In 2009, Code for America sprung forward with a bold proposition — enlist the nation’s most promising developers to use technology to solve civic problems in government, to encourage positive change through transparency, citizen participation and efficiency. Knight Foundation was and is a strategic investor in civic technology, which supports an ideal of a digital government that works for all people.
Today, we’re announcing a new $1 million investment in Code for America, focused on expanding the Brigade Network’s impact and reach. Knight was one of the first investors in Code for America, seeing potential in its mission of making government work for all in the digital age, which aligns with our mission of building resilient communities where citizens are informed and engaged. With today’s announcement, we have invested nearly $10 million in this mission.
The Brigade Network is now 25,000 members strong. These volunteers are spread out across 85 chapters that cover 41 states (including Washington, D.C. and Puerto Rico) and meet monthly to bolster community innovation and collaboration between government, nonprofits and residents. Code for America, which has been the primary platform to connect tech talent to government, has advanced ideas — like open data — that are now a mainstay of government.
But its most significant impact is felt in communities where we see examples like Code for Philly, which launched CHIME, a COVID-19 impact model for hospitals, in partnership with Penn Medicine. This open-source tool helped hospital leaders, at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, see up-to-date resource projections, including patient hospitalization numbers, ICU beds and ventilators. Or efforts like those of Open Twin Cities, which created a collection of tools that tracked the availability of supplies and volunteer opportunities at more than 200 aid sites in the Twin Cities area, to meet the needs that emerged in the aftermath of the murder of George Floyd.
Building on the successes of the tech Brigades in communities where Knight operates in, our latest investment seeks to strengthen these local chapters by refining volunteer engagement and retention strategies and building capacity to fundraise and sustain local impact.
Our latest support for Code for America is one in a long series of Knight investments in civic technology. For more than a decade, we have invested more than $50 million through our Tech for Engagement, Technology Innovation and Smart Cities programs — all of which have sought in various ways to spur citizen engagement and improve the way government works to be reflective of their citizens’ true interests. During this time, the field of civic technology has grown and matured exponentially, and the application of digital technology for citizen engagement and government innovation is now a defining standard.
But while the field has made tremendous strides, it’s clear that much progress is still needed. In the wake of the pandemic and a swift transition to digital-first strategies in all sectors of society, the nation has grappled with issues of unequal access to the internet, growing economic inequality and racism laid bare by the inequities of a global health pandemic. COVID-19 forced all levels of government to apply digital technology to the way they engage the public and carry out public service. In many ways, the traditional avenues for citizens to engage government in these issues have multiplied — with more opportunities to email, Tweet or Zoom into local government discussions — but in other ways it has gotten more restricted as time, energy and trust wane on digital platforms that don’t support diverse discussions or enable greater transparency.
Our investments and convenings in digital engagement have taught us that this digital transition will require more than just the adoption of new technology. As we advance toward more widespread application of digital technology, communities and funders should consider investments to foster more informed and engaged communities that include:
Digital civic engagement. Invest in solutions that increase understanding of community needs and interests and help build the close resident connections that create attachment to place and increase engagement in the everyday life of their community. We need to scale up these solutions to expand the social networks of residents to grow their connection with each other and allow them to easily exchange quality information to make more informed decisions. In Philadelphia, we’re supporting the use of Zencity, a useful tool that leverages artificial intelligence and data analytics to help understand how residents are receiving and responding to communication efforts around programs, initiatives and messages.
Meeting communities where they are. Governments and organizations must better understand the digital platforms or mediums where communities go for access to trusted information. As communities work to vaccinate millions of Americans, getting more jabs in arms will require effective messaging from trusted messengers. The City of San José has engaged civic leaders in spreading the word and has learned to go one level deeper by working with local social media influencers who are trusted in the community, especially by people of color.
Digital experimentation. The development and use of immersive technologies provide public officials with new tools to engage with residents’ concerns, needs and values. In Charlotte, the use of augmented reality in the city’s comprehensive planning process enables residents not just to respond to a “plan”, but to also visualize and plan the community they want to see in 2040.
For the past three years, Knight’s Smart Cities program has worked to harness the application of digital technology to improve how communities respond, connect to and engage with residents. We believe any “Smart” city should be driven by — and serve — its residents. But we recognize that this vision requires doing more with data, and ensuring that data supports more seamless engagement with government. As a result, we’ve continued to lean into insights from those we fund and have focused on solutions that increase the capacity of communities to engage digitally by ensuring that they’re building trust in the information that’s shared, developing a better understanding of the community’s point of view, and leveraging the power of immersive technology to engage citizens.
Our investment in Code for America’s mission reaffirms that making technology inclusive and equitable to everyone in the digital age begins at the local level — where designing tech in partnership with residents and making government work for them will help build trust and increase their engagement. As we continue to invest in the digital transformation of our communities, we will always partner with them to define their digital futures.
Lilian Coral is Knight Foundation’s director of national strategy and technology innovation.
$1M investment will help Brigades in Miami, Charlotte, Detroit, Philadelphia, San Jose, St. Paul and Boulder build sustainable business models for civic technology.
MIAMI – May 11, 2021 – Code for America will strengthen the business models and practices of local technology Brigades chapters in seven U.S. cities with an investment from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.
The $1 million investment will help these Brigades deliver impact and create a blueprint for success in their communities by developing and bolstering revenue streams that support their civic technology missions in each community, as well as implementing practices that help with recruitment and management for the volunteer technologists who power the organization.
The five-year commitment brings Knight’s investment in Code for America and its mission to nearly $10 million since 2010. Code for America’s mission is to build a network of cities, citizens, community groups and startups committed to using digital technology to help the government work better for everyone.
Knight’s latest investment will focus on strengthening Brigades in Miami, Charlotte, Va., Detroit, Philadelphia, San Jose, Calif., St. Paul, Minn. and Boulder, Co. — all cities where the Knight brothers once published newspapers and where the Foundation continues to operate.
While Brigades have a longstanding history in these communities, much of the work has been volunteer-led and subject to a natural waning of engagement. This new investment will give local tech Brigade leaders training to support volunteer engagement, mobilization and retention; increase grassroots fundraising; and experiment with new revenue models. They will also be given technical tools and project-management support to carry out new projects and build a blueprint of sustainable models that better integrate Brigades into local civic tech ecosystems.
“Code for America is the preeminent organization that promotes resident-driven government in the digital age,” said Lilian Coral, Knight’s director of national strategy and technology innovation. “Their efforts to create successful community-led systems that support technology innovation has been successful. The opportunity before us is to support the Brigades, so that they can be resilient and sustainable in improving how the government serves the public in a digital society.”
There are now 25,000 Code for America volunteers in 85 chapters that cover 41 states, working together to identify priority issues for the Network and create digital solutions that can be replicated across communities. Brigades bring together community organizers, developers and designers to collaborate with local government and community partners to build new tools that help address local civic issues.
In 2020, a year of multiple crises, local Brigades led numerous efforts in response to the pandemic by developing more than 100 COVID-19-specific projects and 307 total projects that reached 5 million people and directly served over 700,000. “They help make government services more accessible and easier for people to understand and use — which in turn, help make citizens more informed and engaged,” Coral said.
“All levels of government in the digital age should work for the people and by the people to build strong and resilient communities,” Code for America CEO Amanda Renteria said. “The Knight Foundation’s latest commitment allows us to continue to meet community needs and build local capacity for our Brigade volunteers to do the important work of advancing the digital practices that will benefit the public.”
Brigades in communities where Knight operates have emerged as particularly effective examples of this model. For example, the Code for South Florida Brigade in Miami supported the creation and scaling of GetYourRefund.org, a free, accessible and reliable digital tax assistance tool for English and Spanish speaking families with low income. During the 2020 tax season, GetYourRefund helped more than 30,000 families and helped distribute over $62 million in tax benefits.
Knight’s latest commitments for Code for America are part of its ongoing Smart Cities investments that harness the growth in digital technology to enable more informed and engaged communities. Cities that put residents first in designing and shaping technology will ultimately implement technology that’s most impactful, inclusive and accessible to all residents.
Beginning on May 12, Code for America will be hosting a two-day virtual summit that brings changemakers into one room ― public servants, advocates, technologists and organizers — who break through some of governments’ biggest challenges by removing barriers and expanding government access to equitably serve all Americans. The summit will feature dozens of keynotes, breakout sessions and workshops. Register here.
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About Code for America
Code for America, a nonprofit founded in 2009, believes that government can work for the people, and by the people, in the digital age. We work with government at all levels across the country to make the delivery of public services equitable with technology. Together with thousands of volunteers across over 80 Brigade chapters in the U.S., we work with community organizations and governments to build digital tools, change policies, and improve programs. Our goal: a resilient government that effectively and equitably serves all Americans. Learn more at codeforamerica.org.
About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation
Knight Foundation is a national foundation with strong local roots. We invest in journalism, in the arts, and in the success of cities where brothers John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers. Our goal is to foster informed and engaged communities, which we believe are essential for a healthy democracy. For more, visit kf.org.
In cities across America, young and talented residents from all walks of life are eager to implement ideas to improve public life and civic engagement to make their communities more equitable, engaging and welcoming to all. And now is an important moment in time for these young leaders to step up and be a part of the recovery in their cities.
Since 2015, Knight Foundation has invested $1.5 million in a transformative program that harnesses the power and enthusiasm of these young leaders to become the changemakers who help build these thriving communities. Operated by 8 80 Cities, an organization that supports vibrant communities, the Emerging City Champions program combines professional development for young leaders — between the ages of 19 and 35 — with hands-on experience to carry out transformative projects in their communities. As part of this experience, the program also provides young leaders a $5,000 grant each to carry out their own public space, mobility or civic engagement projects.
The program supports the growth of diverse leaders in our cities and has spurred investments in public life. So far, 124 champions have been selected and over 100 projects have been launched in our communities, ranging from revamping underutilized public spaces, to creatively using the public realm to address systemic social issues such as poverty, education or mental health.
At a time when cities recovering from the pandemic are in need of more innovative ideas to build back better, ECC provides a low-cost model of how to cultivate, empower and harness the power of young people to unlock local creativity and engage the entire community to improve the quality of life for all. Knight commissioned a study to assess the program’s impact in two areas: how it affected young leaders who participate in it, and how it supported change in their communities.
The report demonstrates the impact of the program. In addition, there are key lessons about this program for those who may lead professional development programs or seek to encourage young, diverse leaders in communities:
Provide resources to implement ideas. Having a concrete opportunity to work through and implement an idea can enhance talent-cultivation programming. And some subset of those projects may have a direct impact on communities or inspire larger-scale and longer-lasting impact down the road.
Invest in network-building beyond the program. Without intentional cultivation of peer relationships, it’s easy for networks to whither after an initial burst of relationship-building activity.
Activate practitioner networks locally, even within national programs. To maximize the impact of a national emerging leader program, especially one that’s geared toward community-based work, it can be valuable to invest in a local layer of the program.
Don’t stop at selecting diverse cohorts if you’re trying to advance equity. Intentionally selecting diverse fellowship cohorts is a crucial starting point for any program that aims to challenge racial and other forms of inequity, but it’s only the starting point.
ECC has proven to be a powerful program to develop young innovators seeking to contribute to equitable and inclusive cities — both directly, through the projects funded by the program, and indirectly, through Champions’ continued engagement and leadership in their communities’ public life. In this report, see incredible stories of young innovators like Rachel Umana, who founded Bike Walk Macon; Erin Salazar, executive director of Local Color in San Jose; Gabriela Sanchez, who founded Philadelphia’s Power Street Theatre; Richard Young, who founded CivicLex in Lexington, Ky; and Orlando Bailey, director of engagement at BridgeDetroit.
The lessons in this assessment can inform cities seeking to invest in public spaces and public life with limited resources; those who lead professional development programs that catalyze change; or people who are considering ways to tap into local talent. We hope this model for professional development programs that lead to more equitable and inclusive cities will inspire more investments to harness the talents of young people eager to help their communities thrive.
Meet some of the champions
As an artist, Gabriela Sanchez has long taken inspiration from the people and places around her. She founded Power Street Theatre in 2012 and launched it the following year with a play that explored patterns of gentrification and displacement in a neighborhood that had historically been populated by people of color. The play was inspired by experiences she and her cofounder, Erlina Ortiz, had as students at Temple University. When Gabriela applied for ECC, she was simultaneously running Power Street while also working full-time as the education director at Norris Square Neighborhood Project (NSNP). ECC provided resources to invest in a new Power Street initiative: Theatre en Las Parcelas (which continues under the name Theatre al Fresco) to bring theater into Las Parcelas garden at NSNP. It was a chance to work in a space that was already meaningful in Gabriela’s life—due to her role at NSNP and because her aunt was one of the women who established the garden—and to “activate it on an artistic level.”
The ECC Studio inspired Gabriela to see this work, and her role at Power Street, in a new light. She says, “To be able to go outside the country, to be immersed with so many different people from different backgrounds––that was the first time I had ever done professional development on that scale. That was a really defining moment for me.” Absorbing Toronto’s public space ecosystem and learning from a wide variety of public space experts helped Gabriela to see her own hyperlocal work as part of a broader endeavor: “To be able to see on a more national scale was really helpful to know that I wasn’t in my silo. Because that easily happens in nonprofit work. Even as a woman of color leader in the city, it often feels very lonely. So to have a space where I realized I wasn’t so alone was really affirming for me.”
The fellowship coincided with a decision to leave her role at NSNP so that she could “say ‘I want to be an artist, I want to be my own investor.’ It’s my turn to pursue my dream of Power Street.” In the last three years, Power Street’s budget has increased by a factor of six, and it has extended its relationship with Knight Foundation by participating in a recent adaptive-capacity training program for arts organizations. Between Power Street, directing theater, and working as a teaching artist, Gabriela is making a living as an artist—and, specifically, as an artist who is deeply grounded in her community and working for social change. “Preserving our history is, I think, the biggest impact. Making the statement that we are here and we have been here and we will not continue to be erased in the history books.”
At age 31, Orlando Bailey has already earned a prominent platform in his hometown of Detroit. He’s the director of engagement at BridgeDetroit, a nonprofit journalism and community engagement organization, and a co- host of the Detroit chapter of Urban Consulate, which convenes people to talk about building just and equitable communities. He describes himself as “an outspoken advocate [for] honoring the experience of Detroiters as expertise.” For his work, he’s been honored as a 2019 Marshall Memorial Fellow with the German Marshall Fund of the United States and a 2020 BMe Vanguard Fellow.
But in 2015, he was struggling with the limitations that his youth seemed to be imposing on him in the community development field. He describes feeling that “my work or my ideas were valued when they came out of the mouth of somebody else . . . like I needed to purport to be older to be heard.” His experience as an Emerging City Champion changed all that: “It was the first checkpoint of validation, externally, that I didn’t know I needed. It was the beginning of me ridding myself of this imposter syndrome.” It helped him become his “real, true authentic self” in the way that he advocates for Detroit and Detroiters.
His ECC project was part of what made it such a transformative experience. Orlando engaged 60 young people and artists in his neighborhood to transform an empty wall into a mural that conveyed the group’s sense of pride in their community. But his experience at the ECC Studio in Toronto and with his fellow Champions was equally if not more crucial to the program’s impact on him. “The learning together, the interrogating and questioning, the moments of joy and triumph and affirmation for young people who are really committed to this work is what I take with me. You get the encouragement to go on a little while longer and to fight a little harder and to see it through to the end.” As an investment in him, specifically as a young person, ECC helped Orlando step into his power and use his platform to advance equity in the city he loves.
Erin Salazar was a recent nonprofit founder when she began her ECC fellowship; in fact, she learned that her organization had received official 501(c)(3) status while she was in Toronto for the ECC Studio. A trained artist, Erin had been freelancing mural jobs while bartending when she discovered a passion for connecting other
San Jose artists to paying work. So, she established a nonprofit, The Exhibition District (now known as Local Color), to “provide economic opportunities for artists at the intersection of public art and com- munity development,” in part through support from a Knight Cities Challenge grant.
ECC was the first fellowship Erin received after establishing the orga- nization, and the Studio gave her a much-needed space in which to experiment with the work—engaging with community, erecting mu- rals and connecting local artists to paid work—while also settling into her identity as an executive director. About the Studio, she said, “The pure and raw form of creativity was something that was celebrated.” Champions were encouraged to “throw dumb ideas at the wall,
see what sticks.” She says, “It gave me permission to explore these kinds of creative and wild thoughts.” It emboldened her to take on more challenging fellowships—including becoming one of Knight’s inaugural Public Spaces Fellows in 2019—which have helped her to continue developing the organization and to take on even more ambitious projects.
Erin and her colleagues recently rebranded the organization as Local Color to acknowledge that it has grown far beyond murals to a “multifaceted, more holistic approach to empowerment in this community.” They’re working with developers to turn buildings that are slated for demolition into work spaces for artists and other creative professionals, they’re supporting artists with the administrative and financial aspects of existing as an artist, and they’re serving as fiscal sponsors for local creative groups. Right now, Local Color is supporting just under 40 artists, and it has become a critical pillar in San Jose’s arts community (and among Knight’s San Jose investments). The organization itself is thriving: “One of the things that I’m most proud of is that we are about to hire a fourth person. I just can’t believe that I can raise enough money to pay a reasonable wage and health insurance and benefits. That is beyond my wildest dreams—being able to support so many people.”
Not long before she became an Emerging City Champion, Rachel (Hollar) Umana bought her first bicycle. She was living in downtown Macon, less than a mile from her office, and became a bicycle commuter. As she looked for a community with whom she could connect over this new identity, she came up short: “The only thing I could find were these cycling groups that take 30- or 40-mile
trips on the weekends and wear spandex, and that wasn’t really my crowd.” The ECC application gave her an opportunity to imagine how she might fill that gap.
At first, after returning from the ECC Studio, Rachel used her micro-grant to organize small-scale social opportunities with other bicyclists: meet-ups at local breweries, a costumed ride for Halloween. After a few months, she was invited by the Urban Development Authority to implement Macon’s first Open Streets event. It was an inflection point for the budding organization: “We went from small rides that had 20 or 30 people to this event where we shut down two miles of streets, and 1,500 people came out.” Building on that momentum, Rachel and other volunteers began getting more involved in policy work, advocating for bicyclists and pedestrians in Macon’s transportation policy.
Not long after, an anonymous donor approached Rachel about making the group—which was still an all-volunteer effort—sustainable. In late 2017, she was able to quit her job to become Bike Walk Macon’s full-time executive director, and established a board of directors. In 2020, the organization received a $1 million gift to sustain it for ten years. Looking back, Rachel says, “When I started, it was just something I thought was cool. But it just kept growing, and I kept learning that this is something that people really care about.” Macon now has more than seven times as much bike lane mileage as it did in 2015, and Bike Walk Macon is laser-focused on “creating a city that works for everybody, not just people who drive cars.” Rachel says, “ECC is the single-most pivotal thing that I’ve done in my life, professionally. Having that opportunity is what made it happen.”
When Richard Young applied for ECC, he was running the first place-based community development corpora- tion in Lexington, Kentucky, which he had cofounded a couple of years prior. As the 2016 election approached, he was also increasingly interested in “exploring this relationship between democracy and transit—specifically, the ability to vote.” But it was an interest that he couldn’t fully pursue from within his organization.
ECC provided an ideal opportunity for Richard to experiment in the civic engagement realm outside of his full- time job. Over his fellowship year, Richard worked with Lexington’s public transit authority Lextran to develop a suite of interventions designed to nudge transit riders to vote in the 2016 election: messaging to encourage voting at bus stops and on busses; free rides to early voting locations and on Election Day; and maps to guide transit riders, especially those for whom public transit was their only transportation option, to their polling places. The flexibility and scale of the ECC micro-grant was essential: “A very small investment in a project that I could focus on and didn’t have to be housed within my organization—that was the only way that I would have been able to do a project like that and to have so much flexibility with it.”
The project’s success—many of the tactics that he implemented are now policy for Lextran—led Richard to imagine investing more of his time and energy into building a healthier democracy. “I was feeling really inspired to take on this civic engagement approach, to focus on it a little more explicitly.” Richard established CivicLex in 2017, a civic education and media organization that helps Lexington residents meaningfully engage with the political process, and left the CDC to run it full-time. He traces its origins directly back to ECC: “CivicLex grew right out of that project. I would not have started CivicLex if it weren’t for that project.” In under four years, CivicLex has grown into an organization with a six-figure budget, and its work is receiving national acclaim. For instance, Richard was recently invited to speak on a panel at the Library of Congress about civic media in the digital age. Richard says, “I think we built something that’s really unique and interesting and new. There’s actual national validation for the work we’re doing.”
8 80 Cities has had the privilege of leading and hosting the Emerging City Champions (ECC) fellowship program, funded by the Knight Foundation, since 2015.
Since its launch, the goal of the Emerging City Champions fellowship has been to invest in young leaders between the ages of 19 and 35, who have creative ideas to improve mobility, public spaces and civic engagement in their cities. With $1.5 million in commitments from Knight over the years, the program is designed to bolster the leadership capacity, skills and experiences of fellows through training and professional development and with $5,000 in seed funding for their projects.
Each Champ has a personal story that connects and motivates them to do their project. Whether it is a mural, a community beehive, an open street, a DIY bike repair, a bus stop transformation, a community songwriting project, or a simple park activation — there is a reason their project is important to them and their community. Their stories and projects reflect a deep love and care for their city and community, stories we aim to help amplify through the 8 80 and Knight networks.
For example, ECC Champion and current Knight Public Spaces Fellow Erin Salazar’s career as a city builder was accelerated with her ECC project, a community mural that led to a multi-year transformation of San Jose’s downtown.
After six incredible years, and 124 exceptional alumni, we took stock and Knight conducted an independent assessment about the program to learn about its impact on the Champions and in the cities Knight operates in. The results show the value of the program.
Of the 124 young leaders who were ECC champions from 2015 to 2020, 71% said that the experience had a great or tremendous impact on them. Overall, the ECC fellowship has resulted in tangible career growth — such as being promoted or founding an organization — for participants by providing these young leaders with increased confidence to make change in their communities. Most champions have continued working to improve public life in their communities well beyond the time of the fellowship. You can read “Cultivating Talent and Catalyzing Change” here.
From ECC’s inception, 8 80 Cities has viewed this as a program that is much more about the Champs than the project ideas. Good ideas come and go, but good leaders are harder to come by. We see this as a unique opportunity to invest in the human being behind the idea first and foremost. The seed funding is there to help them bring their project idea to life.
8 80 Cities provides each Champion with a 4-day in-person workshop in Toronto (held virtually in 2020 due to COVID-19), ongoing mentorship, leadership training and capacity building over the course of a year as the Champs implement their projects.
The independent assessment of the program, conducted by Sarah Lee Consulting, shows the value of the program for our Champions. Here are some key takeaways:
The program has catalyzed more than 100 public space and civic engagement projects in Knight communities.
72% of champions have secured additional funding for a public space, civic engagement or mobility project.
39% have joined one or more nonprofit boards in their community.
54% have been promoted since their fellowship year, and 43% went on to found an organization.
Champions are a young and racially diverse group, which challenges conventional urbanism narratives about placemaking and talent scarcity in these communities.
It’s also clear that the power of ECC could be strengthened even further with a stronger network that is more consistently managed. This could allow for more cross pollination, learning and knowledge exchange between different cohorts.
While the benefits of ECC for career growth and leadership development have been documented, these benefits have not been equally enjoyed by all participants. This recent assessment underscores the importance of even more intentional support for champions of color, in particular women of color, who were less likely to benefit from the same levels of additional project funding or job promotions as their white male counterparts over the same time period.
As we find ourselves looking back, we can’t help but think about where we are today. We are over a year into a global pandemic that has disproportionately harmed racialized communities, people living on low income, elders, people experiencing homelessness, people with disabilities, and other historically underserved communities.
We need leaders with the empathy, experience, knowledge and capacity to handle complex challenges. Our most recent cohort of Champions have used their ingenuity to push boundaries amid a global pandemic and a national reckoning on race, to reimagine and to do the hard work of building more inclusive post-pandemic cities through grassroots community-based initiatives.
This program underscores the power in investing in young emerging leaders with community driven solutions that support public life in public spaces. And that champions of public spaces are important cornerstones of creating the healthy and equitable cities we need.
Guillermo Penalosa is the founder of 8 80 Cities and Amanda O’Rourke is the executive director of the organization.
Photo (top): Emerging City Champions Richard Young, Gabriela Sanchez, Rachel Umana, Orlando Bailey and Erin Salazar.
To support the launch of UNC Chapel Hill’s Southern Futures Initiative and to honor former Knight Foundation President Hodding Carter.
To support the design and programming plan for the “Ain’t I A Woman” Monument in downtown Akron.
This grant will support a nine-month plan to clean, program, and restore the Guadalupe River and Los Gatos Creek in cooperation with the GRPC, South Bay Clean Creeks Coalition, and TrashPunx. San Jose Conservation Corps provides specialized cleanup services including working with hazardous waste and managing the interface to homeless residents.
To leverage the American Rescue Plan Act, State of California Coronavirus Relief Funds, and private investments in San Jose downtown by supporting San Jose Downtown Association’s use of anonymized mobility data to inform recovery planning for public spaces and businesses.
On April 8, 2021, Knight Foundation announced $2.2 million in new support fornine Philadelphia projects. Click here to see the press release. Knight’s Ellen Hwang shares more below.
Philadelphia is a city where residents’ pride in their neighborhoods is palpable, reflected in our block-to-block subcultures and hyperlocal histories. In this city, our neighborhood roots are deeply embedded in our collective and individual identities; so when there’s change, it’s personal.
In recent years, the city has steadily grown in population, positioning our economy to do more: more business, more tourism, more housing, more everything. The very landscape of the city is rapidly changing — and in turn, its neighborhoods — begging the question: who benefits from all this change?
Today, to help ensure residents play a key leadership role in their neighborhoods, we’re announcing $2.2 million in new investments in nine community projects, which will help build equitable, engaging, and innovative public spaces anchored in our community’s priorities and interests. Our investments will help residents influence the future of their communities through the planning, development, and activation of their assets: their public spaces.
At Knight Foundation, we believe public spaces are critical to advancing Philadelphia as a thriving and more engaged city. Public spaces bring people together and spur critical dialogue and decision-making about the future of their neighborhood. They are shared assets in our city, but they need to be developed and stewarded with the vision, desire, and leadership of local and long-time residents to be equitable.
Through the pandemic, we’ve seen and reckoned with inequities in neighborhood development caused by historical disenfranchisement and gentrification across Philadelphia’s communities. Across social distancing, virtual learning and working online, we needed the outdoors to stay healthy and connected to our city and to each other. And as many Philadelphians sought refuge in the outdoors a critical challenge surfaced: Philadelphians needed equitable access to quality and safe public spaces. It is essential for daily life.
A recent report from Gehl and Knight explores this concept. The pandemic showed that there are more communities in Philadelphia that need quality and safe access to public spaces, connection to their neighbors, and access to their community resources.
As Philadelphia begins to prepare for the recovery and reopening of our city from the pandemic, we hope these investments will position our community for a better and brighter future. And that will help create a brighter future for all Philadelphians.
Ellen Hwang is Knight Foundation program director for Philadelphia. Find her on Twitter at @ellen_hwang_phl.
Photo (top): students play at on a Philadelphia Parks & Recreation Play Street. Photo by Ken McFarlane.
Nine projects will use Knight support to foster resident engagement and equity in Philadelphia neighborhoods
PHILADELPHIA — April 8, 2021 — The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation today announced a $2.2 million investment in nine Philadelphia projects. Knight Foundation’s new support will bolster local programs that advance equitable community development and digital innovation in city neighborhoods.
In 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic amplified a need for accessible public spaces and strategic digital engagement. In Philadelphia, Knight support will advance work to address these issues while also including residents in the design, programming and development of public spaces.
“A truly thriving Philadelphia is an equitable Philadelphia,” said Ellen Hwang, Knight Foundation program director for Philadelphia. “Accessible public spaces are critical assets and places for our communities. These new investments will help ensure that as neighborhoods develop, there are opportunities for communities to be drivers and decision-makers of the change and to benefit from the opportunities that come from development.”
Knight Foundation’s community investments will build on the organization’s broader efforts to advance Philadelphia public spaces. Knight is investing $1.8 million in the following projects:
John Bartram Association (Bartram’s Garden) — $687,775 To engage residents of Southwest Philadelphia and Grays Ferry in community-driven programming in preparation for the opening of the Schuylkill River Trail swing bridge, a new civic amenity connecting the two neighborhoods. Knight funding will also be used to support both digital and in-person youth-oriented leadership opportunities in Bartram’s Garden to share resources and foster relationships among community and the land and river.
Pennsylvania Horticultural Society – $624,244 To partner with neighborhood leaders and organizations to implement “Southwest Tree Tenders,” a community-centered stewardship program to make Southwest Philadelphia’s public spaces more engaging and accessible as residents increase their green spaces and tree canopy along the community’s public right-of-way.
Mural Arts Philadelphia – $250,000 To establish resident-led programming and engagement for FloatLab, a new state-of-the-art floating dock, classroom, and performance space in Southwest Philadelphia’s Bartrams Garden.
Philadelphia Parks & Recreation – $250,000 To reimagine the City of Philadelphia’s Playstreets program through digital engagement and a pilot program that tests innovative play and public space interventions.
Impact Services Corporation – $74,700
To create a digitally-equipped van that travels and provides mobile programming throughout the community as a way to engage residents and stakeholders around the use and design of public spaces in Kensington
These investments are part of Knight’s efforts to foster Philadelphia public spaces that are driven, led by and accessible to the communities they serve. Knight’s work in the city will advance public spaces that are equitable, accessible, collaborative, resident-led and resident-centered.
Knight’s support for local public space projects comes on the heels of recently-released research from Knight and Gehl, which examines existing work in Philadelphia to build resident-centered spaces. The research affirms that public space projects that prioritize resident input and establish equitable access can help communities build connections and resiliency.
In addition, Knight will invest $317,000 in the following local digital innovation projects as part of its growing work to advance projects that foster digitally-oriented cities:
Friends of the Rail Park – $145,000 To enable the Philadelphia Rail Park to create and utilize digital engagement tools and a digital archive to increase accessibility, visibility and enhanced community connection.
City of Philadelphia, Sensing the City- $72,000 To leverage an artificial intelligence data analytics tool to help five Philadelphia City departments understand how residents are receiving and responding to communication efforts around programs, initiatives and messages.
Smith Memorial Playground – $60,000 To support the launch of new models of virtual programming that enhance in-person engagement and enrich playful learning experiences during COVID-19 and beyond.
Our Plan (Akira Drake Rodriguez and Ken Steif) – $40,000 To develop a scalable, collaborative planning process and web-based tool in Philadelphia, led by Akira Drake Rodriguez and Ken Steif, for engaging communities around community values, cultural and historic preservation, housing affordability, and future land use within their neighborhoods.
“Throughout the city, there’s an emerging critical mass of projects that are addressing the community’s most pressing needs,” said Lilian Coral, Knight Foundation director for national strategy and technology innovation. “By bringing digital innovation to the forefront we’re ensuring that spaces and projects help residents stay connected to local information, programming and places.”
Knight’s digital innovation investments will advance digital tools that foster civic dialogue, attachment to place, and resident engagement in the design and programming of Philadelphia public spaces. Knight support will help these projects build digital engagement strategies and develop best-in-class user interfaces for their work.
“The pandemic taught us that communities need better access to quality spaces and digital services to be more engaged in community,” said Kelly Jin, Knight Foundation vice president for community and national initiatives. “As we continue to recover from the pandemic, it’s vital that civic assets continue to serve everyone and adapt to the changing needs of residents. These investments will help ensure that Philadelphia is poised for the future.”
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About the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation Knight Foundation is a national foundation with strong local roots. We invest in journalism, in the arts, and in the success of cities where brothers John S. and James L. Knight once published newspapers. Our goal is to foster informed and engaged communities, which we believe are essential for a healthy democracy. For more, visit kf.org.
To support nonpartisan civic engagement in Knight communities by enabling lawful permanent residents to become U.S. citizens, so they may participate more fully in the civic life of their communities.
