Thurston business leaders take a collaborative approach to surviving COVID-19
Social distancing has not stopped local organizations and city governments from banding together to help Thurston County businesses and their employees navigate the coronavirus crisis on a broad scale rather than an individual basis.
Partners ranging from the Pacific Mountain Workforce Development Council to the Port of Olympia have collaborated on everything from a virtual talk show to a revamped advertising campaign for businesses operating under the limitations of Gov. Jay Inslee’s “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order.
Jennica Machado, economic development director for Thurston County, informed the Thurston County Board of County Commissioners last week that initial estimates of the damage wrought by COVID-19 include $1.7 million in lost revenue due to event cancellations, a 62 percent drop in occupancy rate at hotels and motels, and the creation of about 7,000 new unemployment claims in the county.
“Really, what these different efforts are seeing is a focal point being placed on identifying available resources and assisting businesses and workers in accessing the resources that are available,” Machado said.
At the center of the response is the Thurston County Regional Economic Recovery Task Force, a still-evolving consortium that includes the county, local jurisdictions, and institutions such as the Thurston Economic Development Council and Olympia Downtown Alliance.
Members of the task force pitched in to fund a website called Thurston Strong to host numerous links to government programs and information for how to handle situations such as teleworking and staffing reductions attributed to COVID-19.
The site is hosted by the Thurston County Chamber of Commerce and includes a link to a hotline connected to the Thurston EDC, where a live person will answer COVID-specific questions for area businesses.
The City of Olympia has appropriated $50,000 to fund the hotline, which is available from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. at 888-821-6652.
“When the faucet first got turned on, there was a deluge of inquiries,” said Michael Cade, executive director of the Thurston EDC. “It’s been a very effective resource for the businesses that we’re serving. We’ve developed a real triage model where we use the relationships and the partners we have throughout Thurston County to make sure that if you call as a business, they have an understanding of who is doing what and where they can get that resource. It’s kind of the system we have in place anyways, but on steroids.”
Small businesses in need of a large response
Along with the money for the EDC hotline, the city of Olympia has appropriated $50,000 for the COVID-19 Community Response Fund administered by the United Way of Thurston County and the Community Foundation of South Puget Sound, $18,000 to the Chamber of Commerce for Thurston Strong, and $22,650 to the Olympia Downtown Alliance to launch and market a new directory listing which local businesses are open and what they’re offering during the social distancing period.
Many storefronts have found ways to incorporate curbside or delivery service into their operations. Sophie’s Scoops Gelateria has been selling out of orders during the week and delivering them throughout the county on weekends.
Todd Cutts, executive director of the ODA, said many business owners have leaned on existing friendships to form partnerships that could well extend. He said conversations among members go back and forth between the immediate situation, as well as how to best advocate for what they’ll need when the situation pivots from response to recovery.
“There will be a point when we start talking more and more about recovery from an economic perspective and we’ll need all those voices to provide in a perfect world a clear voice to Thurston County leaders as to what business needs,” Cutts said.
Though some agencies have made targeted efforts, such as the $10,000 small business grants made available by the Lacey City Council, there’s a need to pool resources when responding to an economic emergency of this scale, a point raised often by Mike Reid, economic development director for the city of Olympia, during a recent digital meeting of the city finance committee.
There are thousands of businesses in Olympia that will require help staying afloat during the worst of the COVID-19 crisis, Reid said, as well as a boost to get back on their feet once restrictions on foot traffic and gatherings are relaxed by the state.
The vast majority of those businesses have fewer than 50 employees, with many counting fewer than 10 workers on the payroll, according to data presented to the finance committee.
Rather than attempt to equitably distribute limited city resources to people directly, he said it makes more sense to use those funds to help those seeking relief access the much more vast resources made available by state and federal governments. Thus, the creation of wide-reaching campaigns such as Thurston Strong.
“The most important thing is for people to take advantage of the [Small Business Administration] loans and the other programs in the federal stimulus package,” Reid said. “The funding there is unlike anything offered before, and our goal has to be to help as many local businesses as possible access those funds.
“If everybody did this independently on their own, we would not be serving the citizens of this area.”
Fireside chats and declassified briefings
Some members of the local business community have stepped up to contribute to the common cause in ways other than financial.
A weekly “Declassified” webinar hosted by the Thurston EDC’s Cade and Thurston County Chamber of Commerce President David Schaffert takes place at 2:15 p.m. every Thursday. Cade and Schaffert bring on guests to discuss everything from how to navigate applications for SBA loans to best practices for staying connected to furloughed employees during the outbreak.
Cade said all credit for the idea should go to Schaffert and his staff, who came up with it as a way to provide an interactive platform for people to get all sorts of economic questions answered by experts.
“The Zoom platform allows people to send in questions, so we not only get through the basic concept of the resource, but augment it with the online chat questions proffered during the session,” Cade said. “The listener has the opportunity to pose ones specific to their individual needs as well as ones that are useful to the entire audience.”
Experience Olympia and Beyond has hosted regular “Fireside Chats” for members of specific economic sectors to trade ideas and messages of support during these trying times. The tourism-focused organization has hosted one chat thus far for those businesses, as well as one for restaurants and another for retail proprietors.
The last two were both put on in partnership with the ODA. Shauna Stewart, CEO of Experience Olympia, said she’s working with the Tumwater Area Chamber of Commerce to set up a Fireside Chat for the tourism industry there.
“Experiencing a pandemic is something none of us have done before,” Stewart said. “Figuring out what to do today, tomorrow, and down the road for recovery and providing this space for people to connect with people going through the same experience to find out what each other is doing, sharing best practices for right now, it’s a reminder that we don’t have to walk through this alone and it’s not wise to do it in isolation.”
A common thought held by business leaders in Thurston County is that different parts of the local economy will need to approach the recovery period following the outbreak in ways unique to their business models.
While much of the public discussion thus far has focused on how to help mom-and-pop storefronts and small food and drink establishments, Stewart noted the importance of restoring the tourism arm of the county, as well as the potential for lingering challenges to inhibit those goals.
“Tourism is a really important part of our recovery strategy and the sooner we can infuse outside dollars into our community, the better we’ll fare coming out of this,” she said.
The collaboration between so many segments of the business community in Thurston County will put the region in a better position to compete for grants and other forms of outside support as a unified front rather than opposing forces during the recovery phase.
Cade anticipates that the new lines of communication and increased levels of cross-promotion will contribute to a stronger economic outlook for the region once the COVID-19 crisis begins to let up.
“One of the outcomes we want to have in TC is to position our community as resilient and vibrant,” Cade said. “We have a very radical disruption of the economic model going on right now, so you have to do a triage of how to get resources directly to businesses that need them to stay open, and then how to position them to come back. Our outcome has to be a stronger Thurston County.”