Not long ago, Bradford Paul stopped by my office to discuss a simple idea he had to do something big. Paul’s always been a idea man, with over 30 years experience helping private and public entities address the economic, social and political problems that challenge cities and neighborhoods: He was deputy mayor for housing and neighborhoods under San Francisco Mayor Art Agnos in the late 80s and 90s, served as a senior program officer at a prominent San Francisco foundation and has consulted on major urban development projects. And he had a new idea for a personal encore, focused on helping his hometown, Fall River, MA.
Like many other Northeast towns and small cities, Fall River is an historic mill town. Like so many others, it had suffered significant job and investment loss over the years from the decline of the manufacturing industry, while gaining little traction in today’s knowledge economy. Fall River and 10 other Massachusetts mill and factory towns are home to 30 percent of all Massachusetts residents living under the poverty line. Yet these towns receive only 5 percent of the state’s economic development investments over the past decade.
Paul recognized that Fall River was overlooking a powerful, as-yet-untapped asset. Thinking about the way universities mine their alumni networks, he envisioned the town’s “alumni” — prominent and talented individuals like former CBS TV news anchor Morton Dean, “kick-it-up-a-notch” TV chef Emeril Legasse and former Bank of America CEO Richard Rosenberg, all of whom attended high school in Fall River — bringing their expertise, access and resources back “home.”
On Tuesday, April 28, the Fall River Alumni Network was launched in partnership with community foundations, the Chamber of Commerce, local universities, banks and others, issuing a call to encourage people who’ve lived in Fall River to:
- Invest their time and resources in local civic projects, education initiatives and businesses,
- Persuade companies leaving nearby high-cost cities to relocate to Fall River and
- Support local businesses by shopping Fall River, visiting more often and whenever possible, moving back home.
Paul believes his model can be applied to virtually nearly any city or town with community needs and a loyal base of “hometown alumni.”
“Fall River is a city of about 90,000 people,” he noted. “We see this as a model for struggling smaller towns across America, older industrial cities of 50,000 to 150,000, and larger cities like Oakland, Detroit, Newark and Cleveland.”
You can follow the progress of this creative approach to utilizing encore talent in service of community development on the Network website and on Twitter @fallriverrising