Industry Trade Association · Chicago, IL
A grant-funded business development program built from scratch for an industry trade association. We designed the curriculum, selection, and operating infrastructure for 40 established contractors and design firms across four cohorts, and built it to run long after the founding grant.
Built to Be Replicated
The Challenge
An industry trade association had secured a two-year grant to launch a business development program for diverse contractors and design firms. The grant covered the concept, but the program itself did not exist. There was no curriculum, no selection criteria, no operating infrastructure, no faculty, and no track record to show prospective participants. The work was to build all of it before the first cohort started, and to design it so it could run well beyond the initial grant period.
The Approach
The goal was infrastructure for scale. These were not startups. They were established businesses with real clients and real revenue, and what they needed was the operational backbone to win larger contracts and grow into mid-sized firms without breaking under the weight of their own growth.
Program design followed from there. Selection criteria, recruitment messaging, and the application process were built around the actual development stage of the firms the program aimed to serve, not a generic small-business archetype. The curriculum took shape as twelve modules covering finance, operations, business development, and the construction-specific challenges diverse firms face in winning and delivering larger contracts.
The operational infrastructure was built in parallel: vendor procurement for subject matter experts, scheduling systems to coordinate complex calendars across multiple faculty and forty participants, and monthly in-person convenings that paired classroom learning with networking. Evaluation frameworks were established early, with metrics tied to the outcomes the grant was funded to produce: business growth, contract wins, and the long-term sustainability of participating firms.
The Outcomes
First cohort launched on schedule with a full slate of participants
Sustainable operating procedures established for cohorts two through four
Evaluation systems generating the data needed to report to the funder and to position the program for continued support
A replicable model that continues to inform the association's cohort-based programming
What It Took
A program like this involves thousands of small decisions that compound over time. The discipline was knowing which ones to lock in early, selection criteria, evaluation framework, faculty contracts, and which to leave flexible enough to adjust as the first cohort revealed what was actually working. That mix of structure and adaptability is what made the program replicable rather than dependent on its builder.