING INFRASTRUCTRE to meet the economic needs of the region in both workforce and entrepreneurial pipelines of productivity.
THE NIIC THEORY OF CHANGE:
The implementation of an HBCU Competitiveness Strategy activates The NIIC’s Theory of Change in targeted regions.
