A longtime East Side economic development nonprofit that has struggled with leadership turnover in recent years has officially tripled its service territory, despite its new leader’s concerns over its capacity to do so.
The turnover at SAGE, or San Antonio for Growth on the Eastside, has meant that competing visions for the organization have at times pulled focus off its mission to boost economic development on the East Side.
James Nortey, who began his tenure as CEO in January, said he knew he was being hired to help rebuild the organization.
“What I did not understand was the level of chaos, confusion [and] emotional pain” he heard from the organization’s board, staff and the community it seeks to serve. Once onboard, Nortey also learned the extent of the group’s strained finances.
He spoke to the San Antonio Report recently from the conference room of SAGE’s offices, inside a 1918 two-story stucco building on Chestnut Street that once served as a Freemason Lodge. He had a presentation at the ready describing where SAGE had been, and where he hopes to steer it in the near and longterm future.
For the past six months, Nortey has been meeting with community members, other nonprofits, city officials and potential donors — “really, anyone who would take a coffee with me” — while at the same time scrambling to understand SAGE’s financial picture and its core mission, which he distills into two things: promoting economic development and “cultural vitality” on the East Side.
Nortey acknowledged the breadth and depth of the challenge. Staffers wanted to know, “‘Who’s this guy from Austin or Houston and what does he know about the East Side?'” he said. “And in the community, there’s a sense of ‘here we go again.'”
Since he started, he’s been block walking, introducing himself to small business owners and when necessary, re-introducing the organization that’s had a presence on the near East Side for decades. His forays into the community have taken him beyond SAGE’s historical 22-square-mile service territory, which had roughly mirrored federal Promise Zone boundaries delineated in 2014.
Promise Zones were an Obama-era effort to target communities that had suffered from generations of disinvestment, and infuse them with resources to increase economic activity, improve educational opportunities and enhance public health. The federal designation ended in January of this year.
Last month, the SAGE board expanded the nonprofit’s service area to about 75 square miles, expanding north, south and farther east of its original territory. Despite Nortey’s concerns over whether SAGE has the capacity to serve that territory, he said the need to do so outweighs those concerns.
McKayla Sumbry, chair of SAGE’s board of directors, said the Promise Zone area “will still be our core focus. However, we have received so many requests for help from people outside of that boundary” that it made sense to expand.
The larger service area will also help SAGE satisfy the requirements connected to a $432,000 grant from the City of San Antonio that allows SAGE to offer small business support programs through 2025, Nortey said, and hopefully partner with Bexar County as well.
He’s been pitching the small business program to everyone he meets, and says he’s found “a real hunger, not just in terms of the concrete needs of the business, but also for a sense of community, a network, a sense of ‘I don’t have to do this alone.'”
Future city support uncertain
SAGE is one of three “business development organizations,” or BDOs that have historically received funding support from the city, both for individual programs and operations.
SAGE, Prosper West and Southside First Economic Development Council each serve small businesses within the geographic confines of their service areas, all of which have historically suffered from neglect and disinvestment.
Each was allocated funding in the city’s fiscal year 2024 budget, but after an internal audit in 2023 found that the city had not been adequately monitoring its funding agreement with Prosper West, the city paused its support for all three organizations. Brenda Hicks-Sorensen, executive director of the city’s Economic Development Department, has also cited the turnover at SAGE as a reason to pause.
Earlier this year, the city chose to funnel about $1.5 million in federal pandemic relief money to SAGE, Prosper West and Southside First, plus three other nonprofits that had not received city funding in the past.
The lack of funding in the interim, however, caused what Nortey termed an “existential crisis.” Prosper West’s executive director resigned, Nortey laid off one staffer, and the head of Southside First effectively laid herself off while waiting for the new funding to flow.
But the money also came with additional support, through LISC, a national nonprofit that works to strengthen local organizations in the communities it serves. LISC San Antonio formed the BDO Alliance to offer behind-the-scenes help to all six organizations’ boards with leadership training, technical assistance and funding.
The money — about $260,000 per organization — will last through 2025, and can be used for operations. It’s unclear what kind of city funding or support SAGE or the other organizations will get beyond that.
Hicks-Sorensen was noncommittal about specific funding for the BDOs in the proposed 2025 budget, which City Manager Erik Walsh will present to City Council on Aug. 15, but did say that “small business services will be a significant part of that conversation.”
Sumbry said SAGE is grateful for the city’s support, including lending the organization a city executive who served as interim CEO last year, allowing the board time to be thorough in its latest search for a leader.
“But SAGE is in need of their continued support,” Sumbry said. “We’re hopeful, that when the budget is released, there’s at least something in there for SAGE.”
‘The next Black Panther’
Sumbrey said the board knew it needed to find a multi-talented leader who could stabilize the organization and regain the community’s trust.
“We affectionately called it the search for the next Black Panther,” she said. “And we were pleased with the number of applicants we had. But James was a standout.”
Nortey was already living in San Antonio when he heard about the job, working for a corporate law firm in Houston. His parents are immigrants from Ghana; Nortey was born in Dallas and grew up in El Paso.
After college at Baylor University, he earned a law degree from Harvard and a master’s degree in technology commercialization from University of Texas at Austin.
He’s been an active volunteer and advocate ever since, serving on the Texas Civil Rights Project’s board for several years, Austin’s Planning Commission and several other nonprofits, including Six Square: Austin’s Black Cultural District and PeopleFund. After Austin, Nortey moved to Houston for work.
He contrasted what he saw as “mistakes” made in Austin versus “what Houston had done well” from an economic development standpoint.
Nortey got to San Antonio in 2019 after marrying his wife, who is from here. He continued to work remotely for the Houston law firm until taking the job at SAGE.
As he meets with members of the community, Nortey brings along a couple one-pagers he created, one of the organization’s impact in 2023, the other a “strategic snapshot” of the group’s priorities, it’s 2024 budget and growth and a call for more community investment.
His goal is to go beyond stabilizing the operation. SAGE recently applied for a $150,000 federal Health Services, Community Economic Development planning grant, and next year Nortey hopes to seek Community Development Financial Institution status, which would allow SAGE to provide more capital to the community.
“We don’t want to just slice the pie thinner,” he said. “We want to bake more pies, invest in the businesses that are already here, the talent that’s already here. And with a little bit more nutrition and water and love and care, we can blossom.”
