Economic Gardening

The GRE Regional Economic Gardening Program is designed to provide sophisticated, tailor-made technical assistance to local companies poised for growth in the Greater Rochester, NY region. GRE partners with National Center for Economic Gardening, a national organization that supports entrepreneurship, to provide this unique program to Rochester area companies.

Economic gardening is ideal for second-stage entrepreneurs because it focuses on critical strategic challenges they’re wrestling with – from developing new markets and refining business models to assessing competitive intelligence. By providing second-stage CEOs with action-oriented tools and information, economic gardening specialists point them to new opportunities they may never have thought of on their own. Selected companies will have access to a suite of high-end, high-speed development tools.

Identify qualified leads by sorting contents of extensive databases
Map geographic areas using GIS software to facilitate targeted marketing efforts
Review core strategies related to commodity and/or niche markets
Examine social media utilization to connect with customers
Place your website in front of more customers using search engine optimization
Analyze employee temperament to build strong management teams

We offer this program to a select group of companies in the Greater Rochester region at no cost, thanks to generous financial support from Greater Rochester Enterprise and Empire State Development.

Greater Rochester Enterprise president & CEO Matt Hurlbutt discussed the GRE Regional Economic Gardening Program on News 8 at Sunrise.

Does Your Company Qualify?

To apply for this free program, your business must meet the following eligibility criteria:

Be a for-profit, privately held company headquartered and operating in Genesee, Livingston, Monroe, Ontario, Orleans, Seneca, Wayne, Wyoming or Yates County
Have between $1 million and $50 million in annual revenue
Employ at least 10 but no more than 100 employees (including the owner)
Have maintained principal operations in the Greater Rochester, NY Region for at least the past 2 years
Demonstrate growth in employment and/or revenue for at least 2 of the past 5 years
Provide products and/or services to markets outside of the Greater Rochester, NY Region

Note: Retail, restaurant establishments, and local service providers (e.g. accounting, legal, staffing firms) do not qualify for this program.

Is Your Company Ready to Grow?

Applications are now being accepted for our economic gardening program.

If you have questions, please call GRE's Kate Dailey at 585-530-6209 or email Kate@RochesterBiz.com

Grow Thanks to Our Partners

Relevant Documents

GRE Regional Economic Gardening Brochure

Economic Gardening Op Ed Article

Share This

< Previous Next >

Recent map from Popular Science article shows Rochester, NY is a low risk for natural disasters (August 2014) more

Rochester's health care costs are among the lowest in the country. Commercial insurance costs are 30% below the national average. more

Strong Memorial Hospital, consistently recognized in U.S. News and Reports as "One of America's Best Hospitals in the Nation," is widely known for its cardiac care. It operates the only heart transplant program in Western New York more

Rochester, NY is the second least stressed out city according to CNN/Money. (July 2014) more

At $146,000, the median home sales price is 54% more affordable than the national average. Approximately 81% of area homes are affordable for our region's median income. NAHB Housing Opportunity Index (Q3 2018) more

The Finger Lakes was voted the nation's top wine region in America by USA Today readers in a national poll (August 2018) more

Rochester, NY was named one of the Top 10 Best Golf Cities in America. (source: Golf.com) more

According to U.S. News & World Report, Rochester is the 13th Best Place to Live in the U.S. for Quality of Life. Short commutes and high-quality education were key factors. (2018) more

Rochester's health care costs are the 4th lowest in the nation (Institute of Medicine, 2015) more

Rochester, NY is recognized as one of the 25 most innovative cities in America as measured by 24/7 Wall St. (2018) more

Rochester is ranked #1 in the U.S. for patents issued per 1000 workers (source: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, April 2015) more

Rochester Institute of Technology is one of the top schools in the world to study game design and launch games. (The Princeton Review, 2017) more

Rochester ranks 2nd among large US metros for volunteer hours per resident. (source: Corporation for National & Community Service, 2018) more

In U.S. News and World Report's 2019 evaluation of more than 17,000 public high schools, 11 schools in the Greater Rochester, N.Y. region are among the top 10 percent. more

USA Today ranked The Strong as the #3 “Best Museum for Families” in the country more

Greater Rochester ranks 13th among metropolitan regions for the number of patents issued per million residents. (Brookings Institute report "Patenting Prosperity: Invention and Economic Performance in the United States and its Metropolitan Areas" 2013) more

U.S. News gives Rochester high marks for comforts more

Yahoo Travel ranks Finger Lakes Region Among Top 10 "Lakeside Vacations that Have it All" more

Younger Americans voting with their feet are favoring moves to Rochester, NY, according to a 2019 analysis by the National Association of Realtors (Bloomberg, 2019). more

Greater Rochester, NY is among the top 10 U.S. cities where Millennials are buying homes (Lending Tree, January 2019) more

7% of the world's fresh water supply is right here in the Greater Rochester, NY Region. And water rates well below the national average. more

Rochester, NY is the 17th most “arts vibrant” place in the country, according to the National Center for Arts Research annual Arts Vibrancy Index. (July 2018) more

Greater Rochester, NY is the 15th most "digitalized economy" in the U.S. (Brookings Institution, 2017) more

Scientific Reports named Rochester 18th among "The World's Leading Science Cities." (May 2013) more

We will connect you to the right people and the right resources to expand your company in the Greater Rochester, NY region.

585-530-6200

Email Us

Contact Form