Even before the pandemic, Main Street faced big challenges. For decades, suburban malls and online shopping had drawn customers away from the beating heart of communities — the shops where residents once congregated, conversed, and consumed.
A recent study of 30 towns across Long Island, N.Y., commissioned by the Rauch Foundation, which Nancy leads, and conducted by HR&A Advisors, found that nearly one in five businesses faced problems such as unaffordable rents, competition from online commerce, and hiring and maintaining staff — and that was before the health crisis hit. While the study found Covid-19 dealt a knock-out blow to some establishments, it also revealed how philanthropy and local governments could collaborate to bring life back to town centers and bolster their resilience against future crises.
Most notably, the research showed far greater small-business support was needed in communities of color, where permanent and temporary store closures were significantly higher than average and the lack of access to capital, including difficulty learning about and attaining federal aid, posed major obstacles. More broadly, the study showed downtowns that rebounded quicker were generally destinations for good eats and libation and embraced innovative uses of streets and public spaces, which drew visitors and created a sense of community.
Even when the pandemic is in our rearview mirror, the challenges facing Main Street — especially in low-income communities — won’t disappear. Our research, while based on the experiences of Long Island towns, uncovered a three-part approach that philanthropic organizations in any region could use to collaborate with local government and businesses to improve and revive town centers.
Quickly stabilize downtown businesses. Foundations can start by funding community-based organizations that can effectively get the word out about funding and other support for small businesses. This includes setting up offices to help small-business owners obtain federal grants. In Long Island’s Suffolk County, for example, two community-development organizations, La Fuerza and the Business Outreach Center, teamed up to establish an Entrepreneurs of Color Covid-19 Relief Fund.
Technology is also critical to stabilizing town centers — to meet customer and employee expectations for Wi-Fi access and cellphone reception and to make businesses more efficient. Corporate philanthropy has a big role to play here. Verizon, for instance, provides technology grants to small businesses hit hard by the pandemic and formed a partnership with Hello Alice, a free resource platform for entrepreneurs, to help small businesses establish their web presence.
On a larger scale, technology grants could help create town shopping portals so residents can shop locally online, much as New York City or Long Island residents do through ShopIN.nyc and Trellus, respectively. Efforts like this could focus on business owners of color, such as the Shop Your City: BE NYC Covid-19 recovery campaign, which encourages New Yorkers to shop at black-owned businesses.
To back up such efforts, foundations can fund research to influence where governments focus their efforts and how they measure success. The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation commissioned a review of existing research on how to help downtowns and public spaces recover and do so equitably. It also funded the development of a tool kit that governments can use to measure their success at meeting those goals.
What’s more, while a local chamber of commerce can provide leadership for small-business recovery efforts, they are often absent from communities of color. Family and regional foundations are in an especially good position to play a similar role by gathering local businesses and government to work with people who live in and near downtown to define short- and long-term goals for the area.
Fund the new normal. There is no reversing consumer trends, which means towns need to take flexible and creative approaches to repurposing vacant storefronts. To that end, local foundations can make grants to arts organizations that are turning empty stores into galleries and public spaces for creating, inventing, and learning.
Small grants in this area can go a long way. The Long Island Community Foundation provides grants of up to $20,000 each to support arts projects in towns such as Great Neck, where more than 40 storefronts have fallen empty, and Patchogue, where both racial tension and business flight have kept visitors away from downtown. Last summer, with support from the Long Island Community Foundation and others, the Museum of Contemporary Art Long Island in Patchogue launched MoCA L.I.ghts, an arts festival that drew more than 250,000 visitors and opened up main street for outdoor dining, live painting, a sculpture garden, and art installations, while observing pandemic protocols.
To help restaurants survive during the pandemic, towns created outdoor dining spaces on sidewalks and streets, often closing off streets to traffic. When Garden City, N.Y., opened streets to pedestrians last summer, businesses along the main commercial corridor saw a 20 percent increase in foot traffic on average during open-streets weekends compared with corresponding weekends in 2019. Philanthropy can collaborate with mayors to make these popular amenities permanent and welcoming year round, including by funding music festivals and other free entertainment.
Support long-term downtown growth. Reviving Main Street for the long term will require updating infrastructure, including public transportation, sewer capacity, and water systems so more people will want to live downtown. Philanthropy has important roles to play in all these areas.
Community foundations can, again, use their research and convening power to identify infrastructure needs and bring together government, business, and environmental leaders to develop action plans. The Rauch Foundation is currently playing this role by working with Long Island water authorities to ensure towns of all income levels have equal access to potable water. We are also funding nonprofits that are working with governments and businesses to transform downtowns in low-income communities.
For instance, to address poor infrastructure, pollution, and high concentrations of poverty in the largely African American and Latino hamlet of Wyandanch, N.Y., more than 500 community residents and government leaders created a 40-acre master plan. The blueprint envisions a walkable village with affordable housing, pedestrian and performance spaces, retail, a public health clinic, and, at its heart, a YMCA to be funded with philanthropic dollars.
Fundraising for the YMCA was almost complete when the pandemic hit. Today, Rauch is working with other philanthropic organizations committed to raising the remaining millions. We are following the path of family foundations across the country and philanthropists like MacKenzie Scott who recognize the power of such organizations to strengthen communities.
Each of these projects, no matter how small, will help struggling Main Streets rebound from the pandemic and, in many cases, years of neglect. Our downtown communities are hurting, and philanthropy needs to do its part to ensure they survive and thrive.
