Molino Project Launches Its Pilot

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Molino Project Launches Its Pilot with the Help of Two Public Allies


City Alive’s Molino Project is launching its pilot project focused on increasing connections across Albuquerque’s business support agencies.

Streamlining the process for entrepreneurs who are starting or scaling up a business has been on our minds since we got started in 2014. Over the last three years we have been working with partners to identify areas where City Alive could provide concrete support. With a range of organizations across the community, City Alive has identified assets and barriers in Albuquerque that either help or hinder our homegrown businesses. And while that process of identification continues, we have launched an effort with the information we have so far to work smarter and change systems so they work better for people.

City Alive’s Molino Project is taking its first run at building efficiencies in our entrepreneurial support ecosystem, with a focus on immigrant and low-income entrepreneurs. The Molino pilot project engages a number of business support agencies that are seeking ways to connect their services more directly to the people most in need of their help. Each organization participating in the pilot is working to: a) align their programming and services around a common language and understanding of what entrepreneurs need; b) adopt a shared data system; c) establish consensus about key resources for developing entrepreneurs; and d) build a system so that entrepreneurs (immigrant and otherwise) can more seamlessly flow across the programming of multiple organizations, gaining the benefits, skills and information that will help them to succeed.

City Alive has two Public Allies funded by the Nusenda Foundation supporting these efforts. Katherine Ceja is focused on working with the Molino pilot partners to help keep them on the same page with regard to how they think about serving their clients, how they talk about their programming and how they can improve referral processes among organizations. John Acosta focuses on data sharing among the pilot partners, including helping them to identify which variables they should all be tracking in common and working with them to adopt and test the Sourcelink platform. “This is collective impact at its finest using existing resources, leveraging our community’s assets and strengthening theories of change,” said Robin Brulé, City Alive’s Chief Strategist.

Henry Rael, City Alive Co-chair and Program Officer at the McCune Charitable Foundation said, “Katherine and John are helping us investigate what our broader entrepreneurial support ecosystem can look like once we deepen our collaboration among agencies and adopt common data structures to track our clients and progress.”

Public Allies is a national movement committed to advancing social justice and equity by engaging and activating the leadership capacities of our young people. City Alive shares their belief that communities already have the leadership they need to create lasting social change. We are excited to have John and Katherine on the team working to support our efforts around job creation and economic mobility for all in Albuquerque who seek it.

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