To support the continued revitalization of downtown Macon through Mercer University’s reactivation of the historic Capricorn Music Studio.
To leverage neighborhood-based digital hostspots in three Detroit neighborhoods to share information about local civic issues and neighborhood resources.
SAN FRANCISCO–August 30, 2018–Code for America will strengthen its national Brigade network of community organizers, developers and designers that use technology to improve how local government serves the American public, with $2 million in new funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The support will help expand the network over the next 2 years, building on Knight’s early support of the initiative.
“Code for America launched as an experiment, testing whether engaged citizens could use tech to make government work better for people; it has made great progress in this goal,” said Lilian Coral, Knight Foundation director for national strategy and technology innovation. “This next phase is about establishing a stronger infrastructure for these efforts, as technology becomes ubiquitous in our communities and building strong connections between government and people becomes even more essential.”
Code for America and its local Brigades sit at the intersection of communities, city government and technology. Founded in 2009, Code for America is, in many ways, the seminal organization that founded what we know today as the civic tech movement.
Since 2012, the Code for America Brigade network has worked with local government and community partners to build and implement technology tools that help address local civic issues. Knight Foundation’s early support of the initiative helped the network grow substantially and mainstream the integration of technology in city governance. Since Knight’s initial investments, Code for America’s network has grown from 3 to 77 Brigades; the initial group of under 100 volunteers has grown into a network of 25,000 people—techies and non-techies alike.
New Knight support will now help support the next phase of growth for the Code for America Brigades, expanding its capacity and establishing advisory councils to amplify its impact within communities. The support will further allow Code for America to implement a redesigned fellowship model with a deeply local focus, connecting technologists from the community with city initiatives. The refreshed model will enable these technologists to better collaborate with government in building tools that help address local civic issues.
In addition, the organization will foster and develop the Code for America Brigade network through trainings, workshops and forms that bring Brigades together across cities. It will also work to expand local Brigades in communities where Knight invests; the number of members and the number and quality of the projects they work on; and the partnerships they develop within their communities and with local governments.
Participants brainstorm at the 2016 Code for America Summit. Photo by Drew Bird (Drew Bird Photography, San Francisco Bay Area Photographer).
“Code for America believes that making government work for the people, by the people in the digital age creates strong, vibrant communities. In the last five years, volunteers in Brigades have defined a ‘new kind of public service.’ Strengthening the capacity for this kind of civic engagement is critical if we hope this impact to spread,” said Jennifer Pahlka, founder and executive director at Code for America. “We are grateful to the Knight Foundation for their continued vision and commitment to this work.”
Code for America Brigade volunteers get to know the people in City Hall (and sometimes, in fact, work in local government as their day job); advocate for digital practices that will benefit the public; and build solutions. They have increased youth access to local job opportunities in Boston; improved access to justice in Salt Lake City; tackled the affordable housing crisis in Asheville; developed tools for planners to build better bike routes in Philadelphia; and improved the delivery of health and human services in Missouri, among other successes.
In addition to organizing its volunteer Brigade network, Code for America builds easy-to-use technologies that improve government services in the areas of health, food, criminal justice and jobs, then it shares what it has learned with its broad network to enact long-term systems change.
Support for Code for America forms part of Knight Foundation’s efforts to harness the growth in digital technology to enable more informed and engaged communities. The foundation seeks to invest in strategies that increase responsiveness, connectedness and engagement to residents through the use of technology.
About Code for America
Code for America believes government must work for the people, and by the people, in the digital age, starting with the people who need it most. We build digital services that enhance government capabilities, and we help others do the same across all levels of government. We organize thousands of volunteers across nearly 80 chapters nationwide who improve government in their local communities. Our goal: a 21st century 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.
To develop a multilingual, voice-powered community engagement platform.
Cities across the country – big and small – are investing in linear parks and urban trails. Communities are prioritizing these important and substantial investments for a variety of important reasons: they effectively connect public assets – like parks and libraries – with diverse neighborhoods; activate underused spaces (think New York City’s High Line crafted from a former rail line); and spur economic development in nearby areas.
But designing, promoting and funding linear parks can be challenging, often spanning miles of multiple municipalities, costing hundreds of millions of dollars, with support from complicated funding models.
Photo by Lilly WeinbergSo, what happens when three unique cities get together to talk about their signature linear parks and trails? A whole lot of learning. Knight Foundation funded an information exchange between two Knight cities, Lexington, Ky. and Miami, and Atlanta to do just that . Last month, a team from The Friends of The Underline (a 10-mile linear path in Miami-Dade) and Townbranch Commons (a 3-mile linear trail and park in downtown Lexington) met in Atlanta to have a deep-dive exchange about their future projects with the city’s Beltline team. As many know, Atlanta’s Beltline is a multi-billion dollar, 22-mile light rail and bike/pedestrian trail that has transformed the communities it passes through. While most community members love their Beltline, not everyone is thrilled. We wanted to hear it all: the good, bad and indifferent. And while we came from very different communities with unique projects, we had four shared takeaways:
Prioritize Maintenance: Atlanta’s Beltline, like many public spaces across the country, has not figured out a sustainable revenue model for maintenance. If you build a world-class public asset, it is going to be used a lot. The wear and tear costs money to repair. Maintenance isn’t sexy and is often not a priority for funders. But it is critical for long-term success. And while the Beltline has been extraordinarily successful at raising funds with what are called Tax Allocation Districts, these funds can’t go towards maintenance, like many other special taxing districts do. We discussed alternative methods like the formation of a business improvement district, the monetization of fiber networks and the leasing of land. We left with an urgency to figure this out.
Make Bold Commitments but Remain Nimble: The Beltline had very ambitious goals to create affordable housing and a commitment to spend equal amounts along the entire trail. These goals backfired, for various reasons. The affordable housing goal became quickly unattainable, while the spending allocations did not appropriately correlate with how people were using it. (The east side is used almost 10 times more than the west side). And while ambitious goals are often a good thing, there should be wiggle room to adapt with usage changes or market forces.
Design and Observe for User Experience: A design review committee that is flexible and reacts to people’s observations is critical. We experienced the Beltline first hand. It was lovely, but one thing was clear: the different users conflicted with one another. The bikers, often commuters, were sharing the same path with joggers, walkers and families with strollers. Add in electric scooters, which can go up to 15 m.p.h., and the experience gets downright scary. We also observed many joggers on the grass, which packed the soil to a degree harder than the concrete. If possible, create separate, designated lanes and think about the right material for each user.
Create Strong Signage:The Beltline is working on Photo by Lilly Weinbergimproving its wayfinding and signage. This is simple but important: strong wayfinding is critical for users to find the linear trail and signage is important for the activation of spaces along the path, from restaurants and retail to parks to splashpads. The signs should be clear and helpful. We noticed a lot of signs starting with “no” or a rule. Research shows that a simple switch to more eye-opening, entertaining, positive signs boosted neighborhood pride and feelings toward the City about their park space.
We were also left wondering how technology can be better leveraged for all of the above. We each committed to investigating this.
Thank you, Beltline team, for your openness. You are the pioneer and a veteran in linear park design and execution. We learned an equal amount from your successes and challenges. Onwards and upwards for both The Underline and The Townbranch Commons and Park – there’s work to do be done!
Lilly Weinberg is the director, community foundations, at Knight Foundation, where she manages Knight’s $140 million investment in 18 small to midsize Knight communities.
To support the participation of city transportation officials in Knight communities at the NACTO Designing Cities annual conference.
To support the 2019 National Digital Inclusion Alliance annual conference in Charlotte.
To build on past tours by senior San Jose leaders to Copenhagen by supporting two San Jose-only study tours for middle and senior-level civic leaders.
As one travels across San Jose’s sprawling 180-square-mile landscape, it’s hard to believe this is America’s tenth most populous city. The low-rise suburban city hosts seemingly endless single-family homes, strip malls, freeways and suburban office parks, but too few vibrant and well-used public spaces that welcome and celebrate our one million residents.
In San Jose, Knight seeks to change that by creating one of the nation’s most engaged cities driven by a focus on public life — drawing people out of their cars and homes and into the community. In doing so, we aim to place people at the center of the city’s present and future. By helping to build a San Jose for people of all ages, backgrounds, and abilities, we aim to create a vibrant and welcoming city that makes being out and in public irresistible and celebrates the collision of diverse people and ideas.
To reinvent itself as a city built for people, San Jose must overcome decades of automobile-focused policies that have spread residents across a disconnected geography, made the car the preferred transit mode for most, and contributed to one of the nation’s worst housing crises. These things are, in part, to blame for only 29 percent of residents feeling “attached” to San Jose, according to Knight’s 2010 Soul of the Community report.
Now is a key time to address these problems. San Jose is expected to grow 23 percent by 2040. In the short term, the city is deciding the future of Diridon Station, expected to be the largest transit hub on the West Coast and which may include a potential 20,000+ person Google office. Both of these developments present vexing questions about where these people will live, how they move around, and what will bind them to San Jose.
We can’t solve San Jose’s long-term challenges, but we can work with the people of San Jose to shape how those challenges could be addressed — and new opportunities seized. That’s why our focus is on people — how they can engage in their community though its public spaces and by enlivening public life.
Since 2008, Knight has committed $25+ million to San Jose with a renewed focus on the following themes:
Building walkable, bikeable and transit-oriented neighborhoods;
Creating new public spaces and reimagining existing ones to bring together a range of people, while offering an outlet to learn and share ideas;
Helping San Joseans forge deeper connections with their city with events, things and places that define San Jose.
Our investments include but are not limited to: constructing North America’s most ambitious Better Bikeways Networks; expanding SPUR, one of the nation’s leading urban policy think-and-do-tanks, to San Jose; hiring the City of San Jose’s first principal city designer; launching and scaling VIvaCalleSJ, our Open Streets program, to 130,000 people; and identifying and supporting thousands of emerging leaders across the city. Across all of our efforts, we seek to amplify community voices, respond to community demands and support the next generation of urban problem solvers.
As San Jose steps into the future, Knight will remain a committed partner — supporting ideas, people, and organizations that put people-first — to create an ever more informed and engaged city.
Daniel Harris is Director/San Jose at Knight Foundation. Follow him on Twitter at @dyuliharris.
San Jose, Calif.—Aug. 16, 2018—The John S. and James L. Knight Foundation today announced more than $1 million in new funding for 16 projects aimed at making San Jose one of the nation’s most engaged cities, driven by a focus on public life— drawing people out of their cars and homes and into the community.
Led by a range of community development organizations and City Hall, many of the projects focus on leveraging public spaces to highlight local culture and talent, while creating more options for residents of all kinds to shape the city. From a technology application that better connects residents with local leadership to events that showcase the city’s rich creative community, the projects work to advance a better future for San Jose driven by and in partnership with residents. They also focus on expanding the capacity and impact of those working to create positive change in the city.
“Civic engagement is rooted in attaching people to place. To do that, residents need avenues to contribute and connect, and opportunities to immerse themselves in local culture; they need to feel that their stories are reflected in the fabric of the community. These investments aim to help advance those bold goals,” said Danny Harris, Knight Foundation program director for San Jose.
The organizations receiving support include:
City of San Jose ($220,000) – Improving the ways in which residents interact with City Hall by expanding the “My San Jose” technology application, which fields common service requests (i.e. potholes, street light outages). Funding will help increase responsiveness, and add a more user-friendly design, as well as customized digital experiences.
San Jose Jazz ($175,000)– Increasing civic engagement by celebrating San Jose’s musical talent timed with the 50th anniversary of the iconic song, “Do You Know the Way to San Jose.” Funding will support experiences that spotlight San Jose’s musicians and connect them with residents, along with new musical work that reflects the spirit and diversity of San Jose.
All Good Work Space Foundation ($75,000) – Supporting San Jose organizations working to bring positive change to the community by connecting local nonprofit organizations with donated office space in Santa Clara and San Mateo counties.
Catholic Charities of Santa Clara County ($75,000) – Fostering safe and vibrant neighborhoods by convening community members to resolve problems related to properties affected by blight, crime or nuisance.
City Parks Alliance ($63,400) – Supporting a network of community organizations focused on creating vibrant parks and public spaces; funding will help improve collaboration between organizations and help develop the capacity of leaders across sectors.
San Jose Parks Foundation ($60,000) – Invigorating Cesar Chavez Park with music, food trucks, family-friendly programming and sports during Summer and Fall 2018.
CURATUS ($60,000) – Increasing neighborhood vibrancy by supporting SubZero, a neighborhood arts and cultural festival in the San Jose SoFa arts district.
San Jose Downtown Association ($50,000) – Increasing vibrancy in downtown San Jose’s San Pedro Square district through support of the city’s largest public parklet, a sidewalk extension that provides more space and amenities for people using the street. Funding will also help establish a model for parklet construction in cities.
Foundation Center ($35,000) – Supporting nonprofit organizations working to engage the community by providing networking opportunities, as well as fundraising and organizational support.
Chopstick Alley Art ($33,000) – Helping to connect communities across San Jose by supporting Chopstick Alley Art, a nonprofit focused on San Jose’s Vietnamese American creative community.
African American Community Service Agency ($30,000) – Increasing civic engagement by supporting emerging community leaders through the African American Community Service Agency’s Black Leadership Matters 2018 program.
School of Arts and Culture at Mexican Heritage Plaza ($30,000) – Connecting residents and increasing city vibrancy through the Sonido Clash Music Festival, a music festival that explores traditional modern and emerging Latinx art and sound.
The Tower Foundation at San Jose State University ($25,000) – Expanding the impact of Viva CalleSJ, a program that opens city streets to pedestrians, by supporting research on the social and economic impact of the project.
Centro Community Partners ($25,000) – Helping to expand opportunity in San Jose through a program that provides small business owners, specifically women and minority entrepreneurs, with access to resources including: education, leadership, financial literacy training and capital.
Center for Media Change ($25,000) – Supporting emerging talent in San Jose by expanding Hack the Hood, a program that introduces young people of color to careers in tech.
Valley Verde ($20,000) – Addressing food insecurity and promoting deeper community attachment among low-income families through environmentally sustainable organic gardening.
Funding for these projects forms one part of Knight Foundation’s efforts to support the urbanization of a traditionally sprawling city with a specific focus on central San Jose and how the city’s core can attract and retain talent, expand opportunity and build a culture of civic engagement. Since 2008, Knight Foundation has invested more than $25 million in San Jose.
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 knightfoundation.org.
CONTACT:
Anusha Alikhan, Director of Communications, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, 305-908-2646, [email protected]
Building stronger democracies starts with local communities. It is at the local level where we make the decisions that have the most immediate impact on our lives — what our neighborhoods look like; the kinds of roads and transit we use; the libraries and community centers we build; how to keep our streets clean and safe; and what it’s like to work, go to school, start a business and have a family in the places we live.
At Knight Foundation, our approach is to help communities discover their own right answers to these questions. Each community needs to work with what it has, learn from the mistakes and successes of others and, simultaneously, look to the future.
We know that cities across the country are grappling with rapid change — from disruptions to industry and information exchange brought on by technology, to shifting demographics and new demands from residents. At the same time, there is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ approach to building successful communities. Those that adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing environment do so by providing people with the information they need to contribute, engaging residents across backgrounds and staying authentic to place.
The work Knight does in community mirrors how our founders, brothers Jack and Jim Knight, ran their company. All the editors from the different papers reported to Jack Knight, and all the publishers to Jim. The idea was to preserve both the independence of the news operation from the business, and to recognize that each newspaper needed to be distinct and authentic to its community. As Jack Knight once said, “The newspaper editor must also be the conscience of the community.”
The Knight brothers sought to put their wealth to work in the same communities that had enabled them to build and grow what was the largest newspaper company in America. Today, Knight Foundation maintains that deep commitment to community, working in 26 towns and cities across the country.
Together, they are America. The largest community is Philadelphia at 1,580,000 people. The smallest is Milledgeville, Georgia, at 18,933. (And that’s just counting by city limits). They come from every major region. Some of the communities where we invest are at the leading edge of the economic expansion. Others are working to reverse decades of disinvestment and decline.
In each place, Knight seeks to tap into what is burgeoning in the community. Our Community and National Initiatives program focuses on supporting more informed and engaged communities through investments that attract and nurture talent, enhance opportunity and foster civic engagement.
There’s no one way to do this. Each community faces its own unique constellation of challenges and prospects. And, as social investors, we believe that our role is to support transformative impact. This means that we seek opportunities where we can support not only what is worthy, but what will affect meaningful, sustainable social change in the places where we work.
Our approaches are therefore as diverse as the places we work. In Miami, we have invested in the growing entrepreneurial ecosystem. In Philadelphia, we support public spaces as platforms for civic engagement and participation. In Akron, the Knights’ hometown, we invest in bringing residents downtown to grow and revitalize the city.
We also recognize that there are opportunities that many communities face in common. Our work in National Initiatives spots these opportunities to accelerate our impact in specific communities while elevating what we and our partners are learning.
Currently, our National Initiatives program is focused on two areas. The first is our work in Smart Cities, intended to harness the growth of digital technology to improve how communities respond, connect to and engage with residents. Like the Knight brothers, we at the modern Knight Foundation are committed optimists when it comes to the positive power of technology. But we’re not naïve. As technology increasingly defines every facet of our lives in community—from how we interact, to how we purchase goods and services, to the way that we get around—our work is focused on putting residents in the driver’s seat of design, decision making and impact.
The second area of focus is in the role of public spaces in fostering more informed and engaged communities. Through our work in specific communities, and through path-breaking multi-city partnerships such as Reimagining the Civic Commons, we have seen firsthand the transformative power of public places and spaces, from community parks to libraries to streets. These spaces support more engaged residents, a sense of connection to where people live and better information sharing.
Both of these areas of focus are about how the structure of cities, whether physical or digital, can respond to and be directed by the people who live in them.
The values that animated the Knight brothers’ commitment to local democracies persist. In fact, a glance at the innovation we see in cities around the globe shows that the value of informed and engaged communities is as present and powerful as ever. Yet the challenges to ensuring those values guide decisions and realize their goals are new, dynamic and disruptive. In that context, we aim to honor our past by enabling communities to shape their futures.
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Sam Gill is VP/Communities and Impact and Senior Adviser to the President at Knight Foundation. You can follow him on Twitter @thesamgill.
