Aspen is a place for leaders to lift their sights above the possessions which possess them. To confront their own nature as human beings, to regain control over their own humanity by becoming more self-aware, more self-correcting, and hence more self-fulfilling.
Challenges with hiring, retaining, and supporting staff are common across many Community Development Financial Institutions (CDFIs) and the wider nonprofit sector. These patterns have consequences for both workers and employers, lowering employee morale, increasing turnover, and diminishing productivity. Conversely, maintaining and strengthening capacity are essential to mission-driven organizations’ ability to provide critical services to their communities.
As shown by CDFIs in the Shared Success demonstration, improving job quality within small business support organizations presents a promising strategy: better jobs can drive better outcomes for staff, organizational performance, and the communities and small businesses that these organizations serve.
This brief illuminates how leaders from these CDFIs see job quality as a value-aligned and mission-oriented strategy to increase staff engagement, employee retention, and organizational success. It shares key lessons and takeaways that could be used to implement internal job quality practices to strengthen CDFIs and other small business support organizations.
Shared Success, a project of the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program, shows how building better jobs can simultaneously uplift workers while also driving small business success.
About the Economic Opportunities Program
The Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program advances strategies, policies, and ideas to help low- and moderate-income people thrive in a changing economy.
Join Our Mailing List
To receive occasional emails about our work — including new publications, commentary, events, fellowships, and more — join our mailing list.
Video — Shared Success, a project of the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program, is grounded in the understanding that building better jobs and building stronger businesses go hand in hand.
This infographic shares statistics on impact of the Economic Opportunities Program’s Shared Success demonstration. Dive into a detailed breakdown of the diverse businesses and entrepreneurs involved in this work.
This brief shares key lessons and takeaways that could be used to implement internal job quality practices to strengthen CDFIs and other small business support organizations.
Supporting small business owners in understanding and acting on workers’ perspectives is a promising practice for simultaneously advancing job quality and small business development organizations’ missions to promote economic resilience.
Comprehensive findings from qualitative and quantitative research on participating small business owners and workers conducted at the end of the demonstration will be released in spring 2026.
This endline evaluation of the Shared Success demonstration aims to understand the impact of the work of the 11 community lenders who integrated job quality programming into their small business support services.
