Stop Panicking & Starting Acting:
5 Steps to Save Small Businesses & Rebuild Your Economy
This is not about some ideal of small businesses. This is not about broken budgets and waiting for more federal money.
This is about being scrappy and making a difference now. This is about main street, and manufacturing, and service businesses, and everyone else shut out of the economy right now.
This is about the hard stuff.
The hard conversations. This is about getting our hands dirty – together – to save small businesses. And this is about facing the reality of what you need to do immediately to take action to build a stronger economy than you had before.
You will take away:
- Clear understanding of economic challenges
- Defined framework to rebuild economy
- Concrete actions on little to no budget
Meet Ilana Preuss, Community Development Coach, Believer in Downtowns, & #1 Advocate for Small-Scale Manufacturing
Ilana is the Founder & CEO of Recast City, author of forthcoming book, Recast Your City, and co-author of Discovering Your Maker Economy and Made in PLACE: Small-scale manufacturing & neighborhood revitalization.
Preuss’ passion for great places grew out of her experience working with big and small cities all over the country when she led the technical assistance program at the U.S. EPA Smart Growth Program, and as the Vice President & Chief of Staff at Smart Growth America.
As the daughter of a maker (you should see her mother’s quilts!) and a life-long city lover (her father still teaches her how to wander cities well!), Ilana combined her love of places, locals who love those places, and her impatience to make things happen NOW in communities into a new firm.
Through Recast City, she partners with local leaders to bring main street back to life, bring business back to downtown, and build an inclusive and resilient economy. All by bringing small-scale manufacturing businesses into redevelopment projects and place-based economic development. She is passionate about making great places and sees that small-scale product businesses are a missing piece in today’s mixed-use development, commercial property repositioning, and local economic development strategy.
When Preuss is not onsite with a city or coaching a community leader, she can be found cooking up a storm with her two amazing teens. She lives in Maryland, always hunts down the local chocolate production business, and still sings along to all 80’s music.