Ontario BIA Association ROI Study & Report

Project Description:

The Ontario BIA Association is the collective voice of over 300 BIAs across Ontario. The concept of a BIA was created in Ontario and is a planning tool that has now spread around the world.  In 2016, on the 50th anniversary of the first BIA forming, the Province of Ontario funded the BIA: Return on Investment Study through the Ontario BIA Association. The goal of the study was to understand the benefits of BIAs across the province and to craft a roadmap for their future success.

Based on our work with Expressing Vibrancy, OBIAA hired Cobalt Connects as part of a consulting team led by Fotenn Consulting.  Over the course of 12 months, we would dive deep into the origins of BIAs, and worked with a leadership team of 15 BIAs and sector experts from across the province to study more than 300 BIAs.

Cobalt Connects’ core task on the project was to help develop a data gathering process to understand BIAs from multiple perspectives. With BIAs producing hundreds, if not thousands of events each year, and being home to theatres, cinemas, galleries and cultural institutions – OBIAA wanted our unique perspective and cultural lens. Working with the team, we developed a diverse framework of what data was desired, their sources, and eventually how to evaluate the information gathered.  This included, but was not limited to: census data, OREA information, municipal GIS data, safety and policing data, environmental data, employment, public art, placemaking information, etc - more than 200 data types in all.

Marrying this data, with a series of surveys and ‘questions of the week’ issued to BIA managers, we compiled an immense amount of information.  The data was then sifted and filtered, compared and analyzed by the team to develop core findings and facts about the power of BIAs.

The final report was presented at the OBIAA annual Conference in Toronto, and was deemed “mandatory reading for municipal leaders” by the Ontario Minister of Municipal Affairs.

Since being authored, the information in ROI report has gone on to help spur the creation of the Digital Main Street Project, a massive injection of support for small businesses across Ontario.

Client: Ontario BIA Association

Collaborators: OBBIA Leadership, Fotenn Consulting (Lead Consultant), 300+ BIAs

Website: https://obiaa.com/

City: Province-wide, ON

Date: 2017