January Visionary Ventures: All for one, one for all — that’s not just a cliche
By Gary Trauner, Silicon Couloir ED
For those not familiar with Silicon Couloir, it is a nonprofit that focuses on entrepreneurship in the Teton region and sometimes beyond. That means it is a charitable organization that supports the private sector.
To many this might prompt what seems like a logical question: Why do we need a charitable service organization to support profit-seeking ventures? Today’s column seeks to answer that.
If you know me, you’ve likely heard me talk about the three main influential sectors of any community: the public sector, the nonprofit sector and the private sector. Let’s delve into the characteristics of each. The public sector is what we know as government. This sector obviously has a significant impact on our community and on our lives. Nonetheless, this sector has several characteristics that tend to make it more reactive than proactive in dealing with community issues and concerns.
First, public sector leadership is generally elected, which can, and often does, result in differing priorities and philosophies after every election cycle. Simply put, this makes continuity difficult to achieve. Second, in many ways, the bureaucracy of the public sector purposefully makes significant and major change more difficult — what we may gain in stability we may lose in adaptability. Third, as a generality that absolutely comes with exceptions, elected officials want to stay in office, and therefore tend to be hesitant to get ahead of the curve. The result of these characteristics? Change tends to come slowly through the public sector.
The nonprofit sector serves a vital function. It generally fills the gap where there is a perceived community need not being adequately addressed by public or private sectors. Community members may see a need for social support services, arts programming or environmental protection. If they don’t believe their specific interest is being dealt with, they may form a nonprofit to alleviate their concerns.
That leaves the private sector. As the proverbial 800-pound gorilla on the block, the desires and actions of the private sector interact with, and significantly impact, the other two sectors of our community. The private sector is the foundation of our entire economy and influences public policy through exerting its influence and financial clout on comp plans, zoning and development approval. All one needs to do is look at ubiquitous private sector sponsorship of charitable organizations here to gauge the symbiotic relationship between those two sectors.
To me the challenge is thus very clear: How can you ensure the private sector succeeds while channeling a portion of its resources in the direction of a sustainable, thriving community?
A successful private sector that provides meaningful, well-paying jobs with benefits can lift community members and alleviate, to some extent, the public sector’s social program burden. A vibrant and successful private sector can similarly reduce the demand for certain nonprofit services, allowing charitable organizations to do more and have a greater impact with their resources.
It takes all three sectors working together to meet our region’s vision and needs. Helping the private sector use its financial and intellectual clout to sustain the local community while taking some of the burden off of the public and nonprofit sectors is a win-win for everyone: individuals, government, nonprofits and, perhaps most importantly, our region as a whole.
The private sector can do well (financially) by doing good (communally) and do good by doing well.
Many of you have neighbors who have been able to stay in our region because Silicon Couloir helped them get where they are, put down roots, and fully engage in their community. Incubating one of the engines of our local economy is what we do, and it is why a nonprofit that supports the private sector makes sense.