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.
Good jobs and strong businesses are vital to the well-being of communities across the country. In today’s economy, however, 60% of workers report working in jobs that don’t meet their needs, while small business owners face challenges finding and retaining the employees they need to thrive. 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.
Over the past three years, EOP partnered with 11 community development financial institutions that worked with their small business clients to help them improve job quality. These organizations — each working in distinct communities across the US — developed a variety of supports and incentives that enabled small businesses to make improvements in job quality that, in turn, strengthened their businesses. Over the next year, our team will share findings, lessons learned, and key insights from the demonstration grounded in the experiences of community lenders, small business owners, and leaders across the country. This series will include a collection of tools, briefs, and resources to help advance job quality strategies across the field. We invite you to follow along as we share our learnings with the field.
About Shared Success
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.
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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.
