Springfield was struggling when Federal Reserve Bank of Boston researchers took a close look at the city in the late 2000s. The third-largest city in Massachusetts was once a manufacturing center for everything from bicycles to sewing machines. But those days were past.

Poverty was on the rise, education levels were relatively low, and city finances were taken over by a state control board in 2004.

Springfield’s story was similar to other smaller cities nationwide that had seen their industrial bases disappear in the mid- to later 20th century. And Boston Fed researchers wondered if this story ended the same way everywhere.

“The question was, ‘Is this place fated to decline? Or are there places that share characteristics of Springfield that have turned around?’” said Colleen Dawicki of the Boston Fed’s Regional & Community Outreach department.

The answer to that question became the basis of the Boston Fed-led community development initiative known as Working Places, which is marking its 10th anniversary this year.

The Bank’s Springfield-inspired research indicated that places that rebounded best benefitted by building collaboration toward shared goals between sectors that didn’t naturally interact, such as social services and business.

Dawicki, the director of Working Places, (which includes the Working Cities and Working Communities challenges) said that helps strengthen a community’s “civic infrastructure.” Those are the networks, organizations, and resources leaders can call on in times of crisis or opportunity.

Overall, Dawicki said, the initiative aligns with Fed’s mandate to promote full employment, and that’s meant working with local leaders to find ways to remove barriers that have long excluded residents from the labor force. She added that focus also supports the Boston Fed’s mission to build a thriving and more inclusive regional economy.

The first grants to the programs were awarded in 2014. (The three-year grants are funded by a combination of state money, private sector contributions, and philanthropy, not the Fed.) Ten years later, the initiative has reached 30 communities across five New England states.

Below, we highlight three places – East Hartford, Lawrence, and Springfield – where the Working Places concepts worked and endure. The stories are different everywhere, but they share commonalities. Flexibility proved critical, because reality often doesn’t cooperate with planning. Patience was essential, because people and places change slowly. And collaboration only works if participants clearly see how they benefit.

East Hartford sees success after a course correction

Like many Working Cities, East Hartford had to alter its best-laid plans once the work actually started. The elementary school in the Silver Lane neighborhood was initially chosen as the hub because it was seen as a place to reach the lower- to middle-income parents at the center of the team’s workforce development efforts.

But it was quickly apparent that there was a mismatch between the training or job opportunities offered and the needs of the school community, said Amy Peltier, who led the local Working Cities team, East Hartford Works!, for seven years. For instance, many young parents either didn’t want full-time work or couldn’t find the child care needed to take it.

So, the team broadened its focus and got connected with those already doing on-the-ground community development work. The result was a wide range of new partnerships and connections that helped direct people to various services. Among them:

• Collaboration with Goodwin University led to the development of a Professional Skills Academy, where participants learned “soft skills” like resume building and got technical certifications in specialties like blueprint reading.
• The library became a Working Cities hub where people improved their digital literacy and learned about available social services.
• Town departments like public works turned into a source of opportunities for kids looking for their first job.

“We just became much more effective, knowing that we didn't have to worry about staying within the Silver Lane neighborhood,” Peltier said.

As the new partnerships developed, the schools and other public departments became invested in Working Cities efforts. Funding became consistent, and, as a result, so was staffing. That all helped the initiative endure in East Hartford, Peltier said.

“I've heard our previous mayor and superintendents say we weren't working together at a level like that ever before,” she said.

Fired-up Lawrence set out to prove it wasn’t the “City of the Damned”

An article published in Boston Magazine before anyone in Lawrence heard of the Working Cities Challenge was a big reason people there were so ready to take it up.

The 2012 article tabbed Lawrence the “City of the Damned” and hit the city hard from all angles, including schools, government, and crime. No one claimed it was all fiction. But resident Jess Andors said it didn’t tell anything close to the whole story about this heavily Hispanic city that’s served for decades as a welcoming “gateway city” for immigrants. Andors, who eventually led Lawrence’s Working Cities team, was among the hundreds who attended a rally in Lawrence to protest the article.

The experience primed Lawrence to jump at the chance to be part of the Working Cities Challenge when it came up a year later, Andors said. And when they won a grant, residents saw it as validation and a way to build on their progress.

“We wanted to change the narrative around the city, we wanted to get the real story of the city out there,” Andors said. “Not just at the level of storytelling, but by doing the work on the ground to bring the changes we wanted to see.”

Today, Andors said Working Cities has become a major part of broad-based, collaborative efforts to boost Lawrence schools, businesses, and quality of the life.

The Working Cities team has focused on helping parents of public-school children find jobs with higher income potential, learn English, or start a business. It’s worked with the local community college to train more of the “para educators” and family liaisons the schools badly need. Andors said it’s also helped make public institutions like the schools an active part of the collaboration that Lawrence depends on – and hails as key to its resurgence.

A big lesson from the past decade, Andors said, is that change takes time, especially when you’re following the Working Cities model and drawing heavily bureaucratic government institutions into the mix.

“You have to be very broad-based in the networks that you build within those institutions,” she said. “Because things are going to change.”

Springfield Working Cities makes the most out of a second chance at collaboration

Springfield’s problems drove the Boston Fed to develop the Working Cities Challenge, but Springfield was not ready for the prescriptions the initiative offered – at least at first.

That first team was unsuccessful in the inaugural round, and Dawicki said that was one reason the Boston Fed installed what’s called a four-to six-month “design phase” in the Working Cities award process. It’s a period when prospective teams meet to set goals, plan strategies, understand the model, and develop rapport.

“We recognized we needed a design phase because places like Springfield were caught flat-footed the first time around,” Dawicki said. “So, it gave them a bit more running room to pull things together.”

A second Springfield team used the phase to unify and agree on an objective: improving local labor force participation. The team became Springfield WORKS and has since helped residents find skills training, access workforce reentry tools, and become certified for jobs in education, healthcare, and STEM fields.

It also played a leading role in passing a Massachusetts law that creates a pilot program to address “the cliff effect” – when an increase in income actually hurts a family by making them ineligible for needed public benefits.

Anne Kandilis, director of Springfield WORKS, said collaboration has been a critical piece of their work, but the team learned collaboration isn’t truly possible unless people and groups each see how they’ll benefit from it.

“It took time to convince people that it wasn’t a zero-sum game of winners and losers,” Kandilis said. “You can really build trust when people see there’s something in it for everyone who comes to the table.”