The Cassopolis-based Edward Lowe Foundation, which focuses on helping second-stage companies that have moved beyond the startup phase are ready for significant, steady growth, is getting national attention for its efforts.
The Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER) recognized the foundation for excellence in economic development research on June 9 in San Francisco. The C2ER awards program recognizes the contribution of research activities to the success of local, regional, state or provincial economic development initiatives.
The award was for YE+, subscription platform on the foundation’s YourEconomy.org website that tracks business activity and job growth. YE+ was a finalist in the category of “data collection/dissemination efforts, including web-based systems.”
YE+ enables researchers, economic developers and other users to:
- Create and save customized data regions by state, metropolitan statistical area (MSA), county and ZIP code, making it easier to compare regions and time periods.
- Further refine regions by isolating activity of establishments within specific industries via two-digit North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes.
- Download customized data from the YE+ website into a spreadsheet for further analysis.
- Purchase targeted company contact information from Dun & Bradstreet, which includes the company’s six-digit NAICS code.
“It’s all about simplicity,” said Gregg Cole, the foundation’s manager of information technology research. “The NETS database, which we use to get time-series raw data for YourEconomy and YE+, gives researchers the largest amount of economic data possible, and we deliver it in a format that’s easy to access – and easy to understand.”
