Business Adaptations to COVID-19: Gunnison County COVID Response
The Takeaways
Investing in a collective impact across regions and committing to long-term change versus a band-aid approach will make impacts and dollars go further.
Using data to inform decisions will help make meaningful change.
Always be timely and honest in communication.
The Case Study
Gunnison County had two things in mind when the COVID-19 pandemic hit: how are we doing and who can we partner with? With so many unknowns at the start of the pandemic, the County started by listening. They began implementing monthly surveys to the community on both their health and their workforce status. This data allowed them to better understand what the community’s needs were, create a baseline to track progress as they implemented programs, and gave them a pulse as to how they compared with neighboring communities. This data was captured for the community via a dashboard.
As the pandemic continued to evolve, Gunnison County began to turn to key stakeholders within the community and regional partners. Within the community, they began to work with the school district and local hospital to develop solutions to meet their needs. They also worked with Gunnison County’s ICELab, which was an already established hub of local stakeholders to build a partnership aimed at minimizing the impacts from the pandemic on the County’s workforce. Then, they took it a step further and began to collaborate with surrounding, smaller communities to help foster a regional impact. Together, this group developed shared priorities and used community survey data to analyze where the biggest impacts were in their communities.
As programs and grants came up, rather than disseminating by population or by the most popular project, they were able to assist where the need was greatest. They focused on childcare, food security, and other areas of high need. This data-driven approach helped Gunnison County and surrounding communities meet community needs efficiently and effectively.
The County has also found that communication has been the best tool for solving problems and managing local business owners’ confusion and anxiety over the pandemic’s impact on their livelihoods and employees. The focus on communication has helped the County pioneer task forces and networks that have, in several instances, spared businesses further financial blows and will likely make their return to normal working hours easier. With a tourism-based economy, the County suggests three best practices/lessons learned that can help other communities:
Commit to delivering clear, accurate, and honest information promptly. Concealing or white-washing dire economic predictions will not help businesses.
Always deliver what the County promises to the community. Regular check-ins with information updates helped the County manage community expectations as the pandemic rapidly evolved.
Get rid of hierarchies that do not allow for rapid change. This will help businesses come back and ensure that communities can be creative in their economic recovery.
Gunnison County plans to continue this regional work by keeping relationships healthy and thinking long-term. Discussions are underway about ways they can infuse resiliency and dollars into those high-need areas that were identified. They also plan to continue working with the ICELab to provide training in resiliency and business growth.
Want more information?
Contact Gunnison County’s Community and Economic Development Department.
Visit ICELab’s website.