The Center for Public Policy and Administration (CPPA) at the University of Massachusetts Amherst is collaborating with Springfield-based Partners for a Healthier Community on an economic and community development project funded through a two-year $200,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Springfield Mayor Domenic Sarno and representatives from Gov. Deval Patrick’s office were on hand Tuesday, December 13, when CPPA and Partners for a Healthier Community announced the award and officially kicked off the next phase of the project.
The project, called the Wellspring Initiative, aims to create entry-level jobs and improve living conditions in several Springfield neighborhoods. Wellspring will use the two-year Robert Wood Johnson Foundation grant, along with matching local funds, to create a worker-owned company and to establish the infrastructure for a network of additional companies with a cooperative organizational structure.
CPPA lecturer Fred Rose is the UMass project director responsible for coordinating the Wellspring Initiative. He will oversee research about three potential businesses, which will include assessing the economic viability of each business and developing a business plan for each of the three. Rose will work with existing local organizations to ensure strong support for the new cooperatively owned businesses.
“Springfield has had difficulty attracting jobs to the area, and is among the poorest cities in the United States,” said Rose, who served as the staff director and lead organizer at the Pioneer Valley Project before coming to CPPA. “The Wellspring Initiative will create new community-based jobs in inner-city Springfield by tapping into the purchasing power of local anchor institutions like colleges and hospitals, which are the region’s largest employers. Together, these institutions purchase more than $1 billion in goods and services each year, but less than 10 percent of that money is spent within Springfield.”
Wellspring is coordinating with the region’s largest employers to identify key areas where the purchase of goods and services could be shifted to new worker-owned businesses in Springfield neighborhoods. These businesses would provide entry-level jobs and valuable skills to unemployed and underemployed city residents.
“The Wellspring Initiative is offering a creative approach to a deep-rooted problem,” said CPPA Director M.V. Lee Badgett. “We’re excited that CPPA is working closely with institutions and organizations throughout the region to strengthen Springfield’s neighborhoods, institutions and economic outlook.”
Badgett and Rose both recognize the value of collaborating with Partners for a Healthier Community, an organization with a mission to address overall health in Springfield through civic leadership, collaborative partnerships and advocacy. CPPA and Partners for a Healthier Community will also join forces with Western New England University, the Pioneer Valley AFL-CIO, Massachusetts Higher Education Consortium, Michael Kane Consulting, Third Sector New England, the Pioneer Valley Project, Jobs with Justice, and Common Capital (formerly the Western Massachusetts Enterprise Fund).
Partners for a Healthier Community was one of only 12 community-based organizations across the country to receive a Roadmaps to Health grant this fall from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The grants went to coalitions that are addressing community health from a broad perspective, incorporating factors such as education, jobs creation and improving the environment in their efforts to develop and sustain healthy people and strong communities.
CPPA is the hub of interdisciplinary public policy research, teaching and engagement at UMass Amherst. Its faculty and alumni are effective policy leaders, from the local to the global levels, in addressing topics such as family and care policy, environmental issues, emerging technologies, social inequalities and governance. The CPPA program is the 2011 recipient of the National Association of Schools of Public Affairs and Administration’s Social Equity Award, created to honor a public administration, affairs or policy program with a comprehensive approach to integrating social equity into its academic and practical work.
The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation focuses on the pressing health and health care issues facing our country. As the nation’s largest philanthropy devoted exclusively to health and health care, the Foundation works with a diverse group of organizations and individuals to identify solutions and achieve comprehensive, measureable and timely change. For more information, visit www.rwjf.org.