Louisiana Green Corps
Case Study
Louisiana Green Corps (LAGC) is a workforce development organization focused on working with low-income New Orleanians and training them for the growing green construction and water management industries.
GRAY Ink started working with LAGC in February 2020, when the organization brought on a new Executive Director. For the last eight years of operation, LAGC relied primarily on government contracts for their budget of $350,000. This meant that when the pandemic started, they were in a fiscally precarious place as many of the RFPs were delayed and government closures created significant delays, causing LAGC to go ten months without seeing reimbursement payments on critical contracts.
Working together, we identified and cultivated new corporate partners and expanded LAGC’s existing partnerships with a national foundation and a state agency. Instead of folding due to insolvency, LAGC now has an operating budget of $1.4 million and serves more than twice as many job seekers with expanded social and case management support.
Science Venture Studio
Case Study
Science Venture Studio (SVS), a startup studio and accelerator in Northwest Arkansas focused on finding and supporting scientists and entrepreneurs with innovations in need of testing and commercialization.
SVS launched in 2020, after working with GRAY Ink to secure funding for the initiative. The SVS team had already been in discussion with a potential funder about providing funding to test out a program focusing on connecting startups with support to secure SBIR/STTR funding from the federal government. But they were having difficulty closing the deal and were unsure how to handle negotiations with the funder.
After three months working together on negotiations, we were able to increase the annual grant the funder provided and receive an extra year of funding for the pilot – eventually securing $500,000 to launch in June 2020.
GRAY Ink now works with SVS to directly support businesses preparing for and developing SBIR/STTR proposals. During the pilot, we secured $3.3 million in non-dilutive innovation funding, winning 30 percent of the proposals submitted. Building off of the success of the pilot, GRAY Ink supported the SVS team to secure $1,000,000 to fund an additional two years of programming starting June 2022, significantly deepening the support SVS provides.
2020 Arkansas Capital Scan
Case study
In 2020, the University of Arkansas’ Office of Innovation and Entrepreneurship envisioned a new project to expand the capital inflows and performance of venture investment in the state of Arkansas. Based on an ongoing research project done by the University of Oregon, this project aimed to create and maintain a view of the landscape of capital resources in an effort to identify gaps and opportunities at the state level, while illuminating gaps where additional private funds could be deployed to help entrepreneurs connect to capital sources.
After five months of planning and data collection, the University of Arkansas contracted GRAY Ink to support data analysis and lead technical writing for the first Arkansas Capital Scan. The Capital Scan team identified policymakers and stakeholders with influence in policy and programming as the primary audience for the report, followed by entrepreneurs, investors, and organizations supporting entrepreneurs throughout the state as the secondary audience.
Given that it was the first year for the report and in consideration of the goal audience, GRAY Ink proposed:
drafting sections introducing the basics of each type of capital to contextualize the analysis for readers not experienced in investing;
collecting data on demographics (race and gender) and integrate race and gender analysis into the report and provide a full picture on the gaps and opportunities;
build case studies to give real world examples on how businesses capture and utilize capital to grow in Arkansas.
As a part of this scope of work, GRAY Ink collected and analyzed data on:
Arkansas economic indicators;
race and gender distribution of equity, debt, and non-dilutive investments;
comparative distributions of equity, debt, and non-dilutive investments by region and industry;
COVID-specific investments, including the Paycheck Payment Program and Economic Injury Disaster Loans.
We also lead the technical writing and data visualization of the report and its revisions. The end report was 86 pages and provided a strong foundation for local foundations and government offices to assess needed programs to advance capital investment in companies headquartered in Arkansas.
