Free webinar for economic developers
Community-backed startups: how cities grow local companies with grant money
Thursday, November 12, 2026, 11:00 a.m. Central (12:00 p.m. Eastern, 9:00 a.m. Pacific). Online, 45 minutes, with Wesley Stevens, founder of Quillify.
Most economic development budgets go to recruiting a large company from somewhere else. This session is about the other way to create local jobs: your organization wins grants for a problem your region has, and the local startups and small businesses already working on it get funded to solve it. The money stays local, and so do the companies.
Why Wes is running this
Wes started out as a founder with no network and no money behind him. He went looking for help and found accelerators, investors and incubators, each with its own model. Grants were the one source he could actually reach. Even then, the proposal took more time than he had, and most grant money was out of reach for a company his size.
The funders he has talked to since say small companies do more with each grant dollar than large ones. They still pick the large ones, because they trust them to manage the money and the reporting. Cities, EDCs, universities and nonprofits can win that money easily. Wes saw that if they partnered with their local startups, the funder gets an applicant it trusts and the startup gets funded to do the work. Quillify is built to make that partnership practical.
What you will leave with
- Build here, not buy here. Why a relocation deal is the expensive way to add jobs, and which grant programs fund the problems your local companies are already solving.
- Win the grant without new staff.How a city, EDC or chamber leads the application, names local firms as partners and follows the purchasing rules, with the proposal drafted from everyone’s own documents.
- Answer the funder’s worry.How the partnership gives the funder the management it trusts and the impact per dollar it wants, and how organizations like Oklahoma Farm Bureau run their members on Quillify today.
Who it is for
City and county economic development organizations, chambers of commerce, regional partnerships and member organizations that support local businesses. If your board asks how many jobs your work created, this is for you.
Save your seat
Free. We send the join link and a calendar invite to your email.