December 2, 2025
In over 60 communities across the United States, a powerful experiment in economic development is taking root. Fellows are embedded in local host organizations, working on everything from brownfield redevelopment to outdoor recreation. Host organization staff are advising, collaborating, and planning for long-term impact. And a small group of national partners is supporting it all—helping the field of economic development learn from what’s working, what’s hard, and what’s possible.
This is the Economic Recovery Corps (ERC)—a bold, collaborative fellowship model designed to spark inclusive economic growth in communities long overlooked by traditional investment.
Want to learn more about the Economic Recovery Corps? Check out this related blog and these amazing impact stories from ERC host sites.
Root Change joined the ERC effort as a national learning partner. Our role? To help all those involved move beyond one-size-fits-all training into meaningful collaborative learning. Together with IEDC fellows, hosts, and national partners, we’re helping shape what we call the ERC Way—a practice of reflection, trust-building, and adaptive action that sits at the heart of this ambitious development program.
The ERC Way: A Shared Approach for Transformational Change
The ERC Way is more than a methodology. It’s a mindset. It begins with the belief that transformational economic development requires more than technical skills or smart strategies—it requires relationships, learning, and shared ownership of the process. At ERC, fellows aren’t seen as lone experts. Hosts aren’t expected to have it all figured out. National partners aren’t distant observers. Everyone is a co-learner.
This approach is grounded in Participatory Action Research, an iterative learning method Root Change supports across the fellowship. Fellows and hosts use the simple but powerful framework – Look, Think, Act – to explore real-world challenges, to test new ideas with the community, and adapt based on what they learn. It’s not about getting things perfect. It’s about moving forward, together, with curiosity and respect.
Using action research, ERC fellows, host organizations, and community members work as co-learners and co-researchers: they frame questions together, test ideas with the community, make sense of the data, and adapt accordingly. Through this, power and leadership shift toward those closest to the work as local knowledge is elevated alongside technical expertise and decisions are grounded in place.
In practice, this shows up as fellows facilitating community sense-making sessions, hosts stewarding implementation and data use, and national partners providing light-touch coaching, peer exchange, and administrative support that help turn learning into action. Throughout, work relationships build trust, accountability, and reciprocity, so progress is shared, capacity grows locally, and solutions are owned and sustained by the community, not just delivered to it.
Real Challenges, Honest Learning
Even from the beginning, the ERC Way hasn’t always been easy to practice. This is a national program with over 60 placements, compressed timelines, and communities facing deep-rooted challenges. Since the start, ERC has had to confront structural constraints that shape—and sometimes strain—its ability to deliver impact.
Some host sites struggle to define the changing fellow roles as the program and community needs have evolved. Others lacked the staff time to offer the kind of mentorship fellows need to thrive. Fellows arrived full of energy and ideas but too often encountered community fatigue, institutional mistrust, or rigid systems not ready for innovation. National partners found themselves stretched thin, supporting dozens of sites while also building the ERC program infrastructure in real-time.
These challenges aren’t failures—they are signals of extreme need. These signals, and their root causes, are the whole reason why we are engaged in this ambitious program. And, together, we are discovering new ways to learn and co-create in complex environments.
We’ve helped elevate and analyze these challenges through surveys, coaching conversations, and peer learning retreats. Fellows have shared what’s made their work meaningful—and what’s gotten in the way. Hosts have reflected on where they need more support.
And as a system, ERC has listened. Adjustments are being made: clearer internal communication pathways including hiring a communications manager to support internal and external communication, clarified guidance and platforms for quarterly reporting requirements, sustainability planning to support end-of-fellowship transitions, and increased attention to growing personal resilience across all aspects of the program. We’ve also deepened mid-program support and coaching for fellows and strengthened onboarding procedures for new folks joining the ERC system as hosts or fellows.
In short, learning is not just a feature of ERC—it’s the program’s survival strategy.
Building a Culture of Learning and Practice
We’ve supported the development of a learning infrastructure that includes:
- Training materials that introduce action research’s cyclical reflection and power-sharing methods as a mindset for equitable development
- Tools and prompts that guide fellows through collaborative and community-centered, planning as part of their fellowship capstone experience
- Monthly coaching and communities of practice that offer peer support across sites
- Learning retreats where fellows, hosts, and national partners reflect on challenges and co-create solutions
We’ve also worked to ensure that the ERC curriculum itself is not static. It evolves in response to feedback, shifting from technical instruction to deeper work on systems thinking, cultural humility, sustainability, and adaptive leadership—what the field of economic development increasingly demands.
What We’re Learning
A few things this work has taught us:
- Creating intentional spaces to examine structural inequities and historical context enables fellows to shift their work from transactional tasks toward more transformative, equity-centered economic development.
- Cultivating relationships is important as deliverables. Fellows succeed when they’re trusted by the community and when they trust in return.
- Learning needs structure. Without dedicated time, tools, and coaching, reflection becomes optional, growth stalls, and valuable insights are left “on the table.”
- Action research provides fellows with a method and a justification to resist pressure for immediate solutions and quick fixes. The framework helps fellows resist being pulled into tactical execution before adequately understanding context.
- Action Research is a muscle. It takes intentionality, rhythm, and support to make it grow strong. But when it clicks, action research changes how people lead in the community.
- System change is slow but worth it. Many fellows encounter resistance. The iterative cycles help fellows make strategic decisions about sequencing and focus while working in politically complex environments. And with persistence and intentional co-creation, they’re planting seeds that will grow long after their fellowship ends.
Why This Matters Now
The ERC model may not be perfect. But it’s bold. And it’s evolving.
It’s a living example of what it looks like to invest in people and distressed places—not just through financial capital, but through shared learning, intentional relationships, and imagination. It shows how targeted financial investments can lead to long-term systems change if designed with care and supported with trust.
At ERC, we see this work as part of a larger transformation in the field. A shift away from extractive technical assistance and toward peer-driven learning, networked support, and community-led innovation. We’re proud to play a role in that transformation—and we believe there’s an opportunity for philanthropy and other investors to do the same.
Investing in learning is not ancillary to impact—it’s the engine that generates impact. If we want economic development that’s equitable, sustainable, and rooted in local leadership, we need to invest in models like ERC. We need to strengthen social capital and the community infrastructure for reflection, adaptation, and co-creation.
And that’s a vision worth pursuing.
