Entrepreneur Friendly Toolkit

ACOG Launches the Entrepreneur Friendly Toolkit

ACOG has developed The Entrepreneur Friendly (EF) Toolkitcommunity planning program for supporting small business development. The EF Toolkit is a seven-month, seven-step planning curriculum for individual cities and counties that is delivered through an interactive, password protected website. Going through the seven-step process will enable cities and counties to become more"entrepreneur friendly", or supportive of and attractive to entrepreneurship.

The Process:

The EF Toolkit calls for a local city or county public-private task force to work through "seven steps" on an interactive website, www.EFToolkit.com.  A password protected feature enables the website to save and store the online work completed by the local task force.  That "work", or series of goals, objectives and strategies, ultimately populates the community's"Entrepreneur Friendly Action Plan" – which is a type of strategic plan generated upon completion of the seven-step process. 

What Are The Seven Steps?

The"steps" are local economic development topics for which the task force is asked to develop goals and strategies. There is a full task force meeting for each step/topic.  The steps are: (1) Market Research, (2) Business Planning Resources, (3) Business Capital, (4) Local Networks and Incubators, (5) Business Compliance, (6) Marketing and Promotion, and (7) Centralized Information.  At the end of each step (on the website), there is a blank "strategic plan table"that the task force "champion" (leader) is asked to fill in with feedback from the group.  The accumulation of strategic plan tables for each of the seven steps ultimately combines to form the final EF Action Plan.

Successful Entrepreneur Friendly Action Plans