Moving the Needle: Businesses have a role in addressing red flags in community report

The biannual report card for Springfield and Greene County shows persistent challenges and notable progress – with places for the business community to contribute, according to community leaders.

The 20th anniversary edition of the Community Focus Report was released Oct. 4 before a gathering of stakeholders at the Efactory.

In each of its 11 focus areas, like community health, education, and business and economic development, the report identifies three blue ribbons, which are places where progress is noted, and red flags, which are key trouble spots to focus problem-solving efforts.

At the report release, Carrie Richardson, executive director of Leadership Springfield, stressed to the gathering of mostly nonprofit leaders that common problems require collaborative solutions.

“One of the benefits of doing this work is that we’re not doing things in silos,” Richardson said in a panel discussion.

Each organization has its own mission and charge as it carries its work forward, she said.

“How can we unite with other people who also want to see the needle move in a certain area?” she said.

Richardson suggested participants think of issues from a business perspective.

“We are seeing individual people at industries across the community recognizing that their industries impact these very things that we’re talking about,” she said. “There’s so much intersectionality in all of the key themes of the Community Focus Report, and I’m seeing more active participation – intentional effort by business leaders – to plug in and help in ways that make a difference.”

That happens through policy changes and system changes, she said.

“It’s not just I as a business leader want to serve on a board; it’s actually saying how can our business get more involved in the community – how can we be better partners in the areas where our industry affects some of these key issues?” she said.

Leadership Springfield is a leadership development program with an alumni network of more than 2,000 graduates, according to its website. Part of its course curriculum delves into the Community Focus Report to engage with the issues it brings to light – thus mobilizing business and nonprofit leaders in moving the needle.

The information in the report comes from committees composed of local subject-matter experts, according to Community Foundation of the Ozarks officials, one of five agencies that lead the report effort. Collaborating with CFO are Junior League of Springfield, Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce, Springfield-Greene County Library District and United Way of the Ozarks.

The effort also involves more than 100 volunteers.

Business intersectionality
The Community Focus Report touches on areas that are familiar to business leaders, since they are frequently discussed in conversations about economic development and workforce attraction.

One example is child care. Springfield Business Journal has reported on the urgency of addressing the child care crisis as a statewide economic issue. A 2021 study from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce estimated that Missouri loses $1.35 billion annually through accessibility, quality and cost-related hurdles related to child care, and $280 million of the losses stem from tax revenue when a parent’s child care facility is closed, either permanently or temporarily. Employees experience absenteeism or quit altogether, forcing businesses to take on turnover costs and lost productivity.

The outlook in the Community Focus Report was dire. In Springfield, only 59% of the children ages birth to 2 who need child care are served, leaving 1,954 children without a slot.

Additionally, school district pre-K slots for children ages 4-5 fall 20% short in meeting the existing need, with 1,590 of these children left out. The report shows that there are sufficient preschool slots for preschool children ages 3-5 in a non-district setting.

An SBJ reader snapshot poll from March 2023 asked if child care needs had ever kept them from accepting a job or promotion, and 55% of respondents said that they had.

Housing impacts workforce
A local housing crisis that impacts workforce members has also been widely covered by SBJ, and the report shows some of the stakes of the issue by outlining the number of cost-burdened renters and homeowners.

A person is defined as cost-burdened when more than 30% of household revenue is expended on housing costs.

In the report, 49% of renters are identified as cost-burdened, as are 17% of homeowners.

SBJ reported in August that mortgage rates have climbed 90% since prepandemic levels, according to real estate brokerage Redfin. Additionally, homeownership is declining nationwide, with renter households growing at the second-fastest pace since 2021. In Springfield, the current homeownership rate is 42%, according to a housing study released in October 2023 by the city of Springfield.

Springfieldians need to earn $33,000 to live comfortably in the city within the target 30% range. The city’s median income is $37,491 with a poverty rate of 22%, the city study found.

In a September CEO Roundtable discussion by SBJ, Erin Danastasio, executive director of the Hatch Foundation and co-founder of the regionally focused Leaders for Ozarks Region Evolvement, identified child care and affordable housing as two key focus areas to attract economic development to the area. She also highlighted quality of life factors as being important to retaining people.

“That’s a lot of what our conversations with LORE have been around as well – how do we highlight the things that we have here that, as you’re saying, parks, outdoors, recreation, but then also our arts community is thriving and it’s so incredible,” she said. “We have so many attractions. There are so many great things that we can really build upon and focus to be able to keep individuals here and the right people here.”

Some blue ribbons in the report highlight progress in quality-of-life areas that are important to economic development. These include a healthy natural environment, a high level of engagement and collaboration in the arts and culture sector, and enhanced trails and connections.

Collaborative action
“A community report can end up being a sad newspaper. It can be something that you open up and think, wow, it really stinks to live here,” said Traci Nash, transitional consultant for the Community Focus Report, in remarks at the release event.

Nash, part of the Ozarks Public Health Institute at Missouri State University, is guiding the report initiative into its next phase.

“That’s one of the things that the Springfield Community Focus Report has done so well,” Nash continued. “It’s the Springfield way, which is that we want to be not just a good community but a great community. We want to talk about our strengths and our successes because we want people to be able to rally behind those things.”

For 20 years, the biannual report has been produced mostly through the efforts of volunteers. Moving forward, plans call for the initiative to be managed by Ozarks Public Health Institute with two staff members working on it full time and constantly updating a dashboard to track progress while serving as a rich source of data to community problem-solvers. Three-year grant funding is being sought to fund the project, Nash said.

Nash said she often hears stakeholders talk about moving the needle.

“How do we move the needle?” she asked. “And as an academic, my response to that is always questions: Where are we moving the needle to? How do we know what is moving? How do we know when we’re getting there?”

With those questions in mind, Nash said she and others have started building a model for a future Community Focus Report.

“What we decided on going forward is a model that goes from being a Community Focus Report to being a Community Focus Report plus action and data,” she said.