Title
GainesvilleConnect.com Sponsorship Request (B)
This item is a request for the City of Gainesville to become a sponsoring partner of the GainesvilleConnect.com initiative which seeks to develop a comprehensive online community tool to assist in recruiting and welcoming employees, researchers, companies and investment to the City of Gainesville and Alachua County.
Explanation
On October 24, 2012, GainesvilleConnect representative Stewart Thomas met with City Manager Russ Blackburn to discuss a partnership opportunity between the City of Gainesville and GainesvilleConnect.com. In a follow-up meeting held on December 3, 2012, city staff met with Ms. Annie Pais and Mr. Thomas to review details of a proposed partner sponsorship of the GainesvilleConnect.com initiative. Ms. Pais is Executive Director and Mr. Thomas serves as Creative Director for Florida's Eden, a non-profit citizen initiative which promotes a sustainable and prosperous regional economy for North Florida based on the preservation of our natural and cultural resources. Florida's Eden serves as the lead coordinating agency for GainesvilleConnect.com with in-kind support from Innovation Gainesville (iG) and the Gainesville Area Chamber of Commerce.
GainesvilleConnect.com describes the project as a collaborative web portal that seeks to provide a community portrait which reflects the quality of life in Gainesville and Alachua County and showcase the community as a regional hub for education, healthcare, arts and culture, recreation and a growing innovation based economy. The portal will help people relocate, find employment, start or move a business, plan conferences and identify other opportunities in Gainesville and Alachua County.
GainesvilleConnect.com requests that the City of Gainesville Commission become a participating sponsorship partner with a one-time investment of $5,000 to support development of its website. Partnership benefits include: exclusive partnership representation within your industry, control of framing of needs and messages; partnership logo display and link embedded in each page footer of the site; dedicated page content; real-time control of content management including text, photo, video, blog, newsfeeds and links; and preferred access to premium advertising.
According to project organizers, current sponsorship partners include: UF&Shands HealthCare, Santa Fe College, UF Office of Licensing and Technology (OTL), UF Innovation Square (I2), UF|Sid Martin Biotechnology Incubator, UF|Cultural Plaza and UF College of Fine Art, Gainesville Regional Airport, Gainesville/Alachua County Association of Realtors (GACAR), FloridaWorks, and Charles Perry Partners, Inc. (CPPI). City staff discussions with County staff indicate they will recommend Alachua County participation as a sponsoring partner of GainesvilleConnect.com. Other Gainesville prospective sponsoring partners include: GSOC/University Athletic Association and Plum Creek Development Corporation.
Fiscal Note
Funding in the amount of $5,000 is available to become a GainesvilleConnect.com sponsoring partner through vacancy rate savings for Economic Development.
Recommendation
The City Commission approve a one-time request to become a sponsoring partner of GainesvilleConnect.com and authorize the City Manager to use $5,000 in Economic Development vacancy rate savings to fund the sponsorship.