Hello from 1Berkshire’s Economic Development Team!

It’s been another fulfilling year of work! Despite economic challenges and their impacts locally, our team has continued working hard on some key initiatives that support the conditions that allow businesses, large and small to thrive, while contributing to efforts focused on improving the quality of life in the Berkshires. Economic Development can be hard to define; hopefully this update will help bring you up to date on some of the items we’ve been working on, and let you know how you can get involved!

What We’ve Been Up To

We’ve had another amazing year with the Youth Leadership Program! In April, we saw the Class of 2025 complete their program, and present on their experience and their class project at their commencement ceremony at The Stationery Factory in Dalton. This program doesn’t grow moss, however, as we kicked off our Class of 2026 in May at Camp Becket.

In September, the Center on Rural Innovation (CORI) hosted its annual conference at MASS MoCA. 1Berkshire worked closely with the team for CORI to help bring the annual Rural Innovation Network summit and conference to the region; helping them identify venues, and small businesses to tap for the event. The conference focused on how communities like ours can ensure that the future of technological innovation includes rural regions. It was an insightful day of discussion and networking, with participants from organizations and businesses both local and from around the US. It was an exciting day and continues to help promote the region as an innovation hub.

Statehouse Advocacy Day

In May, our team visited the State House in partnership with Senator Paul Mark to advocate on behalf of some key regional priorities. Joined by representatives from Berkshire Regional Planning Commission and Berkshire Agricultural Ventures, we met with the joint chairs of Agriculture and Fisheries, Transportation, and Labor and Workforce Development to discuss unique challenges and opportunities in the Berkshires, helping to ensure that the region’s perspective figures into important policy and funding work on Beacon Hill.

Letters of Support/Consults/Jobs Thing

We continue to support businesses large and small in ways we always have. So far in 2025, we have held nearly 100 business consultations, written 31 letters of support that have helped to secure at least $460,000 in funding for local businesses and organizations, and we’ve hosted 189 unique jobs on the jobs thing. If you have a small business or even an idea for a business and would like generalized advice, help with a specific challenge, or information about resources that might be available to you, sign up for a free business consultation with us! If you’re preparing a grant application or need a letter of support from the Regional Economic Development Organization or the Regional Tourism Coordinator, you can request one here. If you are hiring and are interested in using our hiring platform the jobs thing, you can learn more here.

What We’re Working On

Lani Willmar Joins the Team as ERC Fellow

You may recall that last year, 1Berkshire was chosen as one of 64 organizations nationwide to host an Economic Recovery Corps (ERC) fellow. This summer we welcomed Lani Willmar as the new Berkshire ERC Fellow. She is a Williams College alumni and founder of Ethos Pathways and Ethos Admissions, two youth-centered social impact organizations founded on education access, climate justice, and workforce development. Lani has hit the ground running – she’ll be with us for the next year and we’re thrilled to have her working alongside our team to support small businesses and youth leadership.

One of the initiatives Lani has already launched since coming onboard last month is the Berkshires’ participation as part of the inaugural cohort of 6 selected organizations in the national Rural Youth Leaders (RYL) program. RYL is a collaboration between Partners or Rural Impact, Clear Creek Initiative, and the six rural organizations from across the nation, with small teams of youth fellows creating and implementing a community-building initiative of their own design. Under Lani’s mentorship, Ryan Keating of Williamstown and Alexandra Bills of Pittsfield will create “The Berkshire Inspiration Lab”, a storytelling project that will capture the stories of local businesses, artists, and youth leaders working on environmental stewardship and creative community vitality through spotlight interviews.

As evidenced by our connection to these national programs, we are firm believers in collaboration. While the previous two initiatives have national ties as well as local action, we’re excited to also have the opportunity to work as part of the Western Massachusetts ecosystem. Our team has been thrilled to gather and collaborate with colleagues from partner organizations across all four Western Massachusetts counties for the last two years, building connections to help advocate for Western Massachusetts unique challenges and opportunities. We recently hosted a summit of Western Massachusetts ecosystem partners at the Adams Theater, highlighting housing needs and soliciting feedback on key priorities for Western Massachusetts to help build a collective western Massachusetts advocacy platform. More to come on this initiative as we continue to strengthen connections on the western side of the Commonwealth.

Belong Berkshires

Another piece of our work with a focus on connectivity is Belong Berkshires. If you know anyone who has moved to the area without some kind of local connection, you know that it can be challenging to find your people in the Berkshires. Much like any rural place, this area has many tight-knit friend groups and families, and for someone without those connections, this can be a hard place to feel like you belong. That makes it harder for those people to find their niche here, and tends to result in some of them leaving despite the quality of life the region offers, and the potential they have to thrive in the Berkshires. This poses a challenge for organizations needing to import skilled workers, who then may need to start recruiting for those positions all over again. In an effort to make it easier for transplants to the region to make connections that help the Berkshires feel like “home”, we’ve launched Belong Berkshires. With a LinkedIn page up and running to talk about the events, opportunities, sights, sounds, and everything else that makes this a wonderful place to live, it offers a great platform to help folks new to the region start building their local network. We are actively seeking sponsors to help us take this effort to the next level, so if you are interested in helping the region retain new arrivals, please reach out!

Finally, in a time where so many local business owners are approaching retirement age, we are working to support businesses through succession and transition planning. This spring, we held a technical assistance pilot cohort focused on business succession and transition, and have continued to work with business owners who are thinking about this important topic. 1Berkshire’s Vice President of Economic Development Dr. Ben Lamb and Deputy Director Kevin Pink have both completed fellowships with the Northeast Transition Initiative focused on improving their knowledge of business succession with an emphasis on employee ownership transition as a viable option. We continue to work with business owners interested in succession planning – if you’re a business owner and would like to talk to us about it, please request a consultation here. We hope to have more resources and opportunities coming online in the near future related to this topic.

What To Look Forward To

Youth Leadership Program Applications

Applications for the Youth Leadership Program Class of 2027 will open shortly after Thanksgiving! If you know a current sophomore-aged student in the Berkshires (public, private, and home school students encouraged to apply) ready for a life-changing experience that will expose them to career opportunities available in the Berkshires, meet peers from schools all over the county and regional industry leaders, and develop the skills to help them lead in workplace and academic settings, please encourage them to apply! You’ll see that applications are open at 1berkshire.com/ylp and on our social media.

We have several funding requests in the works in hopes to provide additional Technical Assistance opportunities in the winter and spring. Keep an eye on our ecommunications and social media pages (Facebook and LinkedIn) to see the technical assistance cohorts we will be offering.

Networking Opportunities

We continue to host Entrepreneurial Meetups almost every month. These events move around to businesses throughout the region and are free and open to the public (but focused on entrepreneurs and individuals/entities that provide services to small businesses) thanks to our sponsors at Common Capital. They offer entrepreneurs the opportunity to connect with their peers (typically over coffee or other refreshments) and learn about the host business and its owners’ entrepreneurial journey. This year, we’ve held Meetup events at Images Cinema, Wilder House, Bottomless Bricks, the Lee Outlets, Trustco Bank, Tea and Boba Lounge, and Kelly’s Package store. On November 25, we’ll be holding our next Meetup at Casita in North Adams – you can register here!

That’s all for this update. As always, you can stay up to date on our work and everything 1Berkshire is working on by signing up for our e-newsletters and following us on social media. You can also get a great sense of what the 1Berkshire team is working on at this year’s 1Berkshire Annual Meeting on Thursday, December 4 at 3 pm at the Adams Theater. There will be opportunities for networking with other 1Berkshire members, learning about what we’ve been working on this year, and of course celebrating the end of the year. Sponsorship opportunities are still available!