logo
    • Magazine
    • Membership
    • Donate
  • Racial Justice
  • Economic Justice
    • Collections
  • Climate Justice
  • Health Justice
  • Leadership
  • CONTENT TYPES
  • Subscribe
  • Webinars
    • Upcoming Webinars
    • Complimentary Webinars
    • Premium On-Demand Webinars
  • Membership
  • Submissions

Philadelphia Seeks $500 Million Shift in “Eds and Meds” Spending to Local Firms

Steve Dubb
November 28, 2018
Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print

November 26, 2018; Philadelphia Inquirer

Philadelphia Anchors for Growth & Equity, or PAGE, is a new citywide initiative that seeks to significant boost local purchasing by 13 city universities and hospitals, writes Diane Mastrull in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

“This is a unique collaboration between the city, a nonprofit, and all of our major eds and meds institutions.… They’re all lined up to figure out how to use their purchasing power to create more jobs,” says Jeff Hornstein, executive director of the Economy League of Greater Philadelphia, the nonprofit that founded and is leading the PAGE initiative.

The Economy League seeks, over the next 8–10 years, to “localize $500 million in contracts at 13 city hospitals and universities for goods and services—such as office supplies, lab equipment, food, video production, and web design,” Mastrull explains. If the League succeeds, that level of redirected purchasing could generate as many as 5,000 living-wage, middle-skill jobs for Philadelphia residents. The scale of the effort is audacious. But there is precedent. As NPQ reported earlier this year, in Great Britain, a buy-local effort in Lancashire (county seat: Preston) shifted nearly £200 million in spending (about $255 million at current exchange rates) and is estimated to have generated 1,600 local jobs in four years.

Harold Epps, Philadelphia’s commerce director, notes that, “We have a lot of power in where and how we spend our dollars.” Along with the Commerce Department, the other participating anchors are Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, Drexel University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Pennsylvania Health System, Temple University, Temple University Health System, all of which provided seed funding. Also participating are Salus University, Community College of Philadelphia, Einstein Healthcare Network, La Salle University, St. Joseph’s University, and University of the Sciences.

Hornstein, before directing the Economy League, had worked for the city of Philadelphia as director of financial and policy analysis. Hornstein was project director for a 2014 Controller’s Office report that found that a 25 percent increase in local spending by area institutions would mean 4,400 new jobs and create an additional $14 million in annual tax revenue for the city. A little over a year ago, in May 2017, Philadelphia voters approved a ballot question that gives small businesses a better shot at nonprofessional services contracts with the city by allowing that work to be awarded based on “best value” rather than lowest price.

PAGE’s public launch follows a report by the Sustainable Business Network of Greater Philadelphia. Titled Local Procurement: An Evaluation of Barriers and Solutions from the Business Perspective, that called on “city government and local anchor institutions (especially hospitals and universities) to buy more goods and services locally in order to promote a ‘vibrant, equitable, and resilient economy.’”

Sign up for our free newsletters

Subscribe to NPQ's newsletters to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

The PAGE effort also borrows lessons learned from similar (if smaller) efforts in Baltimore, Chicago, Detroit, and Cleveland. Mariya Khandros, who is director of shared services at the Economy League and is leading the PAGE project, observes that, “We are pioneers in certain strategies to do this work, but we are following in the footsteps of several successful initiatives.”

Kurt Sommer directs the Baltimore Integration Partnership, one initiative that has inspired PAGE. The initiative Sommer leads has worked the past eight years to support job opportunities for low-income, predominantly Black residents of Baltimore.

“The work is hard, without a doubt,” Sommer concedes. “We’re taking large institutions that typically compete with each other…slowly through the years, [we] have built a table of trust…where there are common goals of supporting community needs in Baltimore…by recognizing there’s more to gain by working together in certain areas.”

Key tactics have included vendor fairs, workforce development, and small-business capacity-building. “This work is as much of an art as a science,” Summer says. “You’re working to take things institutions do at ease, going against the grain and trying to carve out intentional approaches to support local economic needs.”

Supra Office Solutions Inc. in West Philadelphia is one business that could benefit from PAGE. Lin Thomas, president of Supra, notes that small businesses face many obstacles to obtaining contracts.

“It’s been difficult to be much in the game when customers are looking to keep things with one vendor or one or two primary vendors for simplicity for billing and receivables and payables,” Thomas explains.  Ken Carter, who is a partner at Supra, also notes that the firm routinely faces the misconception that “smaller enterprises are not savvy enough to work with the larger institutions.”

But these obstacles can be overcome. Already Thomas says PAGE has helped a subsidiary business of Supra which produces medical lab supplies to get a foot in the door and ultimately land a “major dollar” contract with Penn. The new contract is expected to increase the company’s annual sales to the university to between $17 million and $25 million, up from $500,000.—Steve Dubb

Share
Tweet
Share
Email
Print
About the author
Steve Dubb

Steve Dubb is senior editor of economic justice at NPQ, where he writes articles (including NPQ’s Economy Remix column), moderates Remaking the Economy webinars, and works to cultivate voices from the field and help them reach a broader audience. Prior to coming to NPQ in 2017, Steve worked with cooperatives and nonprofits for over two decades, including twelve years at The Democracy Collaborative and three years as executive director of NASCO (North American Students of Cooperation). In his work, Steve has authored, co-authored, and edited numerous reports; participated in and facilitated learning cohorts; designed community building strategies; and helped build the field of community wealth building. Steve is the lead author of Building Wealth: The Asset-Based Approach to Solving Social and Economic Problems (Aspen 2005) and coauthor (with Rita Hodges) of The Road Half Traveled: University Engagement at a Crossroads, published by MSU Press in 2012. In 2016, Steve curated and authored Conversations on Community Wealth Building, a collection of interviews of community builders that Steve had conducted over the previous decade.

More about: colleges and universities government contractsEducationNonprofit NewsPolicy

Become a member

Support independent journalism and knowledge creation for civil society. Become a member of Nonprofit Quarterly.

Members receive unlimited access to our archived and upcoming digital content. NPQ is the leading journal in the nonprofit sector written by social change experts. Gain access to our exclusive library of online courses led by thought leaders and educators providing contextualized information to help nonprofit practitioners make sense of changing conditions and improve infra-structure in their organizations.

Join Today
logo logo logo logo logo
See comments

Spring-2023-sidebar-subscribe
You might also like
Finding Power in Community: Lessons from the Chicago Teachers’ Union
Sheri Davis
How Environmental Education Is Moving into High Schools
Ayana Albertini-Fleurant, Dr. Janelle M. Burke, Kari Fulton, Joe Hurst and Ariel Murphy Bedford
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda
To Save Legal Aid, Expand Public Service Loan Forgiveness
Zoë Polk
No Justice, No Peace of Mind and Body: The Health Impacts of Housing Insecurity for Black Women
Jhumpa Bhattacharya, Maile Chand and Andrea Flynn
Why Access to Education Is Key to Dismantling Mass Incarceration
Syrita Steib

NPQ Webinars

April 27th, 2 pm ET

Liberatory Decision-Making

How to Facilitate and Engage in Healthy Decision-making Processes

Register Now
You might also like
Finding Power in Community: Lessons from the Chicago...
Sheri Davis
How Environmental Education Is Moving into High Schools
Ayana Albertini-Fleurant, Dr. Janelle M. Burke, Kari Fulton, Joe Hurst and Ariel Murphy Bedford
Cancelling Student Debt Is Necessary for Racial Justice
Kitana Ananda

Like what you see?

Subscribe to the NPQ newsletter to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

See our newsletters

By signing up, you agree to our privacy policy and terms of use, and to receive messages from NPQ and our partners.

NPQ-Spring-2023-cover

Independent & in your mailbox.

Subscribe today and get a full year of NPQ for just $59.

subscribe
  • About
  • Contact
  • Advertise
  • Copyright
  • Careers

We are using cookies to give you the best experience on our website.

 

Non Profit News | Nonprofit Quarterly
Powered by  GDPR Cookie Compliance
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.

Strictly Necessary Cookies

Strictly Necessary Cookie should be enabled at all times so that we can save your preferences for cookie settings.

If you disable this cookie, we will not be able to save your preferences. This means that every time you visit this website you will need to enable or disable cookies again.