“This (BVI) is a great complement to the Business Retention & Expansion (BR&E) we’ve done in the past”
- Paul Wiest, Community Futures of Central Kootenay
Benefits of the BVI for Communities
- Gets communities moving to action to improve business friendliness
- 10 out of first 11 BVI communities carried out actions within 2 years of BVI, a 90%+ success rate. The distinct Assess – Focus – Act stages work.
- Identifies key community & business issues and cost effective actions to address issues
- Finds out what the key & most contentious issues are in the business community in a non-confrontational, productive format. The BVI displays the range of responses for each of the 100 indicators in easy-to-read graphs and text.
- Improves Business Friendliness
- Communities can act on more than 100 key business indicators. Each of the 100 indicators is important for stimulating entrepreneurship and business in communities, & making the community more entrepreneurial.
- Diagnoses community’s entrepreneurial capacity and business vitality in an easily understood visual way.
- Community sets community priorities & realistic actions
- Community sets priorities through a proven facilitated session based on community’s interests & resources.
- Community provides “reality check” to ensure realistic actions
- Through a BVI-facilitated process, the community performs a reality check on the actions to determine if there is appropriate timing, resources, leadership, etc. to move forward with the action.
- BVI is quick & cost effective
- Once engaged, the community can be through the process in 2 three hour sessions. The BVI report can be ready in as little as 3 weeks, allowing the community to build momentum around the initiative. The BVI has been supported by federal, provincial, regional and municipal levels of government. In addition, economic development organizations, chambers of commerce, community futures organizations, credit unions, and the private sector have all been participants in the BVI.
- Allows comparison to other similar communities
- The BVI has a database of similar communities to provide a reference for communities.
- Provides a benchmark for communities
- The BVI provides a useful benchmark for communities in years to come.
- Helps to leverage resources
- Many communities have used the BVI’s inclusive process to legitimize community priorities making it easier to access funding from other programs.
- Identifies key community strengths assets, gaps & resources in unique ways & using easy-to-read graphs
- Participants identify key strengths, assets, gaps and resources in several different ways – through focus groups, quantitative and qualitative questions. The BVI reports use graphs, text, and lists for ease of reporting and to maximize comprehension.
- Engages key businesses and leaders
- The BVI helps to engage key businesses, leaders and a good cross-section of the community ensuring a buy-in on actions.
- Complements other processes like business retention and expansion (BR&E)
- The BVI has a business and a community focus. It brings together a wide cross-section of the community to assess, focus and take action. It complements BR & E programs.
- Uses community’s perceptions to determine key issues
- Perceptions are powerful & often reveal more than a statistical analysis. Sometimes the community may misunderstand the intent of local government. The BVI gives the community a chance to see where there are misunderstandings.
- Provides easy-to-read reports
- Reports contain simple graphs, lists and recommendations for easy reading. The community can see where it scores on each of the 100 indicators in addition to how it views itself on a range of other important questions.
- An 80 page full report + an 8 page summary report is posted on the BVI web-site for the community. A PowerPoint of the Assessment and final report are also made available to the community.
- Lists & ranks possible actions for communities to choose from
- Rather than just doing an analysis of the community, the BVI team provides possible actions the community could undertake based on its context. The actions are broken into short (less than 12 months) & medium-long-term issues. The actions are further broken down into 4 main areas for ease of understanding. Actions are “do-able”. The BVI Team facilitates Focus & Action.
- Conducted by objective outside facilitator
- Facilitated by CIEL, a proven national non-profit organization dedicated to building entrepreneurial communities. The BVI and CIEL grew out of addressing the needs of communities by a two-time Conference Board of Canada winning community economic development organization in British Columbia, Canada.
- Builds capacity & networks in the community
- The BVI process provides opportunities for the community to build critical bridges & networks amongst various individuals, businesses, groups and organizations in the community.
- Assists with economic & community development planning & priority-setting
- The BVI is not a replacement for community planning or an economic development strategy. However, many communities have used it to assist both economic and community development planning & priority setting & to build a realistic community “business action plan”.
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