www.greaterhalifax.com

WHO  The Greater Halifax Partnership

WHAT  A private-public model of investment that leverages every municipal economic tax dollar three times to build business confidence, secures business stability and growth, researches and reports economic trends, and removes roadblocks on behalf of business.  The organization describes itself as a “catalyst for economic growth.”

WHEN  Since 1996

WHY  Out of a desire to keep and grow business, to attract new investment and to strengthen the Greater Halifax region.

HOW  With funding from all three levels of government and the business community. “What that gives us is a lot of access to the business community,” explains the Partnership’s Executive Vice President and Chief Economist Fred Morley. “We’ve become very good at engaging the business community in our projects. In fact, if we can’t find engagement in the business community, we figure it’s probably not a very good project.”

ONE VERY GOOD PROJECT  The Halifax Connector Program which got underway just last year puts newcomers to Canada and to Halifax, in particular, directly in touch with business owners and operators, managers, civil servants, and community leaders.

HOW IT WORKS  Job-readiness for this immigrant workforce is handled by local settlement agencies. The Connector Program simply makes the introductions.  “One of the reasons that we came up with this approach is in Halifax—and probably in a lot of communities—it’s very difficult to penetrate the local business…Just getting that breakthrough, getting in to see the right people…is usually the hardest thing to do,” says Morley, describing the process as “the whole connection thing on steroids.”  

RATIO FOR SUCCESS  “The way this works is one on one,” Morley explains. “This is where people will be most at ease, where they’ll be able to perform best.”

PROGRAM PARTNERS  The Maytree Foundation and the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation.