Good Work Network News

Top News (3 Lists) Climbing the Corporate Ladder Phyllis Cassidy, executive director of Good Work Network, has only to hear Thomas Brown’s name and she breaks out in a broad smile. While Cassidy is proud of many of her 700 Good Work Network members, she has special praise for Brown, who came to her with a harrowing story. “For eight years, I was a driver at a waste management company,” explained Brown. “I told my supervisor that I wanted to move up in the company. He pointed to a six foot ladder and he told me to climb the ladder and he said, that’s as far as you’ll go.” Brown’s next step would take him further than he thought possible. Through word of mouth, Brown found his way to Good Work Network, a nonprofit organization founded in 2001 by Phyllis Cassidy, a CPA by training who worked for years in a family business until it was sold. Good Work Network coaches, supports, and educates small business owners and gives them the business skills they need to reach their full potential. “I knew what I wanted, but I didn’t know how to get it,” said Brown. What Brown wanted was to start his own flooring company. “I knew I could do the work-the stripping, waxing, buffing and carpet cleaning-but I didn’t know how to do the business part.” Cassidy’s team helped him with back office support, to file with the Secretary of State’s office, and to craft a business plan with action steps. Today, Thomas Floor Care, LLC is contracting with numerous businesses and is listed as a preferred provider for Catholic Charities. “Success comes to those who want it,” Brown said. “I’ve been chasing this success ever since I climbed that ladder and I don’t plan on stopping.” Good Work Network recently received a grant from the Community IMPACT Program to provide business development services for small community-based businesses. Climbing the Corporate Ladder [54 views] Receives Recovery Grant Improvements target N.O. neighborhoods Wednesday, April 09, 2008 By Susan Finch Nineteen grants totaling more than $581,000 have been awarded to help bring to life some of the neighborhood recovery projects envisioned in the Unified New Orleans Plan for rebuilding the city after Hurricane Katrina. The Greater New Orleans Foundation last week sent letters awarding the grants to the recipients, all nonprofit organizations or government offices, with proposals to provide a physical improvement to a neighborhood, such as a park, bike path or landscape restoration, to gather data or to create detailed plans for neighborhoods that want to supplement what is in the city's post-Katrina recovery plan. Ten grants are targeted for on-the-ground improvements. They are: -- $40,000 to the city Parks and Parkways Department to restore and enhance Palmer, Lafayette, Lawrence, Markey and Collins neighborhood parks. -- $25,000 to City Park to construct a bike path on Harrison Avenue. -- $40,000 to Good Work Network to support the purchase and renovation of the Franz Building on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard for small business incubation services and new retail businesses. -- $27,000 to Longue Vue House & Garden to support the Pontilly Disaster Collaborative's green spaces rehabilitation services. -- $30,000 to the Neighborhood Planning Network for community liaisons to promote and coordinate neighborhood improvement projects with neighborhood associations, civic organizations and nonprofit groups. -- $25,422 to Parkway Partners to plant and care for street trees in Central City. -- $40,000 to the Algiers Economic Development Foundation and the Algiers Community Foundation for facade improvements along Gen. Mayer Avenue. -- $20,000 to Stay Local to implement a part of the planned Lafitte Greenway. -- $20,000 to The Phoenix of New Orleans to establish the Broad Street Market. -- $20,000 to the Oak Street-Main Street program for street trees, bike racks, benches, gateway signage and trash receptacles on the Oak Street commercial corridor. Picture of the Franz Building [67 views] Chase Competition New Orleans Times-Picayune, 5-7-08 Chase Bank announces winners of community development competition By Rebecca Mowbray A team of students from Washington University in St. Louis and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have won a first-ever community development competition in New Orleans with a plan to renovate a historic building in Central City to support the activities of a non-profit business incubator. As a prize, JP Morgan Chase Bank NA gave the incubator, the Good Work Network, $25,000 in seed money to get started on the $2.1 million renovation of the Franz Building at 2016 Oretha Castle Haley Blvd. Phyllis Cassidy, executive director of the non-profit, which assisted more than 600 mostly start-up businesses last year, said she will use the students' plan to raise money for the project. "We got a very polished and sophisticated business plan," she said. The winning team, made up of undergraduate architecture students from Washington University in St. Louis and graduate urban planning students at MIT, beat eight other teams in the Chase Community Development Competition. The students, many of whom have been volunteering in New Orleans over the last two and a half years, said they're excited to see the Good Work Network put their plans to use and help Central City flourish. "We're very excited to work with them so a whole new generation of entrepreneurs is able to get involved in the mainstream economy," said MIT student Holly Jo Sparks. Chase ran the competition for 13 years in New York, but decided to move it to New Orleans this year at the suggestion of Ed Blakely, director of the Office or Recovery Development and Administration, who was familiar with the competition from his days as dean of the Milano New School for Management and Urban Policy in New York. John Kallenborn, president of the New Orleans region for Chase Bank, said that about half of the projects in New York got built each year regardless of whether they won. He expects the same thing will happen with the New Orleans projects, which were slated for neighborhoods across the city on themes as diverse as an eco-park, community center, a warehouse, a garden project and economic development for the arts. A project by the Milano New School to build a mixed-income residential-commercial environmentally certified development in the Lower Garden District took second place, winning $15,000 for Volunteers of America of Greater New Orleans' Renaissance Neighborhood Development Corp. Third place went to Tulane University business and architecture students for their plan to create elderly housing at the Bartholomew Golf Course in the Gentilly Woods-Pontchartain Park area. The Pontilly Disaster Collaborative will receive a $10,000 prize to support the effort. Chase plans to continue the competition in New Orleans on hopes that it will help revitalize the city and attract young professionals to the area. New Orleans City Business News Online, 5-7-08 Central City incubator moving forward By Greg LaRose NEW ORLEANS - A business incubator will move forward with its plans to renovate a building in Central City with help from a group of college students and JPMorgan Chase. Students from Washington University in St. Louis and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology collaborated on a redesign and business plan for the Good Works Network that won Chase's Community Development Competition, held in New Orleans this week for the first time in the event's 14-year history. The GWN received a $25,000 grant for the Washington-MIT team's winning design and business model for the Franz Building on Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard. GWN will serve as the anchor tenant in the building, where it plans to provide support services to 500 business a year, said Phyllis Cassidy, GWN executive director. The renovation of the pre-World War II structure is expected to cost $500,000, she said. Established in 2000, GWN provides training, technical assistance and management-support services to low-income entrepreneurs and nonprofits in the New Orleans area. The rejuvenation of Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard in Central City has been one of GWN's primary focuses, with the rehabilitation of the Franz Building as its centerpiece project. The long-term vision for the Haley corridor involves transforming it into an arts and retail district, Cassidy said. The Chase competition pairs college students and nonprofits to develop real estate proposals. Universities from across the country are eligible to participate. Other finalists this year were Harvard, Loyola New Orleans, The New School in New York and Tulane. John Kalleborn, head of Chase operations in the New Orleans area, said it is likely the competition will return to New Orleans next year. [82 views]