EQUITABLE ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT
City of Glendale
Tech Strategy Development and Implementation
Estolano Advisors worked with the City of Glendale to answer a critical question: how could the city position itself to compete for tech-sector growth? Through interviews with local tech leaders and employers, an assessment of Glendale's economic landscape, and analysis of which tech subsectors held the most promise, the team produced a Tech Strategy that gave Glendale EDC a clear, actionable roadmap and a set of concrete strategies and initiatives designed to spur business growth in the city. Estolano Advisors stayed on with the City to turn its recommendations into reality. EA convened local tech leaders through ongoing events and meetings, building the kind of sustained dialogue that keeps the strategy alive. On the ground, this work translated into creating commercial space dedicated to tech-related industries on Brand Boulevard and preserving manufacturing space in West Glendale — two tangible wins that protected and expanded the physical footprint available to Glendale's tech economy. EA also led the development of an RFP on behalf of the City to bring in an experienced accelerator operator, then guided the process from start to finish: recruiting applicants, evaluating 20 proposals, and ultimately helping the City select two standout operators, Hero House and Children's Hospital's KidsX. The result was a pipeline that launched and continues to grow tech ventures in Glendale.
The Office of Los Angeles Councilmember Hugo Soto-Martinez Council District 13 (CD 13) engaged Estolano Advisors to develop recommendations for the Hollywood Special Vending Zone (SVZ) Pilot, a place-based initiative designed to create a fair, safe, and sustainable vending environment along the Hollywood Boulevard corridor. The SVZ Pilot aims to balance the needs of street vendors, brick-and-mortar businesses, and the broader community by improving coordination across agencies, expanding access to vendor resources, and enhancing the corridor’s economic and public space management. Estolano Advisors (EA), in partnership with Council District 13, developed the Special Vending Zone Pilot recommendations through a multi-phase process. The phases comprised a landscape scan of local and national street vending practices, a Taskforce of business, vendor, and community representatives, listening sessions with residents, business representatives, and vendors (July–August 2025), and technical advisory interviews with city and county agencies.
LA City Council District 13
Hollywood Blvd. Special Vending Zone Pilot
LA Metro
Business Interruption Fund
Estolano Advisors contributed to an assessment of LA Metro’s Business Interruption Fund (BIF), which provides grants to eligible small businesses demonstrating revenue loss during transit construction. Using data from Metro, Lightcast, and the LA County Assessor, EA developed parcel-based maps of small businesses potentially eligible for BIF support along the planned East San Fernando Valley Light Rail Transit, Southeast Gateway Light Rail Transit, North Hollywood to Pasadena Bus Rapid Transit, and G Line Bus Rapid Transit Improvement projects. To provide additional context on these parcel maps, We conducted observational surveys along each corridor to understand potential limitations and nuances in the Lightcast data. We also developed corridor maps for other planned rail and bus rapid transit projects to estimate the number of businesses potentially eligible for the BIF.
Local Initiatives Support Corporation San Diego
Diamond District Inclusive Economic Resiliency Agenda
Estolano Advisors worked with LISC San Diego to develop an Economic Resiliency Agenda focused on San Diego’s Diamond District. The document is a three-year roadmap that supports an integrated, place-based approach to advancing economic mobility and resilience for communities in the Diamond District. The Agenda was informed by community-based organizations, local leaders, and local government to reflect recommendations that will nurture the District’s strengths, address areas of need, and foster climate resilience. The identified strategies relate to workforce development, small business development, place-making, and community ownership. Estolano Advisors conducted a quantitative baseline conditions analysis, an existing documents review, and interviews with various stakeholders. EA used feedback from LISC SD, a Community Advisory Group, and interviewed stakeholders to shape and refine the Agenda’s priorities and strategies.
Estolano Advisors served as the Equity and Climate Advisor to the Prosper Portland Inclusive Economic Development Strategy (IEDS) development process - now known as Advance Portland. The IEDS aims to identify key policies, approaches, partnerships, and investments necessary to achieve inclusive, sustainable economic growth goals in the next three to five years. EA worked with Prosper Portland and a team of consultants to craft a strategy that is rooted in racial equity and climate justice and informed by data and community voice. As a climate advisor, EA supported strategy development by identifying climate risks and vulnerabilities for Portland’s opportunity industries and identified opportunities for climate mitigation and adaptation within each industry cluster. In addition, EA and ECONorthwest drafted a racial equity lens, and conducted a series of focus groups and interviews with community members, workforce members, and nonprofit leaders to surface priorities, challenges, and opportunities and inform the IEDS.
Prosper Portland
Advance Portland, Equity and Climate Advisor
Beginning in 2018, Estolano Advisors worked with the Surdna Foundation’s Inclusive Economies team to craft a program strategy which included the development of a set of national indicators to help understand field-level change – how the economy is moving towards or away from inclusivity for communities of color. Then EA helped develop a learning and evaluation framework with program metrics to track progress on grantees’ direct impact, implemented in a pilot with a select group of grantees soon after. In 2020, our team worked with Surdna to host an Inclusive Economies grantee convening that brought together 74 grantee partners from 52 organizations to foster collaboration, share common challenges, and explore ways to leverage grantee metrics and learning to inform transformative work on the ground to reimagine the US economy. From 2023 – 2024, we facilitated the IE Program through a Five-Year Reflection process that included an updated 50-page report on the changes in the national economic indicators over the previous five years, an assessment of select grantee metrics reporting since implementing the program’s learning framework, the development of 15 grantee spotlight narrative write-ups, and a final report with recommendations and considerations for the program’s next five years.
Surdna Foundation
Inclusive Economies Program Strategy and Program Reflection
Estolano Advisors worked with the City of San Jose and Google in the development of a Community Stabilization and Opportunity Pathways Fund as part of the City of San Jose’s Downtown West Community Benefits package. The fund provides resources to minimize displacement from rising costs and to maximize opportunities for youth and adults to participate in job opportunities through training, education, and support. EA advised the clients on the design and governance structure of the fund. EA interviewed over 25 private, public, non-profit, and philanthropic stakeholders to inform the fund priorities and structure, and also researched community funds throughout the country, including interviewing fund managers to identify best practices and developing case studies for the client. EA briefed local stakeholders on research findings and developed draft Development Agreement language for discussion. In May 2021, the City approved the Downtown West project, which includes $150M for the Community Stabilization Fund. The fund design emphasizes community-led decision-making by balancing technical knowledge and lived experience; amplifying local voices of impacted communities; focusing on equity; and providing a transparent decision-making process.
Google and City of San Jose
Community Stabilization Fund
The Los Angeles Reforms for Equity and Public Acknowledgment of Institutional Racism (L.A. REPAIR) launched its first participatory budgeting program where it will distribute $8.5 million to nine highest need neighborhoods in the city of L.A called REPAIR Zones. Through a democratic process, residents will determine how this funding is used. The Participatory Budgeting Project (PBP) engaged EA on behalf of LA CHRED to evaluate to what extent this inaugural pilot deepens democracy, expands transparency, emphasizes public ownership of government resources, and builds stronger communities. We partnered closely with PBP and LA CHRED to conduct a mixed methods evaluation of the program pilot’s two cohorts across four programmatic outcomes approved by the City of Los Angeles City Council. For the evaluation, We developed evaluation metrics for each stage of the participatory budgeting process, adapting for key stakeholder audiences; created and administered qualitative surveys; and analyzed both qualitative survey results and quantitative demographic participant data against neighborhood-specific Census data. We also designed an event observation protocol and trained program staff, members of the program’s Advisory Committee and Community Engagement Partners.
City of LA Civil, Human Rights and Equity Department
Participatory Budgeting Pilot Evaluation