Reflections on the 11th Annual Public Private Partnership Conference

Written by 2011 Fellow, Schuyler Woods

Determining compounding returns in an Excel macro is so much easier than determining the solution to unemployment. To think I was under the illusion I was actually shaping future income with my projection models! While my future simulations were solitary work, a recent conference I attended convinced me that the creation of wealth is truly a collaborative and labor-intensive effort. My former duties as an analyst paled in comparison to the road ahead of me as a non-profit professional. Mayor Gray’s words at the 11th Annual Public Private Partnership Conference affirmed this.

The unemployment situation in D.C. is dire, the mayor announced: Wards 7 and 8 report 17% and 25% unemployment respectively. (Bear in mind that the national average hovers around 9%.) Also known as “East of the River,” these areas are faced with limited access to services like health care, economic resources and quality education. Such issues are of particular importance to my fellowship organization, Washington Area Community Investment Fund (WACIF) where providing technical assistance and low-rate financing to small, disadvantaged businesses in these areas serves as its mechanism for change. The services offered by non-profits like WACIF and other attending organizations were desperately needed in this lumbering economy, Mayor Gray emphasized.

Before I could put the mayor’s words into perspective, I shuttled off to a seminar to monetize the story of my organization, noting to link anecdotes to our appeals to investors. For example, I quickly jotted down the success story of Niyyah Electric and how WACIF financing allowed the company to create 5 jobs, 3 of which came from Wards 7 and 8.

Then I attended another seminar on financial analysis and learned some good ratios to apply to my credit memo I was constructing for a paint distributor. Sidenote: a week later I got the project funding approved by the loan committee – another two jobs created!

Finally, I capped off my Public Private Conference participation with a lunch and speech, given by the youthful Associate Director of the White House Office of Public Engagement, D. Paul Montiero. Montiero gave a brief background of the Office formerly known as the Office of Public Liaison and Intergovernmental Affairs and described how the newly branded office sought to hear the issues and concerns of the public. The goal of the Office is to connect public concerns with the appropriate Federal body to get the job addressed.

I left the conference with a greater sense of the immense amount of community work needing to be accomplished, the tools to chip away at these feats and connections to public and non-profit partners who could affect change together. It was comforting to know that there were so many people committed to improving their communities! Now if I can only construct the perfect proposal this week to fund that new urban self-defense gym…