Although attracting new businesses to the Lehigh Valley tends to get more attention, retaining those already here is equally important. 70 percent of new jobs created in the region each year come organically from companies already located here.

To ensure those retention efforts continue to be successful, LVEDC has created six new initiatives in the areas of “retention, resources, and regional strategies” as part of the organization’s new 2017-2020 Strategic Plan approved last month.

The plan defined 22 specific initiatives in that plan, all of which fell into one of four categories. The other initiatives were in the categories of recruitment; marketing & communications; and advocacy and leadership.

Click here to download the LVEDC Strategic Plan 2017-2020.

Each week, the LVEDC blog and newsletter will highlight a different set of initiatives from the new strategic plan.

Below are the “retention, resources, and regional strategies” initiatives:

1) Drive a business outreach and information gathering program with Lehigh Valley employers to understand their challenges and to increase their awareness of the tools and regional assets available to help them succeed and grow.

2) Collect, analyze and share information gathered from the Business Outreach Program and research and data efforts to identify needs and regional solutions and strategies to increase understanding of the Lehigh Valley’s economy, its strengths and challenges.

3) Coordinate and facilitate a Regional Education and Talent Supply initiative that harnesses all key resources and organizations to gather and share in an ongoing process both supply and demand information on workforce needs and available talent to connect employers and workers.

4) Continue to serve as the regional expert and administrator of economic development financing while increasing awareness of available resources and identifying gaps in the finance delivery system and introducing new vehicles like the Lending Network or private equity and angel investment capital to support development and job creation.

5) Regularly reevaluate the linkage of our work and efforts to our mission and strategic plan, eliminating non-critical mission creep and staying current with our stakeholder engagement, events, data and use of targeted councils.

6) Continue to broaden stakeholder engagement in LVEDC, increase our public and private financial support, and cross train and support the professional development of LVEDC staff while helping to develop and expand economic resources for the region.

These initiatives were identified as a result of several consultant studies commissioned by LVEDC to ensure the organization’s strategies are focused on the highest-quality growth and job creation possible for the Lehigh Valley.

Those studies included an economic development analysis by the Atlanta-based Garner Economics; the by New-York based Development Counsellors International; and the global firm Investment Consulting Associates.