Southern Mississippi EcDev Students & Economic Development CRM

How Convergence CRM is Powering Learning at The University of Southern Mississippi

Convergence’s Economic Development CRM is being integrated into the University of Southern Mississippi’s master’s program so students can manage realistic projects inside HubSpot. Each student will deconstruct a real-world economic development announced win; building contacts, companies, sites, and projects directly in the system.

For many graduate students, the gap between theory and practice is a real pain point. They study incentive structures, site selection, and project pipelines, but rarely get to see how those concepts live inside a modern CRM. This collaboration between Convergence and the University of Southern Mississippi (USM) is designed to close that gap in a concrete, hands-on way.

Starting this semester, students in USM’s graduate-level economic development course will receive login access to the same Convergence Economic Development CRM that communities use in the field. Built on the HubSpot platform and tailored for economic development teams, the system lets students experience how real projects, companies, and sites are tracked from first outreach to announced win.

This is the second year Convergence has been invited to participate in the course, a testament to the value students and faculty saw the first time around. In last year’s class of about 20 students, every participant managed their own simulated project using Convergence, mirroring the way professional teams manage active pipelines. That experience laid the foundation for expanding and refining the curriculum this year.

For USM, the goal is simple but powerful: give students an economic development “operating system” they can use, not just read about. For Convergence, it’s an opportunity to support the next generation of practitioners.

Inside the Hands-On Economic Development Project Assignment

Each student will be assigned one real-world project: an announced economic development win that has already been made public. From there, they’ll rebuild the story of that win inside HubSpot for Economic Development, step by step, using the tools that practitioners use every day.

Working from public announcements, press releases, and community reports, students will first identify the recruited company behind their assigned project. They’ll create a company record in the CRM, then add contacts who would likely be involved in such a project—executives, project managers, local partners, and other stakeholders. This forces students to think in detail about the people behind a successful location decision.

Next, they’ll create a dedicated economic development project record that mirrors how real organizations track opportunities. The project will begin in an early “lead” or “prospect” stage and progress through evaluation and negotiation phases all the way to “announced win.” Along the way, students will log fictional but realistic calls, meetings, and tasks, giving them practice with activity tracking and timeline documentation.

Sites and buildings are another critical part of the assignment. Students will research potential locations that could match their project—industrial parks, office buildings, or greenfield sites—and add them as submitted sites in the CRM. At least one site will be designated as the selected location, aligning the digital record with the actual community win. By the end, each project will contain a full audit trail of how a deal can move from first contact to final announcement.

Because every student is working on a different project, the class will be able to compare patterns and outcomes and the reporting tool will showcase the results and impact on these announced projects.

Why Practical CRM Experience Matters for Future Economic Developers

Students entering economic development roles often discover that modern work happens inside a CRM long before it happens in a meeting room. Being able to navigate a specialized system like Convergence’s Economic Development CRM can make the difference between contributing on day one and spending months learning basic workflows.

By rebuilding real announced projects in the system,  students move beyond reading about project stages and instead practice documenting them. They learn, for instance, how site visit notes attach to both a project and a location, or how multiple contacts at the same company can be tied into different roles. This mirrors the complexity economic development organizations see in their day-to-day work.

For hiring managers, this kind of experience signals readiness. A graduate who can say, “I’ve managed a full project pipeline inside an economic development CRM,” stands out in interviews and is better prepared for analyst, project manager, or BRE roles.

What This Partnership Means for Communities and the Industry

While the immediate impact is on students in the classroom, the benefits of this partnership extend to communities and the broader economic development field. As more practitioners enter the workforce with real system experience, organizations can modernize faster and make better use of their data.

Communities increasingly expect economic development groups to back up their stories with numbers—jobs created, capital investment, square footage, and timelines. CRM systems make it possible to track that information consistently, but only if staff know how to capture it. By teaching students how to enter activities, associate records correctly, and maintain clean data, USM and Convergence are building habits that travel with graduates into their future roles.

The program also sends an important signal to universities and training organizations: technology is no longer an optional add-on to economic development education. Just as finance students expect access to market simulation tools, economic development students benefit from exposure to the platforms that shape modern practice. USM’s decision to integrate a purpose-built CRM into its curriculum highlights a commitment to preparing students for the tools they’ll find on the job.

For Convergence, partnering with a respected university provides feedback from a new, thoughtful audience. Graduate students tend to ask detailed questions, explore edge cases, and suggest improvements. Their input helps refine features that matter to both local and regional organizations, from project tracking to reporting.

How Students Will Work Inside HubSpot for Economic Development

Behind the scenes, this experience is powered by Convergence’s configuration of HubSpot for economic development teams. Students will work in a live environment with guardrails, mirroring the setup of a professional organization but tailored for learning.

Each student will log into a dedicated portal where core objects—contacts, companies, projects, and sites—are already structured for economic development use. From there, they will:

• Create and enrich company records based on their assigned announced win.
• Add key decision-makers and influencers as contacts.
• Build an economic development project pipeline record and move it through defined stages.
• Attach submitted sites and designate a selected site.
• Log calls, meetings, notes, and tasks to build a full project history.

Because everything lives in one system, the instructor can run reports that compare projects across the class. For example, they can quickly show how many projects selected a greenfield site versus an existing building, or how many touchpoints were logged before a project reached the announcement stage. These kinds of insights help students see patterns in successful projects.

This is not just a software tutorial. It is an applied exercise in how relationships, data, and process come together to produce real economic outcomes. Students leave with both conceptual understanding and a set of very practical skills that translate into the tools economic developers use every day.

Looking Ahead: Expanding Innovation in Economic Development Education

This is the second consecutive year that Convergence has been invited to participate in USM’s master’s program, and both partners are exploring ways to grow the collaboration. Future classes may compare multiple years of simulated projects, build dashboards tailored to board reporting, or incorporate additional tools from the HubSpot ecosystem.

There is also potential to extend similar learning experiences to other universities, regional training programs, or state-level leadership academies. As word spreads about this collaboration, other educators may look to replicate the model—giving their students access to a purpose-built CRM and inviting them to rebuild real-world wins inside it.

For now, the focus is on delivering a meaningful experience to this year’s students. Convergence is committed to being an active, supportive partner—answering questions, sharing best practices from communities around the country, and listening carefully to feedback from the classroom.

At its core, economic development is about people: students building careers, practitioners serving communities, and companies choosing where to invest. By bringing modern CRM tools into the graduate classroom, the University of Southern Mississippi and Convergence are working together to prepare the next generation of economic developers to serve those people well.