2022 was the beginning of BRING IT!, BRAC’s regional, five-year strategic plan. The plan elevates four big goals, each with its own priorities BRAC pursued throughout the year. These priorities included boosting efforts to find jobs and reskill for new careers, retaining college talent, driving business investment to the region in emerging sectors like transitional energy and health and life sciences, and supporting the creation and growth of minority- and women-owned businesses.
Below are BRING IT’s four big goals and BRAC’s outcomes from 2022.
BRING IT YEAR ONE HIGHLIGHTS
- Launched BR Works, a comprehensive jobs portal for the Capital Region featuring skills-matching technology to connect job seekers with local jobs and regional training opportunities, ending its first year with 75,000 portal visitors and over 10,000 job listings viewed
- Launched the Talent Action Collaborative (TAC), a business and education initiative that seeks to align the career programs within education institutions with the current needs within five of the region’s dominant business sectors, modeled on national best practices for business-education collaboration
- Secured a $2 million grant to support regional talent attraction, internship promotion, and local job seeker and area employer connection
- Secured 150 high school student internships in career pathways outlined by the TAC businesses, in collaboration with EBR Schools, as part of a workforce development pilot project
- Increased the number of area businesses using Handshake, the largest online platform connecting employers with college students, by 32% for LSU and by 42% for Southern University
- Led a coalition to pass legislation to increase computer science in grades K-12, including a state plan, state standards, teacher training, and integration into TOPS
- Advocated for and secured the passage of universal credit transferability to improve students’ ability to transfer their college credits more easily between in-state two-year and four-year institutions
- Announced a partnership and hosted a sold-out young professional event with Forum 225, Baton Rouge’s largest young professionals’ organization, to better support the region’s young professionals through civic involvement and volunteerism
- Introduced prospective newcomers to the region with BRAC’s executive talent tours program
- Facilitated 12 new business entries to the market or expansions of existing businesses, representing 627 new direct jobs and $2.5 billion in capital investment
- Partnered with GNO Inc. on the H2theFuture Coalition, which was awarded $75 million in federal and state grant funding to promote economic opportunity through the decarbonization for the energy industry in south Louisiana
- Created the Baton Rouge Carbon Reduction Alliance to drive sustainable, economic growth by positioning the Capital Region as a leader in renewable and transitional energy
- Launched BRAC’s Small Business Services program, which assisted over 120 small businesses in the region in 2022
- Advocated for and secured the extension of the Quality Jobs and Competitive Projects Payroll Incentive programs to protect Louisiana’s economic development toolkit to best attract new investments and high-quality jobs with good benefits
- Created a regular entrepreneurial ecosystem roundtable to unify the region’s small business and entrepreneurship assistance providers for greater collaboration and resource sharing
- Launched the Drive Minority Business Accelerator powered by ExxonMobil, a year-long, cohort-style program with an inaugural class of 11 participants representing approximately $54.3 million in annual revenue
- Expanded BRAC’s annual diversity event to a half-day conference titled the Economic Inclusion Symposium including a vendor connection fair and keynote presentations
- Increased the number of qualified local vendors, a list of women, minority and veteran owned businesses, that are referred to the procurement opportunities for goods and services sought by the Baton Rouge Procurement Opportunity Partnership companies
- Advocated for and secured $300 million in funding for a new Mississippi River South bridge crossing, along with a dedication of over $50 million a year for the next 30 years, and supporting the environmental process to secure the three final bridge locations, outlined on our website at org/bridge
- Launched the Page/Rice Camera Initiative with the Baton Rouge Law Enforcement & Criminal Justice Foundation, an initiative for businesses to purchase high-precision cameras linked to the police and sheriff crime centers
- Assisted with securing $1 million in renewed incentives to bring more direct flights to the Baton Rouge Metropolitan Airport
- Piloted a business-led litter clean up along College Drive with the goal of empowering businesses to take responsibility for greater litter maintenance around their physical locations
- Hosted a Canvas Regional Benchmarking trip to Greenville, SC with over 110 regional business and community leaders to learn economic development best practices from the host city
- Launched BRAC’s Substack, BR By the Numbers, to share economic research at the intersection of economic development and quality of place
Visit the report archives to find previous annual reports.
