How Smaller Communities Foster Statewide Prosperity
When a state is recognized for economic development success, as is the case with Site Selection’s annual Governors’ Cups (one for total capital investment projects the previous year and one for total projects per capita), the big projects that create thousands of new jobs near major metros naturally come to mind. In Ohio, think Intel’s 2022 announcement that it will invest more than $28 billion in two chip factories near Columbus for production of advanced semiconductors. The campus will employ 3,000 Intel staff plus an additional 10,000 support workers.
But the Governors’ Cups recognize total projects, not just the large projects in the states’ metro areas. In 2023, 105 of Ohio’s 462 qualifying projects, or 23%, were claimed by micropolitans — communities with populations between 10,000 and 50,000 typically not associated with a larger metro. In fact, Ohio routinely is the state with the most micropolitans nationally winning capital investment projects. Findlay has been the most successful micropolitan nationally for 10 consecutive years; it won 15 projects in 2023.
What makes Ohio’s communities — large and small — so consistently successful?
On one level, it’s the state’s Midwest location, workforce supply and productivity, and a business climate that includes no corporate income tax. On another, it’s the breadth of resources Ohio and JobsOhio, the state’s private economic development corporation, in particular, make available to companies and communities.
How Small Businesses Ramp Up
The JobsOhio Small Business Grant, for example, provides up to $50,000 to qualifying companies to support business expansion activities. Recipients must be businesses that are mainly minority-, woman- or veteran-owned or run by a owner with a disability. They also must operate in a designated target industry.
Athens County-based Milo’s Whole World Gourmet, in rural southeastern Ohio, was awarded a JobsOhio Small Business Grant so it could add machinery and equipment at its 2,100-sq.-ft. production facility to keep up with growing demand for its specialty foods.
The Small Business Grant also helped support the opening in 2023 of Adelphi Bank in Columbus, the only Minority-Owned Depository in Ohio, and the first to open in the U.S. since 2000. “Starting a new community bank relies on the investment of local businesses, civic organizations, and other community members — investors who have knowledge of and relationships in the areas they’re investing,” said Kevin L. Boyce, founder, in an August 2024 JobsOhio blog. “With the assistance of organizations like JobsOhio, Adelphi Bank is possible. We’re grateful to have been received by the state in such a strong way and for the opportunity to uplift our Central Ohio community.”
In June, the JobsOhio Small Business Academy was created to assist growing B2B companies in growing their businesses. Aileron, a nonprofit providing leadership training for growing small businesses, will administer the Academy. “Aileron was founded on the belief that small businesses improve lives and raise the quality of life,” said Aileron Board of Trustees Chairman Mike Mathile at the Academy launch. “This partnership is empowering that meaningful work right here in Ohio as JobsOhio and Aileron uplift leaders, organizations and communities across the state.”
How Small Communities Are Competing
Ohio’s Vibrant Communities Program supports projects in small- and mid-sized cities deemed distressed to improve quality of place, increase real estate inventory and encourage capital investment. One of the first projects to benefit from the grant program is the Lee and Rosemary Fisher Innovation College@Elm, at Miami University in Oxford. JobsOhio describes it as “a facility for incubating and accelerating entrepreneurs, startups and small businesses that offers the training and workforce education necessary to produce Ohio’s future manufacturing and high-tech workforce.”
Governor Mike DeWine on the incubator launch: “Our smaller and mid-sized cities, like Oxford, are a rich part of the social fabric of this state, and with the expansion of the Vibrant Communities Grant Program, even the smallest villages in Ohio can better develop their communities to build a stronger economic future.”
In September 2022, a $475,000 Vibrant Communities Program grant was awarded to the Youngstown Business Incubator to spur economic development in that northeast Ohio city. A $1.9 million U.S. EDA Public Works grant also was earmarked for the project, enabling new office, research and manufacturing space in the 65,000-sq.-ft. facility. One tenant occupying space in the incubator is JuggerBot 3D, a growing manufacturer of large-format 3D printers. A JobsOhio Small Business Grant also helped the company accelerate.
“We help companies avoid game-changing surprises with a proven process that protects their confidential information,” noted J.P. Nauseef, president and CEO of JobsOhio, in an interview that appears in the 2024 Ohio Business Growth Guide. “We don’t just see company growth as a metric — we want Ohio to be their competitive advantage. And we’re willing to work as hard as it takes to make it happen.
“These smaller towns support small and large businesses alike,” he added, “due to focused investment in infrastructure and rehabilitation of buildings through programs like the Ohio Historic Preservation Tax Credit and the JobsOhio Vibrant Communities Grant that attracts $7 of private investment to rebuild downtowns for every $1 of JobsOhio funding.”
This Investment Profile was prepared under the auspices of JobsOhio. For more information, visit www.jobsohio.com.
