Previous Projects

Economic Impact Analysis of the Cooper River Bridge Run

Institute staff conducted an economic impact analysis for the Cooper River Bridge Run. The analysis was a replication of the study the Institute conducted almost ten years ago. Needless to say, the local economic impact of the race on the Charleston area has grown as the race has grown. A survey of race participants in 2004 offered an estimate of the money spent on food, lodging and shopping while in town for the race. After coding the surveys, the data was entered into an input-output economic analysis model to generate a bottom line on how the money spent by participants translated into local economic activity. Last year’s economic impact from the over 30,0000 participants of the Cooper River Bridge Run was over $14 million. They spent, on average, $227 on meals and $166 on retail items. Although 60% of the runners and walkers come from South Carolina, forty-eight states are represented as well as a number of other countries. There was an expected 12,000 additional participants in 2005. This could easily increase the impact by $4 million dollars.

Weed and Seed Evaluation

The Riley Institute was contracted to conduct a mandated program evaluation for the city of North Charleston’s Weed and Seed program. The program encompassed four communities served by Weed and Seed. These communities were: Accabee, Union Heights, Liberty Hill, and Chicora Cherokee. The goals of Weed and Seed are listed below:

Law Enforcement: To eliminate drug trafficking, crack houses, prostitution, juvenile offenders and public nuisances in the target area.
Community Policing: To forge a better relationship between police and residents in the target area; to reduce the residents fear of crime; and to provide a safer community.
Prevention, Early Intervention and Treatment: To increase educational achievement among neighborhood youths; to reduce drug abuse, youth involvement.
Neighborhood Restoration: To develop micro-enterprise business and to beautify and improve the cleanliness and the physical environment of the target area.

The purpose of the evaluation is to show how well the program met these individual goals by analyzing statistical data and interviewing nonprofits and community leaders in the area.

North Park Village HOPE VI Project

In November 2001, the North Charleston Housing Authority was awarded a HOPE VI grant to revitalize North Park Village, a public housing complex housing almost 500 families. The HOPE VI program is a grant program administered by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development since 1993 in an effort to transform public housing in the United States. Recognizing that traditional public housing as a whole has failed, HOPE VI allows public housing authorities to demolish and/or renovate distressed public housing developments and replace these developments with mixed-income developments.

Some of the main goals of the program include: changing the physical shape of public housing, establishing positive incentives for resident self-sufficiency and comprehensive services that work to empower residents, and lessening concentrations of poverty by placing public housing in non-poor neighborhoods and promoting mixed-income communities. The transformation of public housing under HOPE VI requires that residents be relocated to other neighborhoods with an option to move back into the rebuilt development. To learn more about the HOPE VI program, click here.

HOPE VI Self-Sufficiency Services
In January 2003, the Riley Institute was contracted to provide case management and support services to the original residents of North Park Village. In taking on this project, the Institute hired Rachel Luckey and Judith N. Stokes as case managers. Ms. Luckey and Ms. Stokes worked to coordinate and provide comprehensive services to the residents including employment training, education, and life-skills counseling. The graduate assistants at the Institute assisted the case managers with administrative duties. The Institute's contract with HOPE VI expired in January of 2003. The HOPE VI project is now in Phase Three of moving residents out of North Park Village.

The Economic Impact of the College of Charleston (2001)

In the fall of 2001, the Riley Institute began an economic impact analysis study to determine the impact of the College of Charleston on the economy of the tri-county area. This study was designed to complement a similar study the Institute conducted in 1993. The more recent study concentrated on the impact students at the College of Charleston make on the economy directly through their spending and employment and indirectly through attracting visitors to the area who would otherwise not be visiting Charleston.

Data was collected through telephone surveys of a random sample of 394 College of Charleston undergraduate and graduate students. Students were asked a series of questions about their expenditures in the local economy. A basic input-output model-IMPLAN-was used for the economic impact analysis. Based on the model constructed for student expenditures, each $1 spent by a student has an approximate $1.40 overall impact on the local economy as it recirculates.

The major findings of the study are as follows:

The study also provided interesting information about CofC students:

Our Priorities, Our Schools

The results of a study conducted by the Institute for the Education Foundation, "Our Priorities, Our Schools," was released February 28, 2003, at the Business Education Summit at the Charleston Convention Center. In January 2003, the Institute surveyed nearly 1,200 tri-county residents on a variety of issues concerning public education in the area. This is the third year the Institute has conducted this study.

The study found that:

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